NPR News

Click photos for slideshow.

Cumberland, Rhode Island popped up on a list of cities and towns that have unsafe levels of the chemical perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. It’s used to make Teflon. It turns out those levels have dropped significantly in the town over the past year.

Hillary Clinton accepted her party's nomination on Thursday, completing the field for an American political campaign without historical precedent.

Clinton, the first female presidential nominee for a major American party, has now officially become Republican Donald Trump's Democratic rival for the presidency of the United States.

Democrats called on Americans to reject what they called the politics of fear and division of the GOP and elect Hillary Clinton during the third day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Amid furor over an email leak that revealed a bias against Bernie Sanders inside the Democratic National Committee, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced Sunday she will step down as chair.

Wasserman Schultz will still open and close the convention, she said in a statement, and "address our delegates about the stakes involved in this election not only for Democrats, but for all Americans."

With just one weekend to go before Hillary Clinton is expected to accept her party's nomination for president, WikiLeaks on Friday released almost 20,000 emails sent and received by Democratic National Committee staff members from January 2015 to May 2016 – leaving journalists scouring for information potentially damaging to the party.

It has been said that "to cleave" is the only verb in English that connotes one specific action and its direct opposite. To cleave sometimes means to hold together, and it can also mean to split apart.

That's why Cleveland was the perfect city to host the 2016 Republican National Convention. Because this week, in this town, the GOP demonstrated both its persistent divisions and its instinct for overcoming them.

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire think blue-green algae blooms may be contributing to the declining population of loons in certain New Hampshire lakes.

While scientists have long warned humans to stay clear of algae or cyanobacteria blooms, researchers at UNH now suspect they may be harming New Hampshire’s loon population. While the state’s overall loon population has been steadily rebounding each year, some lakes are still seeing losses.

The campaigns for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders announced in coordinated statements that they will campaign together Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H.

"On Tuesday, July 12, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will join Hillary Clinton for a campaign event at Portsmouth High School to discuss their commitment to building an America that is stronger together and an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top," said the statement released by both campaigns.

After months of bargaining and backroom arguments, the Senate has voted in favor of a new national standard for labeling food that contains ingredients from genetically modified crops. The essence of the deal: Companies will have to disclose their GMO ingredients, but they won't have to put that information right on the label.

Many food companies are fiercely opposed to such GMO labels because they believe consumers will perceive them — incorrectly — as a warning that those products are nutritionally inferior or even unsafe to eat.

This is a developing story. Last updated 4:15 p.m. ET

Officials say a gunman shot and killed five police officers Thursday at a Dallas protest against police shootings of black men, in a bout of violence that didn't end until the suspected gunman was killed by police using a "bomb robot."

The suspect, who died in a parking garage, was named Micah Xavier Johnson, federal officials told NPR on Friday. Johnson was a military veteran who had served in Afghanistan, and told negotiators he was upset about police shootings and wanted to kill white police officers.

At least 32 people have died at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport, where an explosion followed an outburst of gunfire Tuesday night, according to Turkish media. Police and emergency personnel have flocked to the airport. More than 80 people were reportedly injured.

Crucial details about the attack are still emerging: We'll update this post with news from Istanbul as it emerges.

All the bad news around lead and water has people worried. So we decided to create a step-by-step guide to help find out if the pipe bringing water into your home is made of lead. Get started here.

Updated 2:30 a.m. ET Thursday:

Nearly 15 hours: The Associated Press reports that's how long Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy and his Democratic colleagues held the floor before yielding early Thursday, with a pledge that he would aggressively press for a legislative response to the Orlando, Fla., mass shooting. Murphy has been upset with congressional inaction on gun violence.

Original Post:

Senate Democrats say they are bringing Senate business to a halt in an effort to force some action on gun control.

A gunman opened fire on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., early Sunday morning, killing at least 50 people in the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history before being shot dead by police.

Updated at 12:44 p.m. ET

President Obama met with Bernie Sanders on Thursday morning at the White House. Now that Hillary Clinton has clinched the Democratic nomination, the question on the minds of many Democrats is when the Vermont senator will give up his fight for the party's presidential nomination.

For some patients looking to break their addiction to heroin or prescription painkillers, there's a drug out there that works. It’s called Suboxone, but government regulations and individual doctors have made it difficult to get, which is leading many to buy it illegally. 

Update at 6:20 a.m. ET Wednesday

Hillary Clinton has won the Democratic primary in California, The Associated Press reports.

The would-be Bernie Sanders vs. Donald Trump throwdown will only live on in the minds of comedy writers.

The National Academy of Sciences — probably the country's most prestigious scientific group — has reaffirmed its judgment that GMOs are safe to eat. But the group's new report struck a different tone from previous ones, with much more space devoted to concerns about genetically modified foods, including social and economic ones.