By CHRISTINA LARSON, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Humans are the only animal that lives in virtually every possible environment, from rainforests to deserts to tundra.

This adaptability is a skill that long predates the modern age. According to a new study published Wednesday in Nature, ancient Homo sapiens developed the flexibility to survive by finding food and other resources in a wide variety of difficult habitats before they dispersed from Africa about 50,000 years ago.

“Our superpower is that we are ecosystem generalists,” said Eleanor Scerri, an evolutionary archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany.

Our species first evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago. While prior fossil finds show some groups made early forays outside the continent, lasting human settlements in other parts of the world didn’t happen until a series of migrations around 50,000 years ago.

“What was different about the circumstance of the migrations that succeeded — why were humans ready this time?” said study co-author Emily Hallett, an archaeologist at Loyola University Chicago.

Earlier theories held that Stone Age humans might have made a single important technological advance or developed a new way of sharing information, but researchers haven’t found evidence to back that up.

This study took a different approach by looking at the trait of flexibility itself.

The scientists assembled a database of archaeological sites showing human presence across Africa from 120,000 to 14,000 years ago. For each site, researchers modeled what the local climate would have been like during the time periods that ancient humans lived there.

“There was a really sharp change in the range of habitats that humans were using starting around 70,000 years ago,” Hallett said. “We saw a really clear signal that humans were living in more challenging and more extreme environments.”

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While humans had long survived in savanna and forests, they shifted into everything from from dense rainforests to arid deserts in the period leading up to 50,000 years ago, developing what Hallett called an “ecological flexibility that let them succeed.”

While this leap in abilities is impressive, it’s important not to assume that only Homo sapiens did it, said University of Bordeaux archaeologist William Banks, who was not involved in the research.

Other groups of early human ancestors also left Africa and established long-term settlements elsewhere, including those that evolved into Europe’s Neanderthals, he said.

The new research helps explain why humans were ready to expand across the world way back when, he said, but it doesn’t answer the lasting question of why only our species remains today.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By FARNOUSH AMIRI

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations’ vast system has tackled everything from delivering life-saving humanitarian aid to providing crucial peacekeeping operations in conflict zones since it was established in the wake of World War II.

As the international body closes in on 80 years, questions about its relevancy and efficiency have sharpened from supporters and critics alike. Recent U.S. cuts to foreign assistance and the reevaluation of humanitarian contributions by other countries have forced a reckoning for the U.N.

The organization has long sought to highlight its unique role as the meeting place of global leaders, with an ambitious mandate to prevent another world war.

Staffers, however, say the U.N. does more than respond to civilians’ needs in war zones and debate resolutions in the Security Council.

“The things that are not on the radar of anyone, that nobody sees every day, that’s what we do everywhere, in more than 150 countries,” said Diene Keita, executive director for programs at the U.N.’s population agency.

Here are five things the U.N. does that you may not have known:

Providing training to women and girls who have faced gender-based violence

U.N. agencies facilitate programs worldwide focused on women, tied to education, financial literacy, employment opportunities and more. Among the most sensitive services provided are those for victims of gender-based violence.

In Chad, the U.N. Population Fund operates several rehabilitation programs for women and girls recovering from that trauma. One of them, Halima Yakoy Adam, was taken at age 15 to a Boko Haram training camp in Nigeria, where she and several other girls were forced to become suicide bombers. Adam managed to escape with severe injuries, while the others died in blasts.

Through U.N. programs on the islands of Lake Chad, Adam received health and reproductive services as well as vocational training. She is now working as a paralegal in her community to assist other women and girls.

“We are not created to stay,” Keita said of U.N. agencies’ long-term presence. “So this is embedded in what we do every single day. We have that humility in knowing that we make a difference, so that people do not need us the next day.”

Resettling refugees in Mexico

Images of refugees at U.S. and European borders show the migration crisis around the world. Often overlooked are the refugees who are resettled in communities outside American and European cities, ones that resemble their home countries and cultural upbringings.

Since 2016, the U.N.’s refugee agency has supported the integration of more than 50,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Mexico. They arrived in southern Mexico and were relocated to industrial cities after being screened and granted asylum by the government.

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The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees provides transportation, orientation and access to health, education and other social services. More than 650 companies have agreed to train and employ these people, whose labor has generated a $15 million annual contribution to the Mexican economy, according to the U.N.

According to U.N. estimates, 94% of these working-age refugees have secured formal employment within their first month in the country and nearly 90% of school-age children have enrolled in school. The U.N. program also provides what staffers describe as clear pathways to Mexican citizenship.

“Mexico has become a country where people forced to flee can find the stability they need to restart their lives with dignity,” Giovanni Lepri, the top U.N. refugee agency official in Mexico, said in March. “A strong asylum system and legal framework allows an effective integration of asylum-seekers and refugees.”

Eliminating exploding remnants of war

U.N. agencies are present throughout various phases of war, from delivering food, water and medical supplies in an active military zone to the iconic “Blue Helmets” — the military personnel deployed to help countries transition out of conflict.

Less attention is paid to efforts made after the dust has settled.

One of those initiatives, the United Nations Mine Action Service, was established in 1997 to facilitate projects aimed at mitigating the threat posed by unexploded munitions in countries years — and sometimes decades — after war.

The U.N. estimates that on average, one person is killed or injured by land mines and other explosive ordnance every hour.

In January, a 21-year-old man was harvesting olives in a Syrian orchard with two friends when they noticed a visible mine on the ground. Panicked, they tried to leave, but one of them stepped on a land mine and it exploded, amputating one of his legs above the knee.

A month later, in Cambodia, a rocket-propelled grenade believed to be more than 25 years old killed two toddlers when it blew up near their homes.

The U.N. program aims to work with communities in Syria, Afghanistan and Nigeria to safely locate and remove these remnants of war while providing education and threat assessments.

Since its inception, the U.N. says more than 55 million land mines have been destroyed and over 30 countries have become mine-free.

Teaching refugee girls self-defense in Kenya

In a refugee camp in northwest Kenya, dozens of girls 12 to 18 have gathered every Saturday at a women’s empowerment center to learn self-defense through a Taekwondo class.

The program, launched by the U.N.’s Population Fund last year, has focused on providing an outlet for girls who have either been victims of gender-based violence or are at risk of it after fleeing conflict zones in countries like South Sudan, Ethiopia and Congo.

The coaches are locals who understand the cultural and political dynamics their students face while living in a camp that is home to nearly 300,000 refugees.

The goal is to use sports activities to create safe spaces for women and girls to discuss various issues like period poverty, abuse and domestic conflict. The program, which the U.N. has replicated in Egypt and elsewhere, is funded by the Olympic Refuge Foundation.

Sex education by monks in Bhutan

Topics surrounding sex and reproductive issues were considered taboo for centuries in Buddhist communities. U.N. staffers have spent the past decade working with religious leaders in Bhutan and other countries in Asia to “desensitize” the topics they believe are crucial to a healthy society.

The campaign has led more than 1,500 nuns from 26 nunneries to hold discussions with community members around sexual and reproductive health and the prevention of gender-based violence.

Now, at least 50 monks are trained to provide counseling services on these topics to students across Bhutan’s 20 districts.

The U.N. says these partnerships, which began in 2014, have contributed to a decrease in maternal mortality, an increase in contraception use, and better reproductive care for pregnant women.

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for another 90 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.

Trump disclosed the executive order on the Truth Social platform Thursday morning.

“As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark. This extension will last 90 days, which the administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Tuesday.

It is the third time Trump has extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — took effect. The second was in April when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.

It is not clear how many times Trump can — or will — keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance. While there is no clear legal basis for the extensions, so far there have been no legal challenges to fight them. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a “warm spot for TikTok.”

TikTok praised Trump for signing an extension Thursday.

“We are grateful for President Trump’s leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users and 7.5 million U.S. businesses that rely on the platform as we continue to work with Vice President Vance’s Office,” the company said in a statement.

As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but it has not faced a legal challenge in court — unlike many of Trump’s other executive orders.

Jeremy Goldman, analyst at Emarketer, called TikTok’s U.S situation a “deadline purgatory.”

The whole thing “is starting to feel less like a ticking clock and more like a looped ringtone. This political Groundhog Day is starting to resemble the debt ceiling drama: a recurring threat with no real resolution.”

That’s not stopping TikTok from pushing forward with its platform, Forrester analyst Kelsey Chickering says.

“TikTok’s behavior also indicates they’re confident in their future, as they rolled out new AI video tools at Cannes this week,” Chickering notes. “Smaller players, like Snap, will try to steal share during this ‘uncertain time,’ but they will not succeed because this next round for TikTok isn’t uncertain at all.”

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For now, TikTok continues to function for its 170 million users in the U.S., and tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle were persuaded to continue to offer and support the app, on the promise that Trump’s Justice Department would not use the law to seek potentially steep fines against them.

Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.

Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Trump administration is once again “flouting the law and ignoring its own national security findings about the risks” posed by a China-controlled TikTok.

“An executive order can’t sidestep the law, but that’s exactly what the president is trying to do,” Warner added.

By BILL BARROW, OLIVIA DIAZ and MIKE CATALINI

HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (AP) — Abigail Spanberger opened her general election bid for Virginia governor Wednesday using her high school alma mater near Richmond.

“I grew up walking the halls of Tucker High School,” the former congresswoman says as she walks past a bank of lockers in her first ad since securing the Democratic nomination. Later, she notes her experience as a CIA case officer, then in the halls of Congress as a tough-minded, get-things-done lawmaker.

The same kind of message is echoing in New Jersey from Rep. Mikie Sherrill, as she also makes a bid for governor. Both women are selling themselves as Democrats who can rise above the rancor of Donald Trump’s Washington.

For national Democrats who have spent months debating how to counter the president’s aggressive second administration, it’s a reminder of what worked for the party during Trump’s first term. Spanberger and Sherrill were headliners in the 2018 roster of center-left Democrats who helped flip House control from Republicans with balanced appeals to moderates, progressives and even anti-Trump conservatives. Now, they’re leading statewide tickets in races that could offer Democrats a back-to-the-future path forward as they look toward next year’s midterms.

“There are a lot of similarities” in Democrats’ current position and the 2018 campaigns, said Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., who, as a House member, chaired his party’s congressional campaign arm during Trump’s first midterm election cycle.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., greets people during a “Get Out the Vote” rally, Saturday, June 7, 2025, in Elizabeth, N.J. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

The 2018 Democratic freshman class yielded a net gain of 40 seats with a lineup that featured record numbers of women and plenty of candidates with national security and business backgrounds. A similar effort yielded a net gain of six governors.

The party’s 2018 winners also included outspoken progressives like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, elected in more liberal, urban districts. But the balance of power shifted on the backs of centrist candidates who carried the nation’s suburbs and improved Democrats’ performance in exurbs and even small-town, GOP-dominated areas.

Among Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s freshman colleagues were Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, another former CIA analyst, who won a suburban Detroit seat before her elevation to the Senate last November; Rep. Jason Crow, a former Army officer, who represents suburban Denver; and Rep. Angie Craig, who flipped a GOP-held seat in greater Minneapolis and now is running for Senate. Crow is now co-chairman of candidate recruitment for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Similar resumes are popping up among new Democratic recruits. In Michigan, for example, Bridget Brink, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, announced her bid for Slotkin’s old 7th Congressional District on Wednesday by leaning into her international experience as a counter to Trump.

Luján said the common thread has been recruiting “real people, regular folks” with “incredible credentials” and an ability to hold “a real conversation with people around economic issues … around the kitchen table” and campaign in any area.

So even as New Jersey’s Sherrill calls her Republican rival Jack Ciattarelli a “Trump lackey” and Spanberger pledges in a fundraising email to “defeat Trump’s agenda at the ballot box,” their wider appeal depends on different arguments.

Sherrill has from the start touted her biography: a Naval Academy graduate, Navy Sea King helicopter pilot, federal prosecutor and mother of four. Her blue and gold yard signs have a chopper hovering above her name. She is also promising an “Affordability Agenda” to address voters’ economic concerns.

Spanberger, part of the Problem Solvers Caucus when she was on Capitol Hill, leans into her deal-making centrism, promises to confront economic gaps and has pledged to campaign in every Virginia congressional district, including where Trump has dominated.

“It’s not the job of the governor of Virginia to cater to President Trump,” Spanberger said in one of her final primary campaign speeches. “It’s not the job of the governor of Virginia to cater to a political party.”

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In an Associated Press interview earlier this spring, Spanberger even criticized former President Joe Biden for “posturing” by promising to eliminate student debt — something he could not accomplish by presidential action alone. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said.

She also bristled when asked to describe her place on the political spectrum. She instead said she set goals by asking, “How do I impact the most people in the fastest way possible?”

Jared Leopold, a Democratic strategist who worked as a senior staffer for the Democratic Governors Association during the 2018 cycle, said it’s notable that Spanberger and Sherrill avoid getting mired in the internal party tussle among progressives, liberals and moderates.

“Most voters aren’t really thinking about things along a simple left-right political spectrum,” especially in statewide races, Leopold said. “People are looking for politicians who they think understand them and can get things done to help them.”

He pointed to another 2018 Democratic standout: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Now a potential 2028 presidential candidate, Whitmer first gained national attention as a state legislator who spoke out about abortion rights and her experience of being raped as a college student. But she became a juggernaut in the governor’s race with what Leopold called a “brilliant and simple” slogan: “Fix the damn roads!”

Of course, Democrats do not dispute that a candidate’s military and national security experiences help neutralize routine Republican attacks of all Democrats as too liberal or out of touch.

“These credentials for how they’ve served the country — they’re just sharing who they are,” Luján said.

Said Leopold: “It certainly gives a different definition of what the Democratic Party is to some voters.”

In Virginia, Republican nominee and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who like Spanberger would become the first woman to serve in the state’s top elected office, is trying to tie the Democratic nominee to her national party.

Earle-Sears’ social media accounts frequently share pictures of Spanberger and Biden hugging and wearing masks. She accuses Spanberger of effectively rubber-stamping Biden’s legislative agenda while in Congress.

“Part of the challenge,” Spanberger retorts, “is that either my opponent or people who might be running anywhere, who don’t necessarily have things to run on, are going to try and distract.”

Spanberger, Sherrill and Democrats like them hope that most voters assess the GOP attacks and their own branding efforts like Fred Martucci, a retired glazier who voted early in Trenton, New Jersey.

The 75-year-old expressed a visceral distaste for Trump. As for what impresses him about Sherrill, he said: “She was a Navy helicopter pilot. You can’t be a dummy — she’s sharp.”

Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Barrow reported from Atlanta, Catalini from Trenton, New Jersey.