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Scientists say they've identified an enzyme that could help explain how exercise can slow or even reverse some signs of aging in the brain. "Exercise in a bottle" isn't around the corner, but it's not out of the question either.

The idea builds on an observation a few years ago that certain parts of the brain can actually grow, even in older people.

Pirette McKamey is fighting for anti-racist education.

Over her more than 30 years as an educator, the principal at Mission High School in San Francisco spent a decade leading an anti-racism committee.

About a year ago, former Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci got a call from an executive with the celebrity video-sharing startup Cameo.

"He called me and he's like, 'Mooch, I'd like to get you on Cameo,'" Scaramucci recalled to NPR. "I didn't even know what it was. He said, 'We're trying to get some guys who are improvisational and can have a little fun with this."

With a Cameo bio of "White House Communications Director for 11 days. Don't say 10, it hurts my feelings!" Scaramucci has found a way to capitalize on his brief tenure.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper never received a briefing about alleged Russian practices against U.S. troops in Afghanistan that included the term "bounty," he told Congress on Thursday.

Esper said so in an answer to a carefully worded question from Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, who appeared to be aware about how to cue Esper, potentially from the lawmaker's own awareness of the still-secret underlying intelligence about the Russian allegations.

"To the best of my recollection, I have not received a briefing that included the word 'bounty,' " Esper said.

This is part of a series about coronavirus-related restrictions across the United States.

The Fuji-Q Highland amusement park near Tokyo has an unorthodox request for its roller coaster riders.

"Please scream inside your heart," and not out loud, the park is asking. The unusual ask is meant to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

While some may be skeptical that it's possible to quietly ride a roller coaster, a promotional video from Fuji-Q proves that it can be done.

The Trump administration on Thursday put visa and asset sanctions on several Chinese officials — including Politburo member Chen Quanguo — for what it says has been their role in "gross violations of human rights" in China's far western region of Xinjiang.

The move comes at a time when U.S.-China relations are at their worst in decades and is likely to anger Beijing, potentially leading to similar sanctions from China on American officials.

The mayor of South Korea's capital, and a possible future presidential candidate, was found dead after disappearing Thursday morning local time.

A rescue dog found Park Won-soon just after midnight Friday morning in a wooded park northeast of the presidential office, Seoul police official Choi Ik-su told reporters about two hours after the discovery.

Choi said the cause of death is under investigation, but there is no evidence of homicide so far.

Supreme Court cases are complicated, and their implications can be muddy.

But a few things are clear from what the court decided Thursday about the President Trump's financial records. Presidents do not have absolute immunity from having to release financial records, and more specifically to Trump, we likely won't see his taxes until after the presidential election.

Updated at 4 p.m. ET

Los Angeles police say they have arrested five people in connection to the killing earlier this year of Bashar Jackson — the rapper more famously known as Pop Smoke.

Three men and two juvenile males were arrested, the Los Angeles Police Department announced on Thursday. They are in the custody of the Robbery-Homicide Division, a department spokesperson tells NPR.

Chandana Hiran loves reading, arts and crafts, and recycling. At 22, she's enrolled in college, studying to be an accountant. She considers herself a feminist.

But something else is a big part of her identity too.

"I'm slightly dark," Hiran tells NPR in a phone interview from her family's Mumbai home, her bold voice suddenly going soft. "I'd be called one of the dark-skinned people in our country."

Gothic horror tales — from the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe to Jordan Peele's 2017 film Get Out — are almost always about escape. Run away! Run away from demons and haunted houses; from graveyards and ghouls; from racism and sexism.

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Donna Joe says her adult daughters had all kinds of advice to keep her safe. They signed up the 64-year-old retired civil engineer for online grocery delivery, shipped sanitizer to her home in Marietta, Ga., and checked in regularly to make sure she was following the latest protocols.

Joe says she missed being with her six grandchildren, though, and when her son invited her over, she jumped at the chance. But she waited until after the visit to tell her daughters.

Updated at 3:30 p.m. ET

The COVID-19 pandemic is testing the world – and humanity is failing because of a lack of leadership and unity, the head of the World Health Organization declared in a passionate speech Thursday.

Updated at 4:52 p.m. ET

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, laid out a key plank of his economic agenda for the country — dubbed "Build Back Better" — in a half-hour speech Thursday, offering a competing vision of economic nationalism that President Trump has trumpeted in recent years.

A mural with the words "Black Lives Matter" will soon emblazon Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, right in front of one specific landmark: Trump Tower.

On Thursday morning, work crews blocked off traffic between 56^th and 57^th streets. Groups of painters then used rollers to start filling in large yellow letters on the pavement.

A poster-size photo of a little girl in a frilly pink tutu has pride of place on the wall of her grandparents' stately home on the fertile plains of northern India. An album of baby photos is propped on a side table, alongside a gigantic plush pink teddy bear.

The country act now officially known as Lady A has sued a blues, soul and funk singer who says that she has used Lady A as her stage name for two decades.

Updated at 4:18 p.m. ET

In a pair of historic rulings on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Trump's claim of absolute immunity under the law. The vote was 7 to 2 in cases involving grand jury and congressional subpoenas for Trump's pre-presidential financial records.