CNN – National

By Rob Kuznia. Photographs by Andrea Ellen Reed for CNN Marnette Gordon was doing laundry at home in Minneapolis one summer morning last year when a call came from her 36-year-old son. She figured her son, Telly Blair, was checking in to see if she wanted a soda from a gas station down the street,

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN Wildfire activity in California has been notably low this year, experts tell CNN, particularly compared to 2020 and 2021 when devastating wildfires erupted across the state and burned millions of acres by the time summer ended. California has had several severe fires this year, including the Mosquito Fire, which continues to

By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN When her firstborn exhibited extreme sensitivity to smell, sound and touch, along with some obsessive-compulsive tendencies, Sarah Howard wondered if it was her fault, if she’d done something to harm her baby boy during her pregnancy. She just didn’t know. She and her husband, Andrew, had only recently moved to

By Virginia Langmaid and Brandon Tensley, CNN Dante Lee thought he was opening an investment book. But what he found inside shocked and appalled him. In a TikTok video posted this month, Lee says he was looking forward to reading “From the Block to the Bank: How to Make the Most of Your Circumstance to

By Zoe Sottile, CNN Sunday is the start of Rosh Hashanah, also known as the Jewish New Year, which marks the beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days. The millennia-old holiday is an occasion for reflection and is often celebrated with prayer, symbolic foods, and the blowing of a traditional horn called a shofar. This

By Andy Rose and Paradise Afshar, CNN Colorado police have released videos showing a train hitting a police cruiser in which a detained suspect was handcuffed. The Fort Lupton Police Department released body camera and dashcam video on Friday showing Yareni Rios-Gonzalez inