Two families with lifelong secrets unearthed because of home DNA test kits are now dealing with the truth. Here’s what their stories tell us about the shock that can come from new ancestry technology, and how to deal with it.

Luna the springer spaniel is learning to sniff out a troublesome golf course fungus in return for a tennis ball while helping her handler fetch a new breed of bachelor’s degree. The four-year program in “canine training and management” officially launches this fall at the State University of New York at Cobleskill amid a surge in demand for specially trained...

Rebecca Juro remembers keeping her secret as far back as age 5. She felt different compared to other little boys in her suburban New Jersey neighborhood and, without anyone saying it, she understood being different was bad. “I knew my parents would not be excited to hear their son wanted to wear a dress,” she said.

Thousands of pounds of deadly hydrofluoric acid escaped into the atmosphere following the massive June 21 blast at the now-shuttered gas refinery in South Philadelphia, according to a new federal report.

Drexel University paid the United States nearly $190,000 after a former professor at the school allegedly used federal grant money for visits to Philadelphia strip clubs and sports bars.

Background checks on gun purchases in the U.S. are climbing toward a record high this year.

More companies are trying to bring self-driving cars to the masses than ever before. Yet a truly autonomous vehicle still doesn’t exist. And it’s not clear if, or when, our driverless future will arrive. Proponents in the industry, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Waymo CEO John Krafcik and Cruise CEO Dan Ammann, touted an aggressive timeline but missed and reset...

Online shoppers, beware. Scammers could be going after your money this holiday season as you try to take advantage of online deals.

Chef Fitz Tallon from Eataly NYC shows you how to carve a turkey.

Voters hope Hayes can work on issues like jobs, opportunity and development once she’s sworn in Thursday.

The watch towers, double-locked doors and video surveillance in the Chinese camps are there “to prevent escapes.” Uighurs and other minorities held inside are scored on how well they speak the dominant Mandarin language and follow strict rules on everything down to bathing and using the toilet, scores that determine if they can leave. “Manner education” is mandatory, but “vocational...

Would Peter Buttigieg — the smartest kid in class, language whiz and devotee of John F. Kennedy — use his unusual last name in his eventual run for president of the United States? Or would he have a better shot of winning the voters of the future if he went by Montgomery, his middle name?

Like the 97-year-old Lear, who made his name — and TV history — with groundbreaking sitcoms like “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” the other honorees at Thursday’s Paley Center for Media ceremony proved that talent is ageless. Carl Reiner, 97; Bob Newhart, 90; Carol Burnett, 86, and Lily Tomlin, 80, each won over the room with their humor and memories.

A recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has upended a longstanding legal roadblock that has given the gun industry far-reaching immunity from lawsuits in the aftermath of mass killings. The court this week allowed families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre to sue the maker of the AR-15 used in the attack. The case against Remington...

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday announced that his government has released three prominent Taliban figures in an effort to get the insurgents to free two university professors — an American and an Australian — they abducted three years ago. At a press event broadcast live on state television, Ghani told the nation that the “conditional release” was a very...

Four of the candidates vying for mayor of Hartford participated in a forum at NBC Connecticut Tuesday night.

George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide who was a key figure in the FBI’s Russia probe, filed paperwork Tuesday to run for the U.S. House seat being vacated by Democrat Katie Hill. Papadopoulos didn’t immediately comment, but on Sunday he tweeted, “I love my state too much to see it run down by candidates like Hill. All talk, no...

A former professor at a college in Connecticut says in a lawsuit she was fired for refusing to disclose the name of a student who told her a male professor was offering better grades in exchange for sex.

It wasn’t too long ago that Donald Trump derided presidential executive orders as “power grabs” and a “basic disaster.” He’s switched sides in a big way: In each year of his presidency, he has issued more executive orders than did former President Barack Obama during the same time span. He surpassed Obama’s third-year total just recently. Back in 2012, Trump...

Harold Bloom, the eminent critic and Yale professor whose seminal “The Anxiety of Influence” and melancholy regard for literature’s old masters made him a popular author and standard-bearer of Western civilization amid modern trends, died Monday at age 89. Bloom’s wife, Jeanne, said that he had been failing health, although he continued to write books and was teaching as recently...