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A chemical used in rocket fuel and fireworks is also found in an array of food products, particularly those popular with babies and children, according to findings released Wednesday by Consumer Reports.

The tests by the advocacy group come decades after the chemical, called perchlorate, was first identified as a contaminant in food and water. The Environmental Working Group in 2003 found perchlorate in nearly 20% of supermarket lettuce tested. 

Linked to potential brain damage in fetuses and newborns and thyroid troubles in adults, perchlorate was detected in measurable levels of 67% of 196 samples of 63 grocery and 10 fast-food products, the most recent tests by Consumer Reports found. The levels detected ranged from just over two parts per billion (ppb) to 79 ppb.

A 13,600-year-old mastodon skull was uncovered in an Iowa creek, state officials announced this week.

Iowa's Office of the State Archaeologist said in a social media post that archaeologists found the well-preserved skull on the side of a creek bed in Wayne County Wednesday at an excavation site they had been mining over the last 12 days.

Throughout the almost two-week dig, several mastodon bones were recovered, but the skull was something unique, as it was the "first-ever well-preserved mastodon (primarily the skull) that has been excavated in Iowa," the post read.

In some far reaches of rural America, Democrats are flirting with extinction. In Niobrara County, Wyoming, the least-populated county in the least-populated state, Becky Blackburn is one of just 32 left.

Her neighbors call her “the crazy Democrat,” although it’s more a term of endearment than derision.

Some less populated counties have fewer. There are 21 Democrats in Clark County, Idaho, and 20 in Blaine County, Nebraska. But Niobrara County’s Democrats, who account for just 2.6% of registered voters, are the most outnumbered by Republicans in the 30 states that track local party affiliation, according to Associated Press election data.

In Wyoming, the state that has voted for Donald Trump by a wider margin than any other, overwhelming Republican dominance may be even more cemented-in now that the state has passed a law that makes changing party affiliation much more difficult.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday the daring military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow across the border.

It was the first time Zelenskyy clearly stated the aim of the operation, which was launched on Aug. 6. Previously, he had said the operation aimed to protect communities in the bordering Sumy region from constant shelling.

Zelenskyy said “it is now our primary task in defensive operations overall: to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions. This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory -– our operation in the Kursk region,” he said in his nightly address.

• JD Vance and Tim Walz will be dispatched across the Sun Belt headed into the general election.
• But so far, Walz has made the best impression among swing-state voters in the key region.
• The latest New York Times/Siena College polls showed Walz eclipsing Vance in favorability.

A ferris wheel caught fire late Saturday at Leipzig's Highfield Festival, leading to more than 30 injuries, police said. The German Red Cross said two of the cases were serious.

More than 100 people were treated for heat-related illness at a Colorado airshow on Saturday, with attendees describing a lack of shade and free water on festival grounds as temperatures soared to 96F (36C) highs.

The Colorado Springs fire department said those who fell ill at the Pike’s Peak regional airshow suffered conditions such as dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, according to KRDO.

Five people were taken to hospital. Another hundred reportedly sought help in a triage tent where several were given IV fluids on site.

The airshow ran out of free water, authorities said, but noted that attendees could fill their bottles with water at the medical tent and that vendors also had water for sale.

Key civilian leader says attack on Russia’s Kursk region is first of ‘several stages’ in taking the fight to Moscow

Ukraine has captured more than 150 Russian prisoners of war on some days in the cross-border military operation that a key civilian official said was the first of “several stages” in taking the fight to Moscow.

Oleksii Drozdenko, the head of the military administration in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, said the attack had fared better than expected and there had been only 15 casualties needing hospital treatment on the first day.

“Sometimes there are more than 100 or 150 prisoners of war a day,” Drozdenko said. Many of the Russian troops who have been guarding the border are young conscripts. “They do not want to fight us,” he added.

Without evidence, the Republican vice presidential candidate tried to cast doubt on his opponent's obvious momentum: "If you talk to insiders in the Kamala Harris campaign, they're very worried about where they are"

You’ve heard Donald Trump cry “fakenews” too many times to count, and now his running mate is claiming — without evidence — that the media is using “fake polls” to show Vice President Kamala Harris is in the lead in the presidential race.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Sen. J.D. Vance alleged that “The media uses fake polls to drive down Republican turnout and to create dissension and conflict with Republican voters.”

In 1999, Walz was a teacher and founded his high school's first gay-straight alliance. His old GSA students still remember him warmly.

Minnesota Gov. and Vice President hopeful Tim Walz (D) inspired generations of students during his time as a founder of the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at the Mankato West High School in Minnesota. Now, some of his former GSA students are coming back to discuss all the ways in which Walz, as well as his wife Gwen, helped them personally.

Hurricane Debby left behind not only a trail of deadly destruction in the Southeast last week but also more than 100 pounds of narcotics, discovered along Florida’s shores, authorities said.

On August 4, 25 packages of cocaine were found on a beach in Islamorada, a village in the Florida Keys about 80 miles from Key West, according to a social media post from the US Customs and Border Patrol in Miami.

A good Samaritan alerted authorities after coming across the packages, which weighed about 70 pounds and contained cocaine with an estimated street value of more than $1 million, the agency said.

Samuel Briggs, the acting chief patrol agent of the US Border Patrol’s Miami sector, shared a photo on X, showing the large quantity of seized drugs.

Non-essential medical services paralysed as more than a million doctors expected to join 24-hour protest amid rising anger at violence against women

Hospitals and clinics across India have begun turning away patients except for emergency cases as medical professionals started a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.

More than 1 million doctors were expected to join Saturday’s strike, paralysing medical services across the world’s most populous nation. Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases.

The strike, which began at 6am (0030 GMT), cut off access to elective medical procedures and outpatient consultations, according to a statement by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).

Casualty departments at hospitals, which deal with emergencies, will continue to be staffed.