HOLIDAYS WEEKENDS

A tiny fraction of American women choose home birth, but that number is inching up. And in some social circles it’s downright trendy. One pregnant woman investigates the pros and cons.

Getting DNA into plant cells is tricky. Researchers have tried using infectious bacteria, as well as gene guns that shoot gold bullets. Then a physicist came up with a new approach almost by accident.

Jennifer Carrieri’s twin was shot and murdered in an empty parking lot in 1996, but nobody knows why. This year, Carrieri put up billboards in Baltimore, Md., in the hopes of solving the cold case.

The youth-led movement is protesting President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for re-election. The 82-year-old leader has been in power since 1999.

Many U.K. pubs are struggling to stay in business, so concerned villagers are banding together to stage a takeover.

The Indianapolis-based drugmaker said Monday that it would offer a generic version of Humalog insulin, one of its best-selling medicines. The move could help blunt criticism about high prices.

Pakistan has long supported militants fighting to its east in India and to its west in Afghanistan. The country says it’s cracking down on militants, but many critics are skeptical.

Brendan Johnston refused to compete against Jaslynn Gallegos because of her gender. Gallegos went on to place fifth but is frustrated to be treated differently as an athlete because she’s a girl.

Misleading claims, particularly about voter fraud, have intensified ongoing debates about voting rights and election security. Some election experts say the rhetoric erodes voter confidence.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was headed from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on a regularly scheduled flight when it lost contact with the tower minutes after takeoff.

With some parts of Venezuela still experiencing power outages, opposition leader Juan Guaidó and President Nicolás Maduro held rival rallies in Caracas.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw’s ruling expanded the number of families potentially eligible for relief under a class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.

Meant to increase security in Europe, the decision to implement a screening process was announced in 2018. But confusion arose after several media outlets labeled it a “visa.”

An Ebola treatment center in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been attacked for a second time in the past month, as the country deals with one of the largest outbreaks of the epidemic in history.

Since da Vinci’s death, no three-dimensional work of art by him has ever been identified. That is, until now, say curators in Italy.

Goldman Sachs, Virgin Atlantic and Target are the latest employers to introduce more flexible dress codes. The trend may be tied to the rise of younger workers.

Thousands of teens suffer from a rare chronic pain condition that makes everyday life excruciating. Some are trying a counterintuitive treatment approach: Load up on pain until you learn to ignore it.

Also in this week’s education roundup: a new head for Federal Student Aid, and a California law aims to make charter schools more transparent.

Politicians who decided this week not to run would have offered voters some of the same attributes as the former vice president, spurring speculation there’s a possible clearing of the field going on.

A federal judge rejects the government’s argument that identifying and reuniting families separated before the zero tolerance policy was announced is too burdensome.

The 57-year-old offered no clues about what prompted him to lace coworkers’ food with toxic metals. A psychologist said he “seemed to me like a scientist who was testing substances on a guinea pig.”

The charges expand the initial single count of filing a false police report. Now Smollett is charged with multiple counts tied to different aspects of his alleged false report about being attacked.

It was Oregon’s first pediatric case in more than 30 years. “It was difficult to take care of him, to watch him suffer,” says Judith Guzman-Cottrill, an infectious-disease specialist.

Satellite imagery shows that vehicles and rail cars appeared in late February at Sanumdong, a facility where the North has built some of its largest rockets and missiles.

Pentagon sources say that Trump’s hopes for a space force produced tensions between Wilson and the White House, who saw her as delaying the process. She plans to go into academia.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to tout a bill overhauling campaign finance laws but instead had to manage tensions about how to respond to arguments that Rep. Ilhan Omar made anti-Semitic remarks.

After #MeToo, many employment attorneys say they’ve seen the number of pay-disparity cases spike, and employers are having to adapt by conducting investigations and pay audits.

The lawsuit argues that U.S. Soccer has a policy of paying the women’s team less than the men’s. “We deserved to be paid equally for our work, regardless of our gender,” says player Alex Morgan.

A New Jersey man is basking in the good fortune of a $273 million lottery jackpot win that wouldn’t have happened without the kindness of a stranger. He’s trying to find that person to reward them.

While there’s been progress in lowering the death rate from prescription opioids in Oklahoma, the number of opioid prescriptions written in the state outpaces the national average.

Nearly 13 percent of Philadelphia’s population doesn’t have a bank account — more than double the regional average. The city has just become the first big city in the U.S. to ban cashless businesses.

Shine, a former Fox News executive, will become a senior adviser to the president’s 2020 re-election campaign.

The U.S. Department of State has honored Sri Lanka’s Marini de Livera for her innovative combination of drama and legal work to aid women and children.