If you spend enough time in the woods, you learn one rule pretty quickly: don't count on luck when you can prepare instead. That applies especially when you're hiking or hunting in bear country with a dog. A new look at hundreds of human-bear encounters suggests that man's best friend may not be the four-legged bodyguard many outdoorsmen assume he is. In fact, sometimes the dog is the one that starts the trouble. Researchers examined 326 reported encounters involving domestic

For generations, when Americans heard the words “tornado country,” they thought of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. That picture is getting harder to defend. Illinois has become one of the nation's biggest tornado hotspots, and 2026 has been an extraordinary year. By late June, the state had already recorded 173 confirmed tornadoes—far above its long-term average of roughly 60 per year. Illinois had even passed the previous state record, set only two years earlier. So what is goin