What are the best practices for storing news data in a MySQL database using PHP, especially when dealing with timestamps?

When storing news data in a MySQL database using PHP, it is important to properly handle timestamps to ensure accurate and efficient data retrieval. One best practice is to store timestamps in UTC format to avoid timezone conversion issues. Additionally, using MySQL's datetime data type for timestamp columns can simplify querying and manipulation of date and time values.

// Example of storing news data with timestamps in a MySQL database using PHP

// Connect to MySQL database
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "news_database");

// Set timezone to UTC
date_default_timezone_set('UTC');

// Get current timestamp in UTC format
$timestamp = date("Y-m-d H:i:s");

// Prepare SQL statement to insert news data
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare("INSERT INTO news (title, content, timestamp) VALUES (?, ?, ?)");
$stmt->bind_param("sss", $title, $content, $timestamp);

// Assign values to variables $title and $content
$title = "Breaking News";
$content = "This is a breaking news article.";

// Execute SQL statement
$stmt->execute();

// Close statement and connection
$stmt->close();
$mysqli->close();