Story of the Day

During its last major drought, Santa Barbara built a desalination plant. It was never used. Now it's being reopened, but critics say desalination is costly, energy-intensive and may harm marine life.

The junior Republican senator from Florida is expected to jump into the race for the presidency Monday. He has some strengths — but also some hurdles to overcome.

Hannah Reynolds, a slave, was the only civilian killed in the Battle of Appomattox Court House during the Civil War. A new discovery suggests, contrary to earlier belief, that she died a free woman.

In this week's For the Record, we meet three humanitarian aid workers: one confronting the Ebola crisis, another trying to educate Syrian refugees and another who's stepped back from field work.

Shortly after Saudi airstrikes began in Yemen, an American importer realized he was stuck in a war zone. Only with some quick thinking — and a tiny boat — did he narrowly escape back to the U.S.

Doctors long ago noticed that, beyond the usual influences of diet and smoking, short people seem to get heart disease more often than tall people. But why?

A woman's family is stuck with medical charges for care she received after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Negotiating relief from the bills has become a part-time job for her daughter.

A 20-year-old man born without fingers on one hand hopes a transplanted hand will give him more confidence. He knows the risks of such a visible transplant, but says, "It's something I always wanted."

Farms in California use as much as four times the water consumed by cities and towns. Now farmers are on defense after the governor decided to mostly exempt them from new, sweeping water cutbacks.

It's the end of an era: After nearly a century, the Streit's matzo factory is leaving Manhattan's Lower East Side. This Passover will be its last there. Streit's plans to move to a new factory.