CNN – National

By Zoe Sottile, CNN The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control has issued its first ever unicorn license. Madeline, a local 6-year-old, wrote a letter to the department requesting official approval for her to own a unicorn — if she could find one. In a handwritten letter posted to the department’s Facebook

CNN Editorial Research Here is a look back at the events of 2022. Notable US Events January 3 – The US Food and Drug Administration expands the emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine boosters to children ages 12 to 15. On January 5, the CDC updates its recommendations for the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine booster.

By Michelle Watson, CNN Father Michael Pfleger, the senior pastor of the St. Sabina Parish in Chicago, has been reinstated after an independent review board found “no reason” to keep him away following the latest accusation of sexual abuse against him. Pfleger posted a picture of the letter from the archbishop of Chicago to the

By Tricia Escobedo and Allie Torgan, CNN Nelly Cheboi, who in 2019 quit a lucrative software engineering job in Chicago to create computer labs for Kenyan schoolchildren, is the 2022 CNN Hero of the Year. Online voters selected her from among this year’s Top 10 CNN Heroes. Cheboi’s nonprofit, TechLit Africa, has provided thousands of

By Andrew Torgan, CNN If all goes according to plan, NASA’s Orion spacecraft will splash down in the Pacific later today. The agency’s Artemis I mission, the next step in preparing to return humans to the moon, lifted off on November 16. The uncrewed spacecraft traveled beyond the moon, reaching a maximum distance of nearly

By Sara Smart, CNN A 90-year-old woman will finally walk across the stage and receive her diploma, 71 years after she first enrolled in college. Joyce DeFauw, then Joyce Viola Kane, started her freshman year at Northern Illinois University in 1951 with a plan to graduate with a degree in home economics. But those plans

By Christina Maxouris, CNN There were a million things running through James Slaugh’s mind as he was rushed to a nearby hospital after the deadly rampage in Club Q, in Colorado Springs, last month. Among them: what kind of bills he would be facing. “My first night in the ER, that was in the back

By Nouran Salahieh, CNN As freed WNBA star Brittney Griner visits a Texas military medical facility following nearly 10 months of imprisonment in Russia, Jorge Toledo — one of the “Citgo 6” — spoke to CNN Saturday about how reintegration into society can take time and effort. Toledo was released in October as part of

By Zoe Sottile, CNN After over twenty years in captivity, Mark, the last of Albania’s “restaurant bears,” has safely arrived at his new home, an animal sanctuary in Austria, according to the animal rescue group Four Paws International. So-called “restaurant bears” have historically been kept in tiny cages near restaurants or hotels, where they served

By Nouran Salahieh and Paradise Afshar, CNN The eruption of the world’s largest active volcano — Mauna Loa in Hawaii — may soon come to an end, according to the US Geological Survey. Mauna Loa began erupting November 27, choreographing a spectacular display that sent rivers of molten rock gushing down its side and drawing

By Celina Tebor, CNN Attorneys representing the brother of Hae Min Lee, the teenager whose 1999 killing was investigated on the hit podcast “Serial,” requested a redo of the hearing in which a judge vacated the murder conviction of Adnan Syed. Syed had been accused of killing the teen and served more than 20 years

By Emma Tucker, CNN After spending 25 years in prison on murder convictions related to the 1996 shooting death of their friend, two Georgia men were exonerated this week, after new evidence uncovered in a true-crime podcast last year proved their innocence, their lawyers said. Darrell Lee Clark and his co-defendant Cain Joshua Storey were

By Taylor Romine and Ray Sanchez, CNN No injuries were reported after part of a cliff collapsed onto a beach Friday in coastal Palos Verdes Estates in Los Angeles County, the Southern California city said in a statement. The landslide, at 10 a.m. local time, forced the closure of the beach and comes as an

By Amanda Watts and Jason Hanna, CNN A New Orleans Police Department employee who was driving for Uber in her time off was stabbed to death by a passenger on Thursday, and a suspect has been arrested, authorities said. Yolanda Dillion, 54, picked up an Uber passenger in New Orleans and drove to the adjacent

By Zoe Sottile, CNN Ninety-five residents of Tampa, Kansas, had the opportunity to experience life in the other Tampa. The residents constitute almost all of the population of Tampa, Kansas, according to a news release from the Tampa International Airport. The trip was a collaboration between Visit Tampa Bay, the Florida city’s tourism marketing agency,