You’ve likely heard it since childhood: Don’t scratch that bug bite or rash, you’ll make it worse. But why would something that feels so good be bad?

A lot of things can cause itchiness, sometimes serious diseases. Whatever the cause, doctors have long warned that scratching too much can damage the skin. Now researchers better understand why even a mildly annoying itch could put you on an itch-and-scratch cycle if you give in.

How did they find out? In part by putting tiny “cones of shame” onto mice to uncover what happens on a cellular level when an itch gets scratched — or left alone.

They also gained insight into why a good scratch at least at first brings a sigh of relief. After all, not just people and other mammals scratch, even fish do. The commonality suggests there must be some evolutionary reason and the mouse experiment hints at a little germ protection — but still not a reason to scratch.

Kash Patel may have flouted legal constraints and the FBI’s disciplinary code in prematurely divulging arrests in an alleged plot to attack this month’s Ultimate Fighting Championship bout at the White House, bureau veterans have alleged.

The FBI director was accused of “jumping the gun” by posting details on social media of five arrests in an investigation carried out in conjunction with the Secret Service.

It subsequently emerged the inquiry was sealed by a court order, theoretically constraining Patel from publicly disclosing it. There is a general prohibition against publicising information related to sealed cases while the order remains in force, under US federal law. Although exceptions exist allowing for revealing their contents, formal court authorization would be needed to do so. Patel has previously invoked court orders sealing grand jury testimony as justification for the FBI’s inability to release many of its files on Jeffrey Epstein.

A woman known as Jane Doe 4 in the Jeffrey Epstein files is “staying off the grid” and lives in fear of retaliation from the Trump administration amid an escalating controversy over its handling of her case, according to a family member.

“Trauma is brutal. Chronic trauma destroys,” said the relative, who described the woman’s life as layers of abuse dating back to early childhood. “She’s coping as best she can.”

The woman had four interviews with FBI agents in 2019 that keep resurfacing in the Epstein sex-trafficking scandal. She made unproven allegations she was abused by the New York financier in the 1980s, then sexually assaulted by Donald Trump, when she was between 13 and 15 years old. The White House has called her allegations “completely baseless” and “backed by zero credible evidence”, a claim it said was supported by the fact that the Biden administration’s justice department knew about the allegations but “did nothing with them”.

Germany should end a boycott of Russian oil and gas to bolster its flagging economy, the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, Alice Weidel, told Reuters as she outlined the party's ambitions to lead a national government.

Weidel said the AfD can win two key federal ‌state elections in the coming months, describing them as milestones to securing the post of German chancellor as soon as the next national elections due by 2029.

The case involving a Virginia bank robbery is the latest example of the justices wrestling with how to apply constitutional protections to new technology.

In a ruling applying individual constitutional protections to new technology, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that sweeping use of cell phone location data requires a warrant.

The case focused on a Virginia bank robbery, where a conviction rested in part on cell phone location information law enforcement received from Google through a so-called geofence warrant. These allow law enforcement to obtain data showing cell phone users who were in the vicinity of a crime scene, even if they are not targeting a specific suspect.

The court, divided 6-3, found that broad geofence surveillance constitutes a search under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

An attorney in Washington state promised “miracles” to tens of thousands of immigrants seeking legal status in the United States.

Instead, Alexandra Lozano created fake stories of domestic abuse and human trafficking to apply for humanitarian visas without her clients’ knowledge, according to several lawsuits and a legal ethics investigation. They say she preyed on immigrants’ desperation to drain their bank accounts while leaving them at risk of deportation.

She is accused hiring workers who didn’t have proper legal credentials and building an assembly-line system to rush through applications, even copying clients’ signatures onto documents they never saw.

Vyacheslav Khasanov, 37, the club's owner, received a seven-year jail term and was ordered to pay a fine of 1 million roubles

A Russian court has handed down significant prison sentences to the owner and two employees of an LGBT nightclub, in what authorities claim is the first prosecution under the country's ban on the "LGBT movement".

The court announced on Monday that the three defendants were found guilty of organising and participating in the activities of an "extremist organisation". Their arrests followed a police raid on the "Pose" club in the southwestern city of Orenburg two years ago.

Vyacheslav Khasanov, 37, the club's owner, received a seven-year jail term and was ordered to pay a fine of 1 million roubles ($12,755). Club manager Diana Kamilyanova, 30, was jailed for six years and three months, while art director Alexander Klimov, 23, received a sentence of two years and three months.

Justices find president does not have constitutional authority to fire Federal Reserve governor without cause

The US supreme court has refused Donald Trump’s attempts to immediately fire a Federal Reserve governor, in a landmark ruling that limits a president’s authority over the central bank.

In a 5-4 opinion, the court said that Lisa Cook can stay on as a governor while she fights unproven allegations of mortgage fraud made by the Trump officials.

“The Court decides this application on the narrow ground that the President failed to afford Cook the procedural protections to which she was entitled by statute. Without such protections, she could not properly dispute the charges the President laid against her,” the justices said.

The case was centered on Cook, a Joe Biden appointee whose 14-year term on the Federal Reserve board of governors is scheduled to expire in 2038. Cook is the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board.

Americans have grown less proud of their country’s history or the way its democracy works over the past decade, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

Americans’ pride in the U.S. on several key attributes has dropped since 2017 — including the nation’s military and its political influence around the globe — according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. This poll was conducted in April, as the United States and Iran fought over the Strait of Hormuz in a prolonged war that started with the U.S. and Israel launching strikes on Iran.

New Gallup polling also finds that only 53% of U.S. adults are “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American, the lowest reading in the trend dating back to 2001.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.

The decision rejected a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

In just over half those states, the more forgiving deadlines apply only to ballots cast by military and overseas voters.

The American flag: To some it’s Old Glory. To others it’s a MAGA hat on a stick.

Ford executives said they have hired 350 veteran engineers — some of them were former employees, while others had been working at suppliers — after artificial intelligence and automated systems failed to deliver the desired quality level.