Drivers love having cars that are looser on the track and give them more chances to pass. Fans love the action that creates lead changes and position fights. More is coming. MORE: 10 drivers to watch at Charlotte | No rain on racing | Rules change victory As expected after the Sprint All-Star Race, based on changes and testing this season NASCAR said Thursday it will run races at Michigan and Kentucky with car component changes that take away even more downforce....

Between 2002 and 2017, as many as 1,558 people across 50 countries were killed while defending the environment, according to a study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. That is more than double the number of U.K. and Australian armed service personnel killed while on active duty in war zones during the same period, the researchers emphasized. Since 2004, the recorded number of environmental defenders dying has risen from two per week to four per week....

The provisional data shows just over 117,000 deaths in 2020 for the state, while The Detroit Free Press reported that just over 104,000 children were born in 2020. The onset of the COVID pandemic was a significant contributing factor, as the virus became the third most common cause of death in the state as 11,362 people had COVID listed as their cause of death, state health department data shows. Heart disease and cancer were the two causes of death that still surpassed COVID in Michigan in 2020....

Chelsea team news and likelu line-up While Klopp has had to devise solutions for the absence of Philippe Coutinho and Joel Matip due to ankle problems, manage captain Jordan Henderson through a heel issue and wait on Sadio Mane to return from Africa Cup of Nations duty, Tuesday’s visitors to Anfield are yet to have a major selection setback in 2016-17. Bar a short Diego Costa saga that saw Chelsea’s top marksman omitted from the victory over defending champions Leicester City, Conte has been able to count on the availability of his core personnel and has made the least number of changes to his starting XI in the top flight....

Dubbed “Polish combat drones for Ukraine,” the effort was launched Wednesday on crowdfunding site Pomagam to raise money unmanned aircrafts produced by Poland’s WB Electronics. Ukrainian officials earlier appealed to the international community to donate or help its military purchase drones, which have played a key role in the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. Jarosław Sterkowicz, one of the campaign’s organizers, told Polska Times the idea was hatched in a private Facebook group when its members realized that Poland produces the sort of combat drones being sought by Ukraine....

But investigators say it was Batouti who flew the plane as it fell into its terrifying final dive. As a consequence, FBI agents are quietly looking into his life–and their interviews at the Hotel Pennsylvania have turned up some questionable episodes. NEWSWEEK’s sources say the FBI has heard allegations that Batouti sometimes had too much to drink and that one or more female employees of the hotel complained about unwanted sexual advances....

Premier League Team of the Week After 10 Premier League fixtures at the tail-end of October 2015, Liverpool was looking up at the likes of Southampton, Crystal Palace and West Ham in the standings. The Merseysiders were anemic in attack, unable to adequately threaten opposition goalkeepers and let in more strikes than they were able to convert. Ninth, on 14 points, the Reds had only managed to see off Stoke, Bournemouth and Aston Villa - none of those victories recorded compellingly....

As of February 27, only 48 percent (240) of those districts will continue requiring masks, as the other 243 (48.6 percent) of the top 500 go mask-optional in the highest level seen this academic year, according to a policy tracker from Burbio. Seventeen districts have a partial mask requirement. The latest figures are a notable uptick from the beginning of the month, when many parts of the U.S. were still grappling with the Omicron wave....

During a virtual press conference on Tuesday, Maine Center for Disease Control (CDC) Director Dr. Nirav Shah said his organization received reports from vaccine sites that the minimum temperature for storage was exceeded after they noticed it on a tracking thermometer on the outside of the box. “Maine CDC, by the end of the day yesterday, had found out that of the 50 shipments slated to arrive in the state, 35 had experienced a temperature at some point during the shipping process above what was required to keep the vaccine safe,” Shah said during a virtual press conference....

A majority of these occurred in the Illinois city, with Chicago Police saying that at least 63 people were shot between 6:00 p.m. on Friday, July 10, and 11:59 p.m. Sunday, July 12, including eight fatal shootings. According to Chicago Sun-Times, the count had increased to 64 people shot and 15 fatalities by Monday morning. An estimated 87 people were also shot over the course of the July 4 weekend in Chicago....

The findings are part of a new Washington Post/Ipsos survey conducted earlier this month and released on Friday. According to the poll, 90 percent of black Americans disapprove of how Trump has handled himself in office over the past three years. Plus, more than eight in 10 black Americans believe that Trump is a racist and that he’s made racism an even bigger problem in the United States. Three-quarters of those polled (76 percent) said that the things Trump is doing as president are bad for African Americans....

Bowyer is on a one-year deal with HScott, a bridge between the collapse of Michael Waltrip Racing and Bowyer’s move to Stewart-Haas Racing. He will take over the No. 14 car after Stewart retires. MORE: Richmond starting lineup | Drivers happy to have Smoke back | 10 drivers to watch Saturday, word came from Richmond that Bowyer reacted to a second day of practice trouble with angry words on team radio and a lament about what he saw as HScott’s inadequacies....

According to the poll, which was conducted by Morning Consult and released on Wednesday, 47 percent of voters say they trust Biden more to handle public safety, compared to 39 percent that said they trust Trump more. The poll surveyed 1,988 registered voters from August 28 to August 30 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. The poll’s findings come as Trump and Biden continue to spar over the issue of public safety as protests continue to occur across the United States....

The study by WalletHub, a personal finance website based in Washington, D.C., evaluated 15 metrics, including the number of child COVID-19 cases and deaths per 100,000 children, average class sizes, public mask usage and a string of other variables for each state (see full listing of metrics used further below). “Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the safest conditions,” the study noted....

Neutron stars are densest objects in the known universe, with a huge amount of matter packed into a sphere the size of a city. A sugar cube-sized piece neutron star would weigh around 100 million tons on Earth. These objects are created from the collapsed cores of giant stars that have died as supernovae. Generally, neutron stars contain between 1.3 and two times the mass of the sun, all packed into a space between 12 and 18 miles wide....

The latest poll from Ipsos found that 72 percent of Republicans thought the president’s inaugural address was “good,” compared to 97 percent of Democratic voters. A little more than three quarters of independents (78 percent) took a similar view of the speech. Overall, a little more than eight in ten Americans (83 percent) thought Biden’s speech was good. Ten percent felt it was either “somewhat” or very poor. A further 6 percent had no opinion on the address....

Not content with babysitting duties or helping lighten the load when it comes to work around the house, this particular grandma was desperate to be there for the birth of her grandchild. A post shared to Reddit by the woman’s concerned husband has detailed how his wife’s extreme approach has not only alienated both their son and his wife but could also spell bad news for her marriage. It has been upvoted over 22,000 times already....