Sean McMinn

Annie Haigler steps out of her home in Louisville, Ky., pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket to dab sweat off her forehead. She enjoys sitting on her porch, especially to watch the sunrise. She has always been a morning person.

But as the day progresses, the heat can be unbearable for her. On summer days like this, when highs reach into the 90s, the lack of trees in her neighborhood is hard for Haigler to ignore.

"That's what I'm accustomed to trees doing: They bring comfort. You don't notice it, you don't think about it. But they bring comfort to you," she says.

When Shakira Franklin drives from West Baltimore to her job near the city's Inner Harbor, she can feel the summer heat ease up like a fist loosening its grip.

"I can actually feel me riding out of the heat. When I get to a certain place when I'm on my way, I'll turn off my air and I'll roll my windows down," says Franklin. "It just seems like the sun is beaming down on this neighborhood."

Facing a House of Representatives controlled by Democrats who are issuing document demands and subpoenas, President Trump's White House counsel's office grew its payroll by nearly a third, newly released records reveal.

From 2018 to 2019, the counsel's office added 10 people.

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One hundred twenty-seven. That's how many women will be in Congress this year, up from 110 in the previous Congress.

It's a jump that's simultaneously so big and so small.

The issue of gerrymandering — the ability of politicians to draw legislative districts to benefit their own party — burst into view as a major political issue in 2018.

Even as voters and courts vigorously rejected the practice this year, politicians in some states are doing their best to remain in control of the redistricting process. Critics argue that amounts to letting politicians pick their own voters.

For years, the world has imposed strict sanctions on North Korea in an attempt to stop its development of nuclear weapons. Officials from nations across the globe have seized shipments of raw materials, shut down shell companies and interdicted ships smuggling equipment.

But despite these efforts, last year North Korea tested the most powerful weapons known to humanity: a nuclear device far larger than any it had tested before, and an intercontinental ballistic missile that put much of the world, including the U.S., within range.

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Democrats will have control of the U.S. House once again beginning in January, thanks, in large part, to their performance in America's suburbs.

After decades of Americans gobbling up more and more turkey, production of the bird hasn't quite been flying the same in recent years.

The U.S. produced about 6 billion pounds of ready-to-cook turkey in each of the last two years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those were among the highest production levels on record for the industry.

But just looking at those two years misses the bigger picture.

The country's cultural divide, as evidenced by Tuesday's elections, is a real one.

But there are some things that are part of the American experience, whether you're biking across Manhattan or driving a 4x4 through Montana.

As the U.S. Postal Service's law enforcement arm investigates hand-made potential explosives sent to prominent Democrats and other critics of the president across the country, they have begun a process that's become a rarer one for the agency.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service opened 19 cases related to suspicious items or substances in Fiscal Year 2017, the most recent year for which data is available.

That number is a steep drop from four years prior, when postal inspectors initiated more than 200 cases.