CNN – National

By Zoe Sottile, CNN Fifties’ child star Gayla Peevy’s plea for a “hippopotamus for Christmas” came true for one Virginia zoo. The Metro Richmond Zoo welcomed the birth of a pygmy hippopotamus in time for Christmas, according to a December 22 news release from the zoo. The adorable newborn was born on December 6, says

By Zoe Sottile, CNN A Kentucky woman brought home the best present at her office gift exchange. Lori Janes, from Louisville, won $175,000 after receiving a lottery ticket at her office holiday party, according to a news release from the Kentucky Lottery. Janes, an officer manager and treatment coordinator at Harmon Dental Center, participated in

By Zenebou Sylla, CNN A fire on board a JetBlue Airways plane forced more than 160 passengers to evacuate using emergency slides at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday, fire department officials said. The incident — which happened shortly after the flight from Barbados landed at the airport — may have started

By Camila Bernal, Sarah Moon, and Paradise Afshar, CNN More than 300 people stayed overnight at the El Paso Convention Center in Texas, as the community works to accommodate a growing number of migrants, El Paso’s Strategic Communications Director Laura Cruz-Acosta told CNN via email Saturday. The city recently declared a state of emergency as

By Zoe Sottile, CNN An “unhappy” 16-foot albino reticulated python was rescued by an animal shelter in Austin, Texas on Monday — after being missing for months. The Austin Animal Center wrote on its verified Facebook page that they received a call about the huge reptile on Monday. “Due to the temperatures the snake was

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN There’s still time to win big at the lottery before the year is up. The Mega Millions jackpot has grown to an estimated $565 million after no one took home the top prize in Friday’s drawing. The next drawing is set for December 27, and if someone wins the jackpot, it

By Amanda Musa and Harmeet Kaur, CNN Two Indianapolis police officers had spent the day searching in vain for a missing baby in a stolen vehicle when they stopped to eat and gather their wits. A woman suspected of stealing the 2010 black Honda Accord had been taken into custody earlier that day, on December

By Amanda Jackson, CNN Santa Claus has packed his sleigh with toys for all the good kids and he has made sure the reindeer are secured for takeoff. Now, they are traveling around the world to visit millions of households. While you are waiting to hear the jingle of bells in the air that means

By Adrienne Broaddus, CNN Marzena Stasieluk needed a new kidney. She’d been diagnosed with kidney disease in 2015, and ultimately needed dialysis, a grueling process where a machine did the work her kidneys could no longer do. But in order for a kidney transplant to succeed, she needed a liver first. Stasieluk’s liver disease had

By Eric Levenson, Rebekah Riess and Wayne Sterling, CNN The NFL’s Tennessee Titans delayed its scheduled noon CT game by an hour due to temporary rolling blackouts in the region that stemmed from the winter storm and brutal cold. “Due to the extreme weather and power outages affecting our region, kickoff for today’s game has

By Tina Burnside and Harmeet Kaur, CNN Three people, including two minors, have been charged in connection with the Friday shooting at Minnesota’s Mall of America, the largest shopping center in the US, that left a 19-year-old dead, Hennepin County District Court spokesperson Matt Lehman said. Taeshawn Adams-Wright is charged with second-degree murder with intent

By Aya Elamroussi, Derrick Hinds, Travis Caldwell, Maureen Chowdhury, Aditi Sangal and Tori B. Powell, CNN The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

By Rob Frehse and Melissa Gray, CNN A Vietnam-era veteran in Massachusetts can call himself lucky for life after winning six lottery prizes of $25,000 a year for life — in the same drawing. Raymond Roberts Sr., of Fall River, matched the first five numbers on six tickets he bought for a Lucky for Life

By Rob Frehse, CNN Adnan Syed, recently exonerated after spending over two decades behind bars, is now working as a program associate for Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative, the school announced. The initiative “addresses the root causes and consequences of mass incarceration and offers educational programs and training for incarcerated individuals and returning citizens,”

By Zoe Sottile, CNN A statue of Henrietta Lacks, whose cells were used without her consent in crucial medical research, will replace a monument to Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Roanoke, Virginia. Lacks, a Black mother of five receiving treatment for cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital, was undergoing radium treatments in 1951 when