By Kasha Patel, CNN

(CNN) — Wildfires are expected to bring unhealthy air to more than 120 million people this weekend, but the smoke and its toxic particles may not always be clearly visible. Some skylines are shrouded in obvious abnormal orange tinges with faint burnt odors. Other horizons may carry no visible indication that something is afoul in the atmosphere — but that doesn’t necessarily mean the air is safe.

“Just because it does look a little bit less brown and orange today doesn’t necessarily mean that the smoke’s not there,” said Dan Westervelt, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University.

The visibility of smoke can be affected by several factors including the chemicals and particles it carries, how long the plume has been in the air, the weather and angle of the sun.

While the human eye can’t always perceive the danger, air quality monitors can accurately track the number of pollutants in our atmosphere. That’s why it’s important to follow local safety guidance — staying indoors, running air filters and wearing an N95 mask — even if everything looks clear.

There’s more to wildfire smoke than meets the eye, scientists say, and what you can’t see can hurt you.

What makes the skies hazy during a wildfire?

When a tree burns, the heat breaks down plant material and releases flammable gases. Some of those gases react with oxygen and become carbon dioxide and water vapor in the air. But if the fire doesn’t have enough oxygen to fully burn the gases, it can produce more thick smoke filled with countless tiny particles and chemicals.

The signature yellow, orange and brown-ish color of wildfire smoke comes from a group of pollutants aptly called “brown carbon,” an umbrella term that covers thousands of compounds, said Westervelt. These pollutants tint the sky because they absorb sunlight at shorter wavelengths — responsible for blues and ultraviolet — and allow the longer wavelengths behind reds, yellows and oranges to pass through the atmosphere and reach our eyes.

Brown carbon falls under a class of pollutants known as particulate matter 2.5 (PM 2.5), named because they span about 2.5 micrometers in diameter — about 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair. These fine particles can evade our body’s natural defenses and travel deep inside our lungs, causing breathing or heart issues.

PM 2.5 particles are one of the most serious threats to people, prompting all the safety warnings you see to stay indoors with good air filters. They can travel hundreds of miles and remain in the air for days to weeks.

Wildfires also emit hydrocarbon gases like benzene, toluene, xylenes and ethylbenzene, which are “hazardous air pollutants themselves,” Westervelt said. But he said they can undergo additional chemical processing in the atmosphere and become brown carbon and PM 2.5 particles.

The smoke also contains a larger class of pollutants known as particulate matter 10 (PM 10), about seven times smaller than the width of a human hair. Still microscopic, these particles also pass through our nose and throat to cause breathing and heart issues, but they can fall out of the air faster thanks to gravity or rain. They remain airborne for hours to days — concentrating and obscuring skies closer to the source of the fire.

What are the invisible pollutants in a wildfire?

Not all wildfire pollutants announce themselves with color. As smoke travels, it can lose its hue without losing its chemistry. Sometimes it even becomes more toxic over time.

Take brown carbon, for example. Photons of sunlight can break up the chemical bonds in the particles and transform its chemical identity, a process known as oxidation, Westervelt

Por Juan Carlos López y Mauricio Torres, CNN en Español

A solo tres semanas de que Abelardo de la Espriella asuma la presidencia de Colombia, su vicepresidente electo, José Manuel Restrepo, aseguró este viernes que algunos de los principales objetivos del futuro Gobierno serán “recuperar” la confianza de la comunidad internacional y construir una nueva relación con Estados Unidos, país del que la nación sudamericana “puede ser un aliado incondicional”.

Restrepo hizo estas declaraciones durante una entrevista con CNN en Washington, ciudad que el economista visita como parte de una gira de cara a que él y De la Espriella comiencen sus mandatos el 7 de agosto. Durante la conversación, señaló que ha sostenido más de 50 reuniones con líderes políticos, empresariales y de otros sectores de Estados Unidos, quienes, según Restrepo, le dijeron que vieron reducidos los espacios de comunicación durante el Gobierno de Gustavo Petro.

