Area News

New analysis by iSelect has revealed that smokers in New York are paying some of the highest prices in the country, with the average smoker spending $3,983 a year to maintain their habit. The findings from the Cost of Smoking 2025 report, which analyzed cigarette prices, smoking rates, and spending across all 50 U.S. states,…

Health costs are doubling, food prices are rising, and the safety net is shredded. So why are we launching an illegal war to help oil companies? By Lindsay Koshgarian | January 7, 2026 At a time when nearly half of Americans say they’re struggling to afford basic necessities, President Trump has turned his attention to…

Frankfurt am Main, GERMANY, January 8th 2026 – The global market value of industrial robot installations has reached an all-time high of US$ 16.7 billion. Future demand will be driven by a number of technological innovations, market forces and new fields of business. The International Federation of Robotics reports on the top 5 trends for…

By Paula Span January 8, 2026 You’re ready to leave the hospital, but you don’t feel able to care for yourself at home yet. Or, you’ve completed a couple of weeks in rehab. Can you handle your complicated medication regimen, along with shopping and cooking? Perhaps you fell in the shower, and now your family…

By Katheryn Houghton January 8, 2026 LODGE GRASS, Mont. — Brothers Lonny and Teyon Fritzler walked amid the tall grass and cottonwood trees surrounding their boarded-up childhood home near the Little Bighorn River and daydreamed about ways to rebuild. The rolling prairie outside the single-story clapboard home is where Lonny learned from their grandfather how…

By Jayme Lozano Carver, The Texas Tribune January 8, 2026 LUBBOCK — The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum has long stood as a landmark in the small town of Canyon. The museum, nearly as old as the city itself, is home to the largest collection of historical materials in Texas. It’s now at risk of closing its…

By Carlos Nogueras Ramos, The Texas Tribune January 8, 2026 CANADIAN — Salem Abraham may not have memorized every utility pole in the Texas Panhandle, but he knows precisely which ones shouldn’t be there. He’s mapped them across more than 300 miles in this region of treeless grassland, plateaus and canyons. These structures have been…

By Jessica Priest and Sneha Dey, The Texas Tribune January 7, 2026 Faculty at Texas A&M University were told this week that roughly 200 courses in the College of Arts and Sciences could be affected by a new system policy restricting classroom discussions of race and gender, the implementation of which has already led administrators…

Plant-based detection systems could be used to monitor chemical exposure in agricultural settings   ST. LOUIS, MO, January 6, 2026 — A collaborative team of researchers from the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the University of Florida, Gainesville and University of Iowa have developed groundbreaking tools that allow grasses—including major grain crops like corn—to act as…

PLANO, Texas–Two Plano men have been sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for their roles in a methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs.   Brandon Michael Pitts, 30, pleaded guilty to being involved in a conspiracy to possess with intent to manufacture and distribute more than 500…