This Christmas, many children welcomed a familiar visitor – a jolly man in a red suit and a sleigh full of gifts. But the bearded figure Americans recognize today as Santa Claus is a relatively modern creation, shaped over centuries by folklore, art and evolving tradition. Stephanie Sy reports. And a warning for parents and younger viewers: this story contains some spoilers about Santa Claus.

In the aftermath of what remains a rare event — a shooting on a U.S. college campus — many are left scared, vulnerable and unsure of what's next.

Jay Caspian Kang on Australia’s social-media ban for young people under sixteen, on free speech, and on the U.S. movement to restrict kids’ access to technology.

Free-speech norms and powerful tech companies make legal restrictions unlikely—but social changes are already taking place.

One group noted "the irony of a billionaire being in charge of collecting pennies from debtors."

Billions of years ago, a day on Earth did not last 24 hours. New research suggests that for about one billion years, each day stayed fixed at roughly 19 hours because of a balance between the oceans, the atmosphere, and the pull of the Moon.

Normally, Earth’s spin slows very gradually as tides raised by the Moon sap rotational energy, so day length creeps upward over time. 

A NASA overview estimates this process lengthens each day by roughly two thousandths of a second per century.

Ancient genetic data from central Argentina reveal a previously unknown human population that endured there for millennia before vanishing.

The finding shows that one long-lasting group stayed rooted in its homeland while cultures, languages, and technologies shifted around it.

Researchers read this story in DNA taken from human remains representing hunters, fishers, and farmers who once lived across the region.

The study turns a blank spot on South America’s genetic map into one of its best documented chapters.

Libraries are indispensable not only for climate and informational literacy but also as valuable hubs for creating community solutions to our planet’s most pressing problems.

Christmas traditions like stockings and yule logs are beloved parts of the holiday season today, but they actually date back to pre-Christian Europe.

Aside from Easter, Christmas is perhaps Christianity’s most sacred date. As a celebration of Christ’s birth, the holiday is often rife with nativity scenes and holy hymns. However, many of the most beloved Christmas traditions actually have pagan roots.

Wreaths, mistletoe, holly, and yule logs all date back to pre-Christian times. Mistletoe was sacred to the Druids of the ancient Celtic world, and yule logs may have Baltic or Germanic origins.

Even the day we celebrate Christmas, Dec. 25, has nothing to do with the birth of Christ. The Bible never says when Jesus was born — and it likely wasn’t even during the winter. Instead, Dec. 25 may have been selected as the official date for Christmas to coincide with the pagan Saturnalia celebrations of ancient Rome, making it easier for Romans to accept Christianity as it spread through the empire nearly 2,000 years ago.

The latest numbers from the 42nd annual loon count indicate the population is stable and healthy. And since this kind of waterfowl is an indicator species, that's good news all around, says Tracy Hart, a wildlife ecologist with Maine Audubon.

Today, people consider "Yule" synonymous with "Christmas." But centuries ago, Yule meant something different — a pagan mid-winter festival, dating back to pre-Christian Germanic people.

The action by county commissioners “shows a blatant disregard for the expertise of librarians,” one critic said.

The SAVE Plan is ending and repayment options will change dramatically in the new year.

If we want to get responsible media that does its job in reporting on the deeds and misdeeds of the rich and powerful, we need to look to fundamentally restructure the media.

The exhibit features more than a dozen maps of Boston, New England and North America made before, during and after the American Revolution.

They tell the story of how Boston and its landscape made the region a powder keg for revolutionary ideas.

It’s hard to imagine, but less than 200 years ago, Boston was surrounded by water. The city was basically an island, connected to the rest of the state only through a tiny spit of land.

Neighborhoods like Back Bay and parts of the South End didn’t exist until Bostonians dumped landfill into the water over the course of decades.

Following the removal of four dams from the Klamath River, which flows through California and Oregon, a group of young indigenous people are paddling from source to sea.

(CNN) — Ruby Williams’ birthday was not your average 18th. She celebrated it on the Klamath River, with a group of young people making a historic journey paddling from the river’s headwaters in southern Oregon to its mouth in the Pacific Ocean, just south of Crescent City, California. It marked the first time in a century that the descent has been possible, after the recent removal of four dams allowed the river to flow freely.

Williams, together with fellow paddler Keeya Wiki, 17, spoke to CNN on day 15 of their month-long journey, which they are due to complete on Friday. At this point, they had just 141 miles (227 kilometers) of the 310-mile (499 kilometer) journey left to go and had already passed through some of the most challenging rapids, such as those at the “Big Bend” and “Hell’s Corner” sections of the river.

Both were exhausted and hadn’t showered in days — although they promised they “aren’t completely feral.” However, despite tired minds, they were steadfast in their commitment.

There’s plenty of dazzling eye candy tucked away in a corner of the Gems and Mineral Hall inside the American Museum of Natural History.

Look at sparkly diamonds, rubies, emeralds, turquoise, and every other polished gem you can think of as you contemplate the mysteries of stars, planets, and distant galaxies in Cosmic Splendor: Jewelry from the Collections of Van Cleef & Arpels, on view through January 4, 2026.

Barbara Rose Johns was 16 when she led a walkout at her high school, credited with helping end school segregation. Her statue replaces Robert E. Lee's, which was removed in 2020.

Traipsing through entire clearings of trees may sound like it does more harm than good, but every time elephants pluck their favorite fruit and trample trees, they’re contributing to a cleaner environment. 

In a Saint Louis University study, Stephen Blake — an assistant professor of biology at SLU — collected data on the ecological impacts of megaherbivores and found that “the role of forest elephants in our global environment is too important to ignore.”

“Elephants are the gardeners of the forest,” Blake wrote, explaining that when elephants eat the fruit from high carbon density trees, they then disperse the seeds of new trees through their dung. 

And they do this all while trampling lower density trees, and thinning forests for the better. 

Astronomers have observed a Jupiter-sized planet more than 700 light years from Earth that is unlike anything spotted before and defies explanation.

Known as PSR J2322-2650b, the exoplanet is shaped like a lemon, boasts baffling skies, and may have hidden troves of diamonds in its belly. The distant world closely orbits a pulsar, a type of hyper-dense dead star that is tugging on the gassy planet, giving it the distended shape. 

Pulsar companions are normally other stars. These are called “black widow” systems because winds from the pulsar weather down the stellar companion, eventually destroying it, similar to the deadly embrace of the namesake spider. It is very rare to see a black widow system with a planet as the pulsar companion.