CNN – National

By Taylor Romine, CNN It’s a “near certainty” that a Philadelphia duplex fire that claimed 12 lives was started by a lighter igniting a Christmas tree on the second floor of the building, city Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said Tuesday. Thiel said that one of their sources of information, in combination with an exhaustive investigation,

By Sara Smart, CNN Two Los Angeles officers have lost an appeal and their jobs after an April 2017 game of Pokémon GO. Instead of responding to a nearby call, Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were caught searching for Pokémon characters through the Pokémon GO app, according to a ruling this month from a California

By Chris Boyette and Christine Sever, CNN The chief of staff for West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said the governor was “not doing well” after testing positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday. Justice is still in contact with his team and others, Brian Abraham told the West Virginia Gazette Mail in an interview Wednesday. “He’s getting

By Lauren M. Johnson, CNN Schools around the country have been experiencing teacher shortages, but one elementary school had a Major League Baseball star help pick up some of the slack. Harrison Bader, a center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, surprised students at Meramec Elementary School in Clayton, Missouri, on Monday when he showed

By Amir Vera and Amy Simonson, CNN Three men are in custody after federal and local authorities arrested them in connection with the fatal shooting of rapper Young Dolph. The rapper, whose real name was Adolph Robert Thornton Jr., was fatally shot November 17, 2021, at Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies in Memphis, Tennessee. The 36-year-old

By Paul P. Murphy and Holly Yan, CNN With more teachers sickened or sidelined by the highly contagious Omicron variant, school districts across the country have resorted to extraordinary measures to keep classrooms running. Cincinnati Public Schools averted the shutdown of 11 schools Monday by dispatching more than 60 staffers from the district’s central office

By Michelle Watson and Christina Maxouris, CNN A newborn baby is in stable condition after people looking through a dumpster found the infant and called authorities, said the acting police chief in Hobbs, New Mexico. Two men and a woman called 911 late Friday and reported they had found a baby. The group told officers

By Paul P. Murphy, CNN A federal judge in Oklahoma said Monday that he aims make a decision by the end of this week on a petition filed by two Oklahoma death row inmates requesting their executions be by firing squad rather than lethal injection. Lori Gray, courtroom deputy for US District Judge Stephen Friot,

By Amanda Jackson, CNN A Key West, Florida, bartender who had worked a busy New Year’s Eve shift helped police track down two men suspected of defacing the famous “Southernmost Point” buoy landmark. The anchored 20-ton concrete buoy in Key West sustained “extensive damage” after a Christmas tree was placed near it and lit on

By Leah Asmelash, CNN Ida B. Wells, the famed Black journalist who worked to expose the horrors of lynching, has now been immortalized by Barbie. The latest addition to Barbie’s “Inspiring Women” series, the Wells doll features the journalist in an 1800s-style high neck black dress, with her hair piled atop her head. “When kids

By Hannah Sarisohn and Caroll Alvarado, CNN Four people survived when a helicopter transporting a pediatric medical patient crashed in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, authorities said Tuesday. “At this time, there are no reported (injuries) to the public, responders, and only minor injuries to one of the helicopter crew members,” police in Upper Darby Township tweeted.