It's been so hot and dry this summer that climatologists say the southern part of the United States is going through an "exceptional drought."

Parts of Oklahoma have seen little rain since October — not to mention a string of 100 degree days. The steamy conditions are pressuring the state's water needs.

About 1.2 million people live in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area and they are putting a drain on the city's water supplies.

The shutdown of mobile phone service in Bay Area subway stations has got constitutional experts hitting the law books.

Authorities for Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, blocked wireless signals in certain stations on August 11 in an attempt to prevent protests opposing the July 3 shooting death of Charles Blair Hill by BART police. Police say Hill came at them with a knife.

Boston's Logan Airport will become the first in the nation this week to require every single traveler to go through a quick interview with security officials trying to spot suspicious behavior.

Until now, the so-called behavioral profiling — used successfully in Israel — has been used only sporadically in U.S. airports. As the system expands, so are questions about how behavioral profiling works, and how effective it might be in the U.S.

Unlike the usual security pat-down, the profiling process is what you might call a "chat-down."

For centuries, Indians have chewed betel leaves, or paan, regardless of caste or economic lines. It's been the daily chew of everyone from the poorest farmer and rickshaw puller to the richest maharaja and gold merchant.

A plump little bundle of flavor, paan consists of various spices and sweeteners, spread on a betel leaf and folded into a neat packet.

But the leaf and the traditional ritual of preparing it are rapidly giving way to an even more dangerous habit: chewing tobacco.

As the country continues to dig out of the recession, many small businesses are still having trouble getting back on their feet. That's in part because most banks severely tightened lending to small firms.

In Milwaukee, Wis., one entrepreneur was turned down for credit by four banks and says the experience has actually helped her become a better business person.

The heat and humidity are relentless in Jones Island, a peninsula just south of downtown Milwaukee.

Pat Smith and his twin sons, Nate and Nick, were at a charity hockey game Thursday when he purchased three $10 raffle tickets for a chance to hit a near-impossible hockey shot, with a $50,000 prize. One of his sons hit that shot — but as Pat told organizers the next day, it wasn't the one whose name was on the ticket.

The Faribault, Minn., arena was in a state of pandemonium after Nate Smith sent a hockey puck from center ice into the goal — the 3-inch puck traveled 89 feet down the ice and into a 3.5-inch hole in a board laid over the mouth of the goal.

President Obama's Midwest bus trip is part listening tour to show that he's concerned about the problems of actual Americans, part rolling bully pulpit that gives him a chance to make the case for compromise (and to blame congressional Republicans for not doing enough on that score.)

But it also was a chance to try and score a few points on the would-be Republican nominees.

I am not making this up.

With temperatures barely out of the 100s and even higher in many areas, the Commissioned Corps of The U.S. Public Health Service has some helpful tips for officers who stray outdoors from the lab or the clinic.

"Being that it is summer and heat indices have been over 100 degrees here in the National Capitol Region," the Corps' latest newsletter says, "be reminded you have to wear either the sweater or windbreaker jacket when outdoors."

The use of DNA evidence to exonerate people wrongfully convicted of crimes — and in some cases, free them after decades in prison — is verging on becoming commonplace. It's one reason several states have ceased or slowed down their use of capital punishment. But for some exonerees, the large compensation payment they're often owed brings another clash, with their attorneys.