CNN – National

By Steve Almasy and Hollie Silverman, CNN As the floodwaters rapidly rose in her Waverly, Tennessee, home, Vanessa Yates climbed on the kitchen counters with her 4-month-old daughter in her arms and called for help. “I just felt like I was going to drown,” she told CNN’s Kate Bolduan. “It just happened so quickly.” “Everything

By Sonia Moghe, CNN A woman who said she was R. Kelly’s girlfriend for five years took the stand Monday to testify about how she went to audition for him as a 17-year-old high schooler who dreamed of becoming an R&B recording artist, only to be sexually abused by the singer. The woman testified anonymously

By Natasha Chen and Julia Jones, CNN Fireworks, flares, pepper spray and projectiles like soda cans flew between far-right and counterprotesters in Oregon over the weekend, with protesters stopping several lanes of traffic, smashing vehicle windows and instigating several fights. Police made one arrest near a demonstration in downtown Portland, but a police spokesperson said

By Amanda Jackson and Jennifer Henderson, CNN Igor Vovkovinskiy, crowned the tallest living man in the US by Guinness World Records in 2010, died Friday at 38, said his mother, Svetlana Vovkovinska. Vovkovinskiy was 7 feet, 8.33 inches tall, according to Guinness. He died in a hospital from heart disease with his mom and brother

By Laura Studley and Taylor Romine, CNN Employees at a Staten Island, New York, hospital are protesting Covid-19 vaccination and testing requirements from their parent healthcare network, as the area leads the city in new cases per capita and as hospitals in the nation’s hotspots are overrun. On August 16, Staten Island University Hospital, which

By Douglas S. Wood, CNN The Bakersfield Police Department in California will revise its policies after a four-year state investigation found that the department violated the constitutional rights of residents by using unreasonable deadly force and conducting unnecessary arrests, searches, and other practices. The changes include a ban of the use of electronic control weapons

By Pervaiz Shallwani, CNN New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea sent a message to members of the NYPD on Friday imploring them to get vaccinated after three members of the department died from Covid-19 in a single week. “Yet another member of our family lost their battle with Covid, Police Officer Sony Clerge of the

By Artemis Moshtaghian and Eric Levenson, CNN New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that all Department of Education staff for public schools across the city must be vaccinated against Covid-19, without a testing alternative. The landmark step, which came less than an hour after the US Food and Drug Administration granted full

By Rosa Flores and Ashley Killough, CNN From the front lawn of her friend’s house, Vicky Zapata went live on Facebook recently and burst into tears, praying. “We ask you God, that you heal our town, Father, from this disease,” Zapata said in the livestream. Inside the house, looking out through the glass front door,

By Ralph Ellis and Hollie Silverman, CNN Casey Hipshire knew flooding was possible, she said, but she thought the rainwater that filled the yard of her home in Middle Tennessee would recede. It didn’t. “All of a sudden it was like a tidal wave that just came over the road and into my yard,” she

By Taylor Romine and Mirna Alsharif, CNN It’s a picture that went viral and stunned people around the world earlier this week: Approximately 820 Afghan refugees packed aboard a US military C-17 plane. Men, women, and children all huddled together as they escape Taliban rule for a new life in the United States. As Americans