Deepa Shivaram

National Guard members and state workers are being encouraged to volunteer to become licensed substitute teachers and child care workers under a new initiative in New Mexico, the state's governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Wednesday.

Had Congress renewed the expanded child tax credit at the end of last year, Jen Cousins would have received $1,000 from the government on Jan. 14.

She would have used the money to fix the brakes on her family's only vehicle, a minivan. She would have taken her four kids to the eye doctor because they all need new glasses. Some of the money would have gone toward saving for fixing the roof of their house in Orlando, Fla.

Clyde Bellecourt, one of the most significant Native American leaders in the struggle for civil rights, died in Minneapolis on Tuesday night, his son Wolf confirmed to Minnesota Public Radio.

Bellecourt was 85 and had been battling prostate cancer.

Shoba Narayan first faced the limits of being a South Asian woman in musical theater when she was only 13.

Her school had decided to stage a production of The Wizard of Oz, and Narayan told her friends she wanted to try out for the role of Dorothy. It wouldn't happen, her classmates responded, because "Dorothy isn't brown."

"I realized during that experience how much representation mattered at that time and I realized how much my ethnicity played a role in my participation in theater," Narayan said.

The James Webb telescope completed its final major step of deployment on Saturday morning, when the last mirror wing of the telescope unfolded in space into its final configuration.

The period between getting the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and the first booster shot has been shortened to five months from six for people ages 18 and up, the Food and Drug Administration says.

For five years, a man who worked in publishing tricked authors and industry insiders into sending him hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, including one from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, according to federal authorities.

A judge in California has dismissed a lawsuit filed against former band members of Nirvana over their iconic Nevermind album cover.

Spencer Elden sued former members of the band in August 2021 for child exploitation and pornography, saying the band knowingly distributed a naked photo of him as a baby on the 1991 album cover and profited from it. Elden was just 4 months old when he was photographed for the cover. Now 30, he was seeking $150,000 in damages.

The monthly payments from the expanded child tax credit that have been given to roughly 35 million families in the U.S.

The massive statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Va., taken down in September, will be moved to the city's Black History Museum, Gov. Ralph Northam and Mayor Levar Stoney announced Thursday.

The omicron variant is spreading rapidly all over the country, but hospitalization and death rates remain relatively low.

The seven-day average of COVID-19 cases topped 280,000 this week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University's tracker. It's a record number of new cases in the country; the last time the number of cases hit a peak close to that was January.

The newest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance shortening the isolation period for those with COVID-19 from 10 days to five days has led to a growing concern about its impact on essential workers such as nurses and airline staff.

Leaders around the world are mourning the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the human rights crusader who died in Cape Town at the age of 90.

A Nobel Peace laureate, Tutu is widely hailed for playing a key role in dismantling apartheid in South Africa and chairing the nation's Truth and Reconciliation Committee. On Sunday, leaders around the world are remembering the archbishop for his pursuit of racial justice and equality, as well as his unforgettable sense of humor.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called Tutu "a patriot without equal."

Ten thousand Russian military servicemen are reportedly returning to their "permanent deployment points" from field training on the border with neighboring Ukraine, according to Interfax news, which quoted statements from the Russian military.

The holiday season travel stress has only escalated amid the rise of the omicron variant. Several airlines are reporting staff shortages from the spread of the coronavirus, leaving passengers with delayed or canceled flights.

A long-awaited development to help stop the spread of HIV and AIDS was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week, and scientists are calling it a game-changer.

Acting out on a flight could result in getting TSA PreCheck privileges canceled, the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration announced Tuesday.

The FAA says it will share the information of passengers who face fines for bad behavior with TSA, which could allow TSA to revoke PreCheck for those who have been cleared for the easier screening process.

Spider-Man: No Way Home has been a box-office hit this week, but an Asian sea eagle reported in Massachusetts on Monday could have its own film with a similar title — it has been thousands of miles from home for more than a year.

Massachusetts' Division of Fisheries and Wildlife posted on Facebook on Monday saying the bird, known as a Steller's sea eagle, was spotted along the Taunton River. It says the large bird weighs as much as 20 pounds, with a wingspan of up to 8 feet.

Tiger Woods fans, rejoice.

The golf legend has returned to competition, playing in the PNC Championship with his 12-year-old son Charlie this weekend. It's Woods' first time competing since his car accident in February, which resulted in extensive leg surgery.

One billion dollars from the bipartisan infrastructure law signed by President Biden last month will go toward clearing out the Superfund backlog in 23 states and Puerto Rico, the Environmental Protection Agency says.

Nearly 17 million vertebrate creatures — animals like snakes, small birds and rodents — are estimated to have been killed throughout the wildfires in the Pantanal region of Brazil in 2020, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports this week.

It's been 35 years since Congress amended the Safe Drinking Water Act to prohibit the use of pipes that were not lead-free in the country's water systems. But for decades, lead pipes and lead paint have continued to impact millions of people in their homes, schools and daycare centers, contaminating drinking water and producing toxic chemicals in the air.

Renewing your passport isn't an experience most people would consider streamlined — especially during the pandemic. Getting it processed can take anywhere from eight to 11 weeks, according to the State Department.

In a vote Wednesday, New York's city council approved a ban on natural gas in newly constructed buildings, joining cities like San Jose and San Francisco that have made similar commitments to reduce emissions.

The next, and possibly final payment from the expanded child tax credit is set to go out Wednesday, Dec. 15. The program, which was passed in March as part of President Biden's American Rescue Plan, sends monthly checks to eligible families with children: up to $300 per month for every child under the age of six, and $250 per month for children ages 6-17. The amount phases down for families who have higher incomes. The payments started going out in July.

When Kao Lee Yang received a nomination from her university for the Gilliam Fellowship by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering and math, she was thrilled. She's spent years working toward her doctorate in Alzheimer's research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing abortion providers to challenge the restrictive Texas abortion law and dismisses a Justice Department challenge to the law. Below are key excerpts from the ruling.

Only 10% of Americans believe that getting a COVID-19 vaccine conflicts with their religious beliefs, and 59% of Americans say too many people are using religious beliefs as an excuse not to get vaccinated, a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) shows.

The statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that once stood in downtown Charlottesville, Va., will be melted down and turned into a public arts project after receiving city council approval this week.