The app-driven gigs that boomed during the pandemic and into 2022 are losing steam as pay tightens and costs rise. In their place, workers are moving toward steadier contract jobs, local services, and skills-based freelance work that offer more control and better margins.
Several small U.S. towns are shrinking fast as mines close, jobs vanish, housing ages and younger residents move away. Census data and local officials show how population loss is changing daily life in places many Americans rarely hear about.
Short videos and viral posts are changing how many Americans talk about ADHD, autism, trauma and anxiety. Experts say wider awareness can help, but self-diagnosis based on social media can also blur the line between common stress and clinical illness.
Hashima Island, once one of the most crowded places on Earth, now stands empty off Nagasaki as a stark reminder of Japan’s coal era. The abandoned island, better known as Gunkanjima or Battleship Island, remains a powerful draw for tourists and a point of debate over history, preservation, and memory.
Off Scotland’s northwest coast, Gruinard Island became one of Britain’s most secret World War II testing grounds, where anthrax bombs were tried on live sheep. The experiments left the island contaminated for decades and still shape how governments talk about biological weapons today.
Socotra, a Yemeni island in the Arabian Sea, is drawing renewed attention for its strange-looking landscapes and exceptionally rare plants. Scientists and conservation groups say its isolation created one of the most unusual ecosystems on the planet, with hundreds of species found nowhere else.
From volcanic outposts to snake-filled shorelines, several inhabited islands around the world remain known for real hazards as well as the stories that surround them. Here is a factual look at seven places where daily life continues alongside danger, tragedy and long-lived local legend.
From New Orleans mansions to a famously haunted Colorado hotel, several U.S. sites continue to draw visitors with ghost stories, documented tours, and decades of local lore. These seven places are open to the public and remain among the country’s best-known haunted destinations.
