CHRISTINE HAUSER

Google announced Wednesday that it would ban advertisements for payday loans and related products on its website, saying that they often lead to unaffordable repayment terms and financial harm to consumers.

The next time you want to hug a dog, consider this: You could be making the pooch miserable, an expert says.

Investigators said Cody Lee Miller harmed the 90-foot tree, and they have come up with a figure for the damage, using a complicated formula that goes far beyond the value of natural beauty.

A hungry sea lion pup wandered off the beach and into a fancy seaside San Diego restaurant Thursday morning, took one of the best seats in the house and peered out the window at the waves as if preparing to order a big plate of sardines.

Even as the city’s mayor gave a televised address on the growing homelessness crisis, five people were shot in a makeshift tent city.

Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian institution, has disciplined a professor who put on a head scarf in solidarity with Muslims and said they worship the “same God” as Christians.

Health authorities in Hawaii’s Big Island have confirmed 136 cases, and a federal health official said the outbreak could last for months.

The police in Chicago said Friday that they had made an arrest into the murder of a 9-year-old boy, who was shot to death after being lured into an alley early this month, one of the most notorious crimes in the city’s recent history.

Google’s autonomous vehicle project, which has logged 1.2 million miles, was nearly handed its first traffic ticket Thursday when police officers stopped one of the cars because it was going 24 mph in a 35 mph zone.

Plague is rare and treatable with antibiotics if caught early, but federal authorities have been puzzled by an increase in cases this year.

A Michigan woman was charged Tuesday with reckless use of a handgun after firing at a vehicle carrying shoplifters fleeing a Home Depot.