Rachel Treisman

As firefighters work to contain dozens of wildfires raging across California and other western states, the Bobcat Fire is approaching nearly 100,000 acres, making it one of Los Angeles County's largest-ever blazes.

Athletes and fans anticipating the start of college basketball will have to wait a little bit longer.

The NCAA Division I Council announced on Wednesday that the upcoming men's and women's basketball seasons can begin on Nov. 25, roughly two weeks later than originally planned, in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Updated at 10:40 a.m. ET

Top congressional Democrats are calling for a federal investigation after a nurse who worked at an immigration detention center in Georgia filed a whistleblower complaint alleging a lack of medical care and unsafe work practices that facilitated the spread of COVID-19.

She also says that immigrant women received questionable hysterectomies, an allegation that lawmakers seized on in statements issued Tuesday.

Anyone grasping for the right word or phrase to describe life in 2020 now has a larger lexicon to work with.

Dictionary.com has updated thousands of entries and added hundreds of words in its largest release to date, a reflection of the ways in which society and language have evolved even in just the past few months.

Updated at 10 a.m. ET Thursday

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked states to prepare to distribute a potential coronavirus vaccine as soon as late October, according to a series of planning documents sent to public health officials last week.

A CDC spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the documents in an email to NPR on Wednesday. The documents were first published by The New York Times.

Kenosha County, Wis., lifted its nightly emergency curfew on Wednesday, more than a week after it was first enacted in response to protests over the Aug. 23 police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said in a statement that he had made the decision after consulting with law enforcement and community leaders.

Kenosha County, Wis., lifted its nightly emergency curfew on Wednesday, more than a week after it was first enacted in response to protests over the Aug. 23 police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian said in a statement that he had made the decision after consulting with law enforcement and community leaders.

More deaths associated with Hurricane Laura were caused by the improper use of portable generators than the storm itself.

And officials warn that the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning persists, as thousands of households in Louisiana remain without power.

The 2020 U.S. Open kicked off on Monday absent one of its most iconic hallmarks: the crowd.

Instead, the courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y., were mostly silent as spectators were kept away from the stadium because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The prohibition on in-person fans is part of New York's efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19.

A man was fatally shot during a night of confrontations between Trump supporters and counterprotesters in Portland, Ore., on Saturday, the latest high-profile incident in a city that has seen nightly demonstrations for three consecutive months. On Sunday, city leaders denounced the violence while President Trump criticized their ability to contain it.

Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teenager accused of shooting and killing protesters in Kenosha, Wis., has been charged with six criminal counts including felony charges of first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.

Even before fall classes began on Tuesday, The Ohio State University temporarily suspended more than 200 students for violating COVID-19 safety protocols.

Member station WOSU was one of several outlets to report that school officials had issued 228 interim suspensions tied to off-campus parties.

The University of Alabama is reporting more than 560 new cases of COVID-19 across its three campuses and medical center less than a week after starting classes.

According to data from a university dashboard, students, staff and faculty at the university's main campus, Tuscaloosa, account for 531 of the total confirmed cases since Aug. 19.

A Florida judge on Monday ruled against the state's order requiring schools to open for in-person instruction by the end of August, calling parts of it "unconstitutional." He granted a temporary injunction, putting the decision-making power in the hands of individual districts.

The Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday announced new rules for fans attending home games at Arrowhead Stadium, banning headdresses and certain types of face paint in an effort to be more sensitive to Native Americans.

Beginning this season, fans will be prohibited from wearing headdresses into the stadium, and will be asked upon arrival to remove "any face paint that is styled in a way that references or appropriates American Indian cultures and traditions."

Airbnb is banning all parties at its listings worldwide, further cracking down on unauthorized gatherings in the name of public health.

The company on Thursday announced its "Global Party Ban," which includes an occupancy cap of 16 guests. The new policy applies to all future bookings and will remain in effect indefinitely. Airbnb said that "instituting a global ban on parties and events is in the best interest of public health."

Two Midwestern universities announced on Tuesday that they will be modifying their fall plans because of the coronavirus pandemic. The University of Notre Dame is moving all undergraduate instruction online for two weeks, and Michigan State University is going fully remote for the semester.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill made it one week into the fall semester before scrapping plans for in-person instruction.

It's an experience that other large campuses should learn from, Mimi Chapman, chair of the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, told NPR's All Things Considered on Tuesday.

Updated Tuesday at 4:11 p.m. ET

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published on Monday is the latest to confirm that the coronavirus disproportionately impacts communities of color in the U.S.

The U.S. now has more than 5 million cases and 166,700 deaths from the coronavirus. And with flu season approaching, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned this week that things could get a lot more grim.

Robert Redfield said in an interview Wednesday with WebMD that if Americans don't follow public health guidance, the country could be facing "the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we've ever had."

If you're tired of binge-watching TV during the pandemic, Mother Nature has an alternative. All you have to do is go outside between about 2 a.m. Wednesday and dawn local time, lie on your back and look up at the sky. The meteors and fireballs of the Perseid meteor shower should be streaking.

More than 20 million people worldwide have tested positive for the coronavirus as of Monday evening, nearly five months to the day after the World Health Organization declared it a global pandemic.

This is according to data from Johns Hopkins University, which puts the total number of deaths globally at nearly 734,000.

Democrats on Sunday slammed President Trump's executive actions aimed at providing economic relief during the coronavirus pandemic, saying the measures are both ineffective and unconstitutional.

Trump signed three memoranda and one executive order at his Bedminster, N.J., golf resort on Saturday amid stalled negotiations with Congress over a new COVID-19 relief package.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced on Wednesday that he is authorizing the city to shut off water and power service to properties hosting large house parties, which he said had "essentially become nightclubs in the hills."

Updated at 5:40 a.m. ET on Monday

Tropical Storm Isaias skirted the east coast of Florida on Sunday and is now on track to hit the Carolinas Monday night.

As of 5:00 a.m. Monday, the National Hurricane Center said the storm was located about 155 miles east southeast of Jacksonville, Fla. and 280 miles south-southwest of Myrtle Beach, S.C. Its maximum sustained winds have were at 70 miles per hour.

White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said on Sunday that the U.S. is in a "new phase" of the pandemic, urging people to follow public health guidance as cases continue to climb in many parts of the United States.

"What we're seeing today is different from March and April," Birx said on CNN's State of the Union. "It is extraordinarily widespread — it's into the rural as equal urban areas."

Police say the masked, umbrella-wielding man who smashed windows at a Minneapolis auto parts store two days after George Floyd's death has ties to a white supremacist group and specifically sought to inflame racial tensions.

Protesters including members of Wall of Moms and Don't Shoot Portland are suing the Trump administration over what they describe as a violent and intimidating federal response to nightly demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality.

Florida has recorded more coronavirus cases than New York. Only California, the most populous state in the country, has more.

As of Sunday afternoon, data from Johns Hopkins University shows 423,855 people in Florida have tested positive for the coronavirus, compared to 411,736 in New York. California leads with 450,242 cases.