A new UN report reveals the extent to which mankind is changing life on Earth. Written by an international panel of experts, it concludes that nearly a quarter of animal and plant groups are at risk of extinction, some within decades. William Brangham talks to one of the report’s authors, the National University of Mexico's Patricia Balvanera, about what’s driving the changes and how to stop them.

Read more at PBS News.

A majority of American college graduates leave school with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. The issue of paying for college is so concerning that several 2020 presidential candidates have proposed forgiving student debt or making public colleges free. But as Hari Sreenivasan reports, some states and cities aren't waiting, and are instead developing their own college funding plans.

Read more at PBS News.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., slammed the Trump administration’s approach to trade policy in a PBS NewsHour interview Tuesday, arguing that the U.S. needs to do more to protect workers but “not the way Trump is dealing with it.”

The remarks come in a week when President Donald Trump threatened the harshest tariffs on China yet, causing stocks to plummet Tuesday.

Read more at PBS News.

Two students opened fire Tuesday inside a charter school in an affluent suburban Denver community not far from Columbine High School , killing a teenager, wounding eight and spreading minutes of terror before they were taken into custody with no injuries, authorities said.

Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said the pair walked into the STEM School Highlands Ranch and began shooting students in two classrooms. Within minutes, deputies at a nearby sheriff’s department substation entered the school and arrested the two suspects after a struggle.

Read more at Associated Press News.

The decision to send an aircraft carrier and a group of Air Force bombers to the Middle East was based in part on intelligence indications that Iran had moved short-range ballistic missiles by boat in waters off its shores, an American official said Tuesday.

The movement, first reported by CNN, was among a range of recent indications that Iran might be considering or preparing to attack U.S. forces in the region, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive intelligence.

Read more at Associated Press News.

Each year, countless lightning bugs converge upon the national park, flickering among the trees in one of the country’s most beautiful forest-scapes. Details regarding this year’s dates and how to get access (a limited number of people can attend) have just been released.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park just announced the dates for its annual synchronous fireflies event, during which swarms of lightning bugs will light up the park at night. The once-a-year phenomenon is so popular that a lottery system has been established for obtaining the coveted parking passes required to attend.

Read more at Afar.

A common preservative used to prevent bread and cakes going mouldy could be fuelling the obesity crisis by harming metabolism, scientists at Harvard University have warned.

Propionate is widely used in baked goods, animal feed and artificial flavouring but appears to increase levels of hormones which trigger weight gain and diabetes, according to new research.

Read more at Telegraph.

I'm used to the shaming look I get from my peers when I crack open a can of sugar-free Red Bull. The questions – and judgement – never end. "That stuff'll kill you," someone said to me the other day, shaking his head. "So many chemicals!" was what I heard last week.

Truth be told, Red Bull (at least the sugar-free kind) isn't all that terrible for you. Besides having only 10 calories and no sugar, it has only 80 milligrams of caffeine, about a third of the amount in a tall Starbucks drip coffee.

Read more at Science Alert.

Canadian regulators on Thursday found that Facebook committed "serious" breaches of local laws over its mishandling of users' personal information, announcing they would take the company to court to force it to change its privacy practices.

The new legal threat from Canada comes after federal authorities and regulators in British Columbia determined that Facebook had in place “superficial” protections for users’ data and failed to keep close watch over third-party apps that accessed that information.

Read more at Washington Post.