Realtors Are Forecasting a 14% Jump in Existing-Home Sales for 2026, and Economists Say It Could Finally Break the Market’s Two-Year Slump

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Two-story brick suburban house with landscaped front yard in daylight

Fourteen percent. That’s the jump in existing-home sales the National Association of Realtors projected for 2026 when its chief economist Lawrence Yun stood up at the group’s annual forecast summit in November 2025 and called it “the year that we will see a measurable increase in sales,” according to NAR’s own forecast announcement. The number … Read more

Fire Prevention Week Is Almost Here, and NFPA’s Own Data Shows Nearly Three in Five Home Fire Deaths Happen in Homes With No Working Smoke Alarm at All

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fireman walking in front of brown brick house

Three of every five home fire deaths happen in homes with no smoke alarm at all, or with alarms present but not working, according to the National Fire Protection Association’s own analysis of U.S. home fires. The breakdown is stark: 37% of victims died in homes with zero smoke alarms, and another 23% died in … Read more

Zillow Just Named the Metro Areas Where Home Buyers Finally Have the Upper Hand Heading Into 2026, and a Few of Them Might Genuinely Surprise You

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Elegant suburban home with driveway at sunset showcasing modern architecture.

Indianapolis just beat out 49 other major U.S. metros to claim the top spot on Zillow Research’s own 2026 ranking of the best markets for home buyers, with a typical home value of $283,040 and forecasted annual appreciation of 2.9%. That’s not a market most people picture when they hear “hot housing market” — and … Read more

Palm-Sized Joro Spiders Are Ballooning on Silk Threads Into New States This Fall, and Entomologists Say There’s Almost No Realistic Way Left to Stop Their Spread Now

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barn spider on cobweb closeup photography

Joro spiders now have confirmed, breeding populations in at least five states beyond Georgia — North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Maryland — with isolated sightings already logged in Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to the University of Georgia’s own College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences field report. Peak spider-spotting season runs September through October, … Read more

Pediatricians Are Rolling Out New RSV and COVID Vaccine Guidance This Fall, and It’s Noticeably Different From What Parents Heard Just Last Year

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a young child is being examined by a doctor

The American Academy of Pediatrics has released updated RSV and COVID-19 immunization guidance for the 2026-2027 respiratory virus season, and for the first time in recent memory, it didn’t come through the CDC’s own vaccine advisory process. The AAP’s own policy statements, published alongside matching recommendations from the American Academy of Family Physicians and the … Read more

Home Insurers Are Quietly Dropping Coverage in These High-Risk ZIP Codes Nationwide, and Homeowners Are Finding Out Only When They Try to Renew Their Policy

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Close-up of hands holding a wooden house model representing real estate or new home purchase.

Homeowners insurers non-renewed policies at nearly triple the 2024 rate they did in 2018 across the 15 most disaster-exposed states, and company-initiated non-renewals climbed between 96% and 216% in every region of the country over that same seven-year stretch, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ first-of-its-kind market analysis, released August 5, 2026. The … Read more

A Multi-Day Severe Storm Threat Is Sweeping From the Plains to the East Coast This Week, and Forecasters Say Flash Flooding Is a Bigger Danger to Homes Than the Wind Itself

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rain dropping from roof

A multi-day severe weather stretch that pushed from the northern Plains through the Midwest and into the Northeast this past week has already knocked out power to more than 500,000 customers, including roughly 280,000 homes in Michigan alone, according to Fox Weather’s tracking of the event. Wind gusts reached 75 mph in the hardest-hit zones … Read more

Roughly Two Hundred Eighty Three Thousand Kids End Up in the Emergency Room Every Year With a Sports Related Brain Injury, Federal Health Data Shows, and Football and Bike Riding Top the List

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boy playing soccer

An estimated 283,000 kids show up in U.S. emergency rooms every single year with a sports- or recreation-related brain injury, according to federal data published by the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Nearly half of those visits, about 45%, trace back to contact sports specifically. Football sits at the top of the list of … Read more

Sixty Four Percent of American Teenagers Are Now Using AI Chatbots Like ChatGPT, New Research Shows, but Barely Half of Their Parents Even Realize Their Kid Is Talking to One

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a person holding a cell phone in their hand

Sixty-four percent of American teenagers now use an AI chatbot, and 30% of them open one every single day, according to Pew Research Center. Yet when researchers turned around and asked the parents of those same teens whether their kid uses a chatbot, only 51% said yes, according to a companion Pew Research Center survey … Read more

American Kids Now Earn an Average of Thirty Seven Dollars a Week in Allowance, New Survey Data Shows, and Most Parents Admit They Still Don’t Know How to Explain Money to Their Own Kids

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two toddler playing letter cubes

American kids are pulling in an average of $37 a week in allowance, according to a Wells Fargo survey conducted with Ipsos. Seventy-one percent of parents say they hand out an allowance at all, and the vast majority believe it’s genuinely teaching their kids something about spending. But dig one layer deeper into the same … Read more