While U.S. homicide rates have been plummeting, especially in the last year, one type of murder has been steadily increasing: domestic-violence-related killings. And many are worried the rise could be part of a larger trend of domestic violence. 

Increases in cities and states
There’s no singular database for tracking domestic violence killings, but records from individual cities and states show a near-universal rise. In Chicago, homicides dropped by nearly half between 2021 and 2025, but domestic violence deaths in 2025 rose by 15%, according to Chicago Police Department statistics. In Kansas City, Missouri, overall homicides have fallen since 2023, but 2025 marked the city’s “second deadliest year for domestic violence since 2014,” said Jackson County, Missouri, officials in a press release. 

Statewide domestic violence killings are also surging. Massachusetts, for instance, had a 19% increase from the prior year, according to a report from the state’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team.

‘Nearly impossible to pinpoint’
Officials and anti-domestic-violence advocates have called for more resources to be pooled into preventing these killings. The “number-one need articulated over and over again is housing, and number two is legal support,” said Nikhita Ved, the chief programs officer at the National Domestic Violence Hotline, to The Guardian. In 2020, the hotline received “nearly 637,000 calls. In 2025, it “answered a million,” said the outlet.

Even in states like Maine where overall crime has dropped, concerns over domestic violence killings remain. “Very, very frequently, the victim of homicide has told someone in their life, ‘I’m afraid that my partner is going to kill me,’” said Francine Stark, the executive director of the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, to WGME-TV Portland. 

Though it’s “nearly impossible to pinpoint a single cause for stubbornly high rates of domestic violence homicides,” the “resources to prevent such tragedies are well-known,” said Ved to The Guardian. But concerns about funding have arisen during the Trump administration, as officials “cut hundreds of millions in grants from research institutions and domestic violence prevention and response nonprofits that serve people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities.”

While it has long been known that poor air quality from the rubble of the World Trade Center triggered health problems for New York residents, documents released by the Mamdani administration on Tuesday reveal officials may have known about these problems far earlier than they let on. And they are inspiring renewed scrutiny of New York City’s government.

What’s in the documents?
Over 170,000 pages of documents about the Sept. 11 cleanup were posted on an online portal set up by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D). The release ends a “multiyear legal battle over records concerning air quality and health concerns,” said the mayor’s office in a press release. The documents suggest that officials intentionally misled New York City residents about the toxic air from the World Trade Center site.

People living near Ground Zero were “repeatedly reassured by officials that the air was safe, despite internal data and residents’ experiences that contradicted their claims,” said CNN. Some of the documents prove that officials had concerns over environmental testing performed just one month after the attacks and that these tests “regularly detected elevated levels of toxins, including asbestos and hard-to-detect, dangerous chemicals.”

One notable memo sent in October 2001 to then-New York City Deputy Mayor Robert Harding described how the city could shield itself from lawsuits related to toxic air at Ground Zero. Officials were concerned these cases could arise because city health advisories led people to “return to the area too soon,” said the memo. 

What next?
The latest tranche of documents appears to “only contain a fraction of the air-quality reports taken at Ground Zero,” said CNN. The city will “publish thousands more documents in the next 12 months,” said New York City Corporation Counsel Steve Banks, per Gothamist. 

At least $34.2 million has been allocated to create the document portal and keep it updated. While about 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, said Gothamist, nearly “three times more people have died as a result of health complications in the aftermath of the attacks.”

A girl stands amid debris after a fire destroyed two schools in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At least 24 children were killed, said Reuters. The blaze was “followed by a violent stampede that forced students to trample over one another,” said an official to AFP.
Jospin Mwisha / AFP / Getty Images

TIt’s going to be a big season for museum lovers. Major exhibitions focusing on a legendary tapestry, extraordinary needlework created by American schoolgirls, and bejeweled Islamic art are opening, each one displaying priceless objects from around the globe. 

The Bayeux Tapestry
One of the most important works in European history is the Bayeux Tapestry (pictured above), a nearly 230-foot-long embroidered cloth that tells the tale of the 1066 Norman conquest of England. The remarkable piece of art is almost 1,000 years old and the hottest ticket in London. (through July 11)

‘From the Louvre: Masterpieces of Islamic Art’ 
This groundbreaking exhibition of 26 objects from the Louvre’s permanent Islamic art collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., marks the first time the museum has loaned the set to another institution. All of the objects — paintings, jade, ceramics, glass and metalwork — are from the 7th to 19th centuries. (Sept. 26-Jan. 18)

‘Losing Ourselves Together: The Art of Bobby Anspach’ 
The Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio invites you to enter the world of Bobby Anspach. The late Toledo-born artist created sculptural installations, and “Losing Ourselves Together” is “anchored” by his immersive “eye machines,” which use “light, sound and carefully constructed optical effects” to alter your sense of “time and space,” said the museum. At your visit’s end, stop in the reflection room, a space for “contemplation and relaxation.” (Oct. 17-March 14)