“Creo que lo que hemos encontrado es lo mismo que hemos encontrado en Colombia: esperanza y optimismo. Vemos un ánimo proclive del Gobierno norteamericano, pero también del empresariado norteamericano, para invertir en nuestro país. Vemos, además, una recuperación de las conversaciones, de los canales de diálogo, entre los actores desde Colombia y los actores norteamericanos”, dijo.

Desde que Donald Trump inició su segundo mandato presidencial en Estados Unidos en enero de 2025, protagonizó varios momentos de tensión con Petro, un político de izquierda con quien chocó por temas como el combate al narcotráfico y la política arancelaria estadounidense. En contraste, durante la pasada campaña electoral en Colombia, Trump apoyó abiertamente a De la Espriella, candidato de ultraderecha que venció por un estrecho margen al oficialista Iván Cepeda.

Ahora, expuso Restrepo, el futuro Gobierno de Colombia busca una nueva relación con Estados Unidos, en la que haya respeto a la soberanía de ambos países y, al mismo tiempo, se compartan valores como la defensa de la democracia y de la iniciativa privada.

“Colombia necesita, hoy más que nunca, entender que es el escenario internacional en donde podemos construir más oportunidades para nuestra nación y que Colombia puede ser un aliado incondicional de los Estados Unidos, por ejemplo, en el tema de Venezuela, en donde puede jugar el rol protagónico de llegar con inversión, de llegar con bienes y servicios y ser plataforma de la inversión americana desde Colombia, que le genera crecimiento a Colombia pero, además, que permite la recuperación y la reinstauración de la democracia en Venezuela”, dijo.

Venezuela, un país con el que Colombia comparte una frontera de 2.219 kilómetros, recientemente cumplió seis meses desde el operativo militar en el que Estados Unidos capturó al derrocado presidente Nicolás Maduro. Desde entonces, Delcy Rodríguez asumió como presidenta encargada y ha entablado una relación de cooperación con el Gobierno de Trump.

Durante la entrevista de este viernes, Restrepo también habló de cómo perfila la relación de Colombia con Estados Unidos en materia de seguridad.

“Habrá cooperación, cooperación que se perdió también en estos últimos cuatro años, cooperación en materia de inteligencia, cooperación en materia militar, naturalmente”, dijo, sin dar más detalles, tras ser preguntado sobre cómo sería la participación de Colombia en el Escudo de las Américas, una iniciativa impulsada por Trump para combatir al crimen en la región.

“Esa cooperación en el fondo es el camino a través del cual nosotros podemos garantizar seguridad, porque el

Last week (July 5-11) was defined by the transition from temporary, emergency U.S. surcharges toward a permanent, investigation-justified centralized trade architecture. The USTR’s launch of public hearings for the 60-nation forced labor tariffs signaled that Washington will lock in a new double-digit baseline duty structure before its temporary Section 122 fees expire.

This unyielding protectionist environment, spurred by prior legal constraints like the Court of International Trade’s invalidation of universal tariffs, has forced close trading partners like Canada and Cambodia to rapidly rewrite their domestic import laws to claim U.S. compliance exemptions. However, as the joint IMF-WTO summit confirmed that global commerce is becoming deeply uneven under these measures, the week closed with clear signs that the high compliance costs of the U.S. metal multiplier are driving a major manufacturing migration away from secondary regional partners, fundamentally squeezing the North American supply chain.

This Week’s Ocean, Air and Freight Markets

China-US Ocean Freight Market:

CEA to USWC: According to Freight Right’s TrueFreight Index, spot rates eased this week, falling from the mid-$7,000 range to the mid-$6,000 range. Carriers have reintroduced fixed-rate space and special-rate allocations, bringing pricing down by approximately $1,000 per container from the early July peak.

Despite the lower pricing, booking volumes remain soft as many importers continue delaying shipments while waiting for greater clarity on U.S. tariff policy.

CEA to USEC: Rates to the East Coast, however, declined more moderately, with carriers offering more competitive pricing and improved space availability to stimulate demand. While pricing remains elevated compared to historical norms, the week-over-week decline reflects weakening booking activity rather than increased capacity constraints.

Importers continue adopting a wait-and-see approach, limiting any meaningful rebound in demand despite lower freight costs.

Freight Right’s Lowest Rate indicators are finding that importers can find spot rates as low as $4,680 from China to U.S. West Coast and $6,700 from China to U.S. East Coast.

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Millions of older Americans are targeted by financial scams each year. One analysis published by the U.S. Department of the Treasury found $27 billion in suspected elder financial exploitation in just a 12-month period. As digital banking, payments and communication become more common, scammers have more ways to reach victims and impersonate trusted institutions. Phishing scams, including business imposter and government imposter fraud, are among the most common methods used to target older Americans.

SmartAsset analyzed fraud reports filed with the Federal Trade Commission by state and age group to determine which areas show the highest rate of reported scams involving residents aged 60 and older. The analysis also identified the most common scam type targeting older Americans in each state.

Key Findings

• This popular retirement state recorded the highest rate of reported scams involving older Americans. Arizona led the analysis with seven reports involving residents aged 60 and older per 1,000 people in that age group. Delaware and Colorado followed in the rankings.
• North Dakota recorded the lowest rate of reported scams involving older Americans. With just three reports involving residents age 60 and older for every 1,000 people in that age group, North Dakota had the fewest reported incidents in the analysis.
• Business imposter scams were the most commonly reported scam type involving older Americans in most states. Among the 10 most common scam types, older Americans most often reported business imposter scams in every state except Alaska, Iowa, Maryland, South Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia. In those states, residents most often reported government imposter scams.
• Older Americans report job fraud and online shopping fraud less often than younger groups. Nationwide, reports involving older Americans were less likely than those involving younger age groups to cite either scam type. 

States Where Older Americans are Targeted for Financial Fraud

1. Arizona
   Fraud reports involving victims ages 60 and older per 1,000: 7
   Share of all fraud reports involving victims ages 60 and older: 12%
   Top scam type affecting victims ages 60 and older: Business imposters
2. Delaware
   Fraud reports involving victims ages 60 and older per 1,000: 6.9
   Share of all fraud reports involving victims ages 60 and older: 10%
   Top scam type affecting victims ages 60 and older: Business imposters
3. Read more

It’s rare in an era of partisan division to hear a veteran of the Clinton and Obama presidencies agreeing with a right-leaning economist who worked for George W. Bush.

Yet these prominent voices from opposite ends of the political spectrum teamed up to mostly praise a law passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Donald Trump.

The purpose of the law: to protect college students from borrowing federal money to enroll in programs that give them little or no financial payoff when they graduate.

This new rule is “the greatest step forward in increased accountability” for colleges since the creation more than a decade ago of the federal College Scorecard website, which discloses graduates’ earnings by institution. That was the conclusion of Bob Shireman, a senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation, and Beth Akers, who holds the same title at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, or AEI.

The new accountability rule is among a series of measures that the left-leaning advocacy group EdTrust calls the most dramatic changes to higher education policy in nearly two decades. Many were part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or OBBBA, and will become effective this year. And several could improve protections and lower costs for families and students.

It may seem a surprise to hear bipartisan acclaim for laws affecting higher education passed by this White House and its congressional allies. After all, such reforms come against the backdrop of bans on diversity policies, restrictions on international students, cuts to research funding, huge fines on elite universities, and Trump’s relentless rhetorical attacks on “radical,” “woke” campuses.

But “there are definitely some positive steps that have been taken,” too, said Catherine Brown, senior director for policy and advocacy at the National College Attainment Network, or NCAN, who particularly likes an “earnings indicator” added to the FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid. That tool warns college applicants that graduates from a particular school with the majors they’re considering have historically earned no more than those with only a high school diploma.

“A lot of times the big headlines — like, ‘We want to cut funding for higher education’ — create a culture where it’s not easy to see improvements that are being made,