CNN – National

By Claire Colbert and Amy Simonson, CNN An 85-year-old woman walking her dog was killed Monday when an alligator pulled her into a nearby retention pond in southeast Florida, according to wildlife officials. Gloria Serge was walking her small dog along the pond in her community in Ft. Pierce when the alligator attempted to take

By Sara Smart and Jillian Sykes, CNN One of the 13 people taken to local hospitals after an explosion Monday at a metal factory near Oakwood, Ohio, has died, according to Captain Brian DiRocco with the Oakwood Village Fire Department. The explosion was at the I. Schumann & Co. building, a metal alloy factory, DiRocco

By Kiely Westhoff, CNN Workers from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation got a scaly surprise Sunday when they discovered an alligator in a Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, according to the department. A park maintenance staff member spotted the gator in Prospect Park Lake, said department spokesman Dan Kastanis. The 4-foot alligator was

By Cheri Mossburg and Dakin Andone, CNN The oldest Black church in California’s East Bay was devastated by a massive fire Sunday night that the church’s pastor said gutted its interior structure. Video showed heavy smoke and flames shooting from the roof of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Oakland, where the fire erupted

By Eric Levenson, CNN In opening statements of Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial, the prosecution went into a lengthy defense of the value and importance of circumstantial evidence. “A lot of times people hear, ‘Oh, it’s just a circumstantial case,’ but the law says otherwise,” prosecutor Creighton Waters told the jury. “The law says circumstantial evidence

By Alexandra Meeks, CNN Today is Presidents Day, a federal holiday in the US commemorating George Washington’s birthday and honoring the nation’s commanders in chief. Many Americans are off work today — and most banks and postal services will not be operating. If you plan to run errands today, see what else is open and

By Zoe Sottile, CNN A long-lost letter from George Washington hints at the first president’s financial woes, and it is expected to fetch $50,000 at auction. The Raab Collection, an auction house specializing in historical documents, announced the discovery of the letter in a news release Sunday. The letter was previously “unknown to scholars” and

By Nouran Salahieh, Holly Yan and Claire Colbert, CNN More than two weeks after a toxic train wreck unleashed plumes of black smoke, contaminated the soil and fueled anxiety in East Palestine, Ohio, residents have reported a growing number of ailments — from rashes to nausea to trouble breathing. Now, the state will open a

By Elizabeth Wolfe and Dakin Andone, CNN A man is in custody after one person was killed and four others — including a 4-year-old girl — were injured in a shooting Sunday night along a Mardi Gras parade route ahead of the city’s raucous celebration this week, the New Orleans Police Department said Monday. Mansour