A popular hand warmer was recalled after sparking several fires. Here’s what you need to know to protect yourself while using heated gear.

Good running shoes can make the difference between a run realized and a run refused. It may take some trial and error to find the right pair for your feet and goals, but the payoff is real: You’ll have shoes that lay the groundwork for a comfortable, rewarding, and enduring pursuit — whether you’re running primarily for your health or for personal bests.

For this guide, we’ve gathered advice and insight from eight experts, read dozens of studies, and run more than 6,000 miles over the years. Our focus: go-to shoes for everyday runs. We take a look at the two main running shoe types (neutral and stability), the anatomy of a running shoe, and how a shoe should fit.

To find your best running shoes, you’ll likely need to try on several different pairs, either at your local running store (where you can leverage staff expertise to help you find the ideal fit) or in your living room (if you prefer to shop online). If you’re ordering from home, consider retailers that have solid return policies, such as Fleet Feet, REI, Road Runner Sports, Running Warehouse, and Zappos.

To help inspire your search, we have recommendations for women’s and men’s models and sizes, including dependable neutral trainers, stability shoes with various amounts of cushion, and a low-drop option.

The kit lens that came with your new mirrorless Canon camera will only take you so far. When you’re ready to amp your photography skills up to the next level, investing in better quality lenses will boost your photography prowess and show you what your camera is really capable of.

Canon’s RF-mount lens library is sparse compared with those of its rivals, thanks primarily to years spent working on the ill-fated EOS-M system. This situation is compounded by the fact that it only recently allowed third-party brands to make RF lenses. However, the catalog has been growing more quickly over the past year, providing plenty of choices for shooters new to the system.

If you’re new to Canon mirrorless cameras, we recommend starting with a fast prime lens, and then considering what kinds of photography pique your interest. Depending on what you want to shoot, you may want to upgrade the kit lens that came with your camera or add an everyday zoom, a telephoto zoom, a wide-angle zoom, a superzoom, a portrait lens, or a macro lens.

If you’re still considering your mirrorless camera options and which lenses to start with, take a peek at our lens guides for Nikon Z-mount, Fujifilm X-mount, and Sony E-mount cameras.

For people with mild to moderate hearing loss, over-the-counter hearing aids could be a more affordable and accessible alternative to a prescription pair.

This growing category of hearing devices relies on telehealth visits, online- and app-based hearing tests, and advanced earbud tech to give you direct access to a hearing-augmentation device that is tailored to your needs — often at a lower cost and with less of the hassle associated with professionally fitted hearing aids. But wading through all of the styles and confusing terminology can make finding the right pair feel overwhelming.

That’s why I spent over two years researching this subject and conducted three rounds of independent testing of hearing-augmentation devices that you can buy and adjust from home. Our testing included a diverse group of panelists; you can read about them in our How we picked and tested section. These devices range from basic, inexpensive sets to highly configurable hearing aids sold (at four-figure prices) directly through health-care sites. Since hearing aids are not a one-size-fits-all deal, I focused on finding options for different priorities, preferences, and budgets.

Of all the power tools, gas leaf blowers might have the worst reputation. They’re loud, they’re smelly, and so bad in so many ways that some cities and towns outright ban them or at least regulate the hours they can be used.

But cordless leaf blowers are another story. Thanks to battery advancements, you can now get the portability and power of a gas blower, but without the emissions, maintenance, or high-pitched squeal of a two-stroke engine.

We’ve been testing leaf blowers since 2014, and our current favorite is the cordless Ego Power+ 650 CFM Blower LB6504.

If you’re looking for a simple, small desktop computer for your home or office, consider a mini PC. These computers are best for everyday tasks such as working on documents and spreadsheets, browsing the web, taking video calls, or watching TV. However, our top picks are also powerful enough for editing media or compiling code.

The best mini PC for you depends on whether you prefer Mac or Windows. Apple’s Mac mini (M6) is one of the most powerful PCs we’ve tested, easily capable of coding, media editing, or running local AI models. If you’re more comfortable using Windows, the Lenovo Yoga Mini is the best option. It’s capable of swapping between multiple apps alongside dozens of tabs, though it’s not great for graphics-heavy tasks like media editing or gaming.

Nearly every kind of computer or PC component has gotten more expensive this year, with budget or niche products like mini PCs and lower-cost laptops increasing in cost by hundreds of dollars. However, we still think Apple makes the best mini PCs — even if they cost $300 more than they did in 2025.

A Mac desktop is best for people who don't need the portability of a laptop but still want all the features of macOS, such as iMessage and Apple Photos, and great performance with creative tools like Adobe software. Apple makes only a few desktops, and there are only two models that most people should consider, so we can sum up our advice in this guide in two sentences: If you want a Mac with an excellent built-in screen, get an iMac. If you want a less expensive desktop Mac with more ports and don’t mind buying or reusing a display, get a Mac mini.

There are so many things to do once you put your phone. Scroll our list for inspiration.

My kids will tell you I ruined their lives. They’ll tell you it was useless torture. There were no silver linings. The whole thing — all of it — was a complete waste of time and energy.

They’re wrong. Our monthlong digital detox was one of the best things we’ve ever done as a family.

From my perspective, it was enriching, challenging, character-building, cup-filling, soul-nourishing, and lots of other adjectives adults use. It was truly one of the best ideas I’ve had in a long time, and I am so grateful that we did it as a family. (But if my kids call me an unc one more time, I’ll put them on dishwasher-loading duty for a month.)

My family of four had phone habits that seemed problematically out of balance. Especially me — by being constantly connected, I was disconnected from actual, physical, tactile things. I would go to bed scrolling, sometimes for hours, then wake up in the morning and immediately pick up my phone again.

I knew we needed a reset, and I knew we needed to do it together.

I am not anti-tech. The internet, while sometimes oppressive and suffocatingly inescapable, makes our lives, my life, richer in innumerable ways. Much of my reporting and writing is rooted in internet culture. I’m fascinated by it. And it can be useful.

I wasn’t interested in cutting us off from digital devices entirely. We’re not living in a pioneer-era dreamworld like it’s Yesteryear in the New Jersey suburbs.

For my children to be independent, they need access to communication. They need to be out in the world, experiencing it, and if that means they are tethered to a smartphone, I’m all for it. Let’s say I commandeered their phones, and they needed to reach me to change the details on where and when to pick them up from sports practice. Good luck finding a pay phone.

They also explore and nourish their interests and hobbies via creators online. My younger daughter, Cece, can explain astronomy facts and fossil discoveries thanks to YouTube videos.

So instead of casting aside the internet completely, we took on this project to learn a far more useful skill: how to be intentional in our consumption of it. This topic seems to be everywhere lately, in the courts and in culture.

We strove to set modest limits and find balance. None of us can singlehandedly radically change or altogether avoid modern technology. But we can change how we interact with it by learning how to use tech tools as exactly that, tools.

We agreed that for a month we would:

• ban devices behind closed doors
• prohibit the kids’ screen time before noon
• limit ourselves to three hours of total daily screen time
• not multitask
• use our family laptop for necessary internet research

The goal: to own our devices and no longer have them own us.

Parental controls allow adults to set limits on their child’s smartphone use, and they serve as “training wheels” to help kids and teens build healthy tech habits.

After testing 14 parental-control options on both iOS and Android devices, using them to manage our kids’ daily screen time, we’re confident that Apple’s Screen Time is the best option for iOS households, while Google Family Link is best for Android households with kids under 13.

Qustodio is the better choice for Android households with children 13 and older, or if you’re looking for additional features such as setting more than two screen-time schedules. If you want notifications and closer monitoring of your child’s iPhone, we also have additional options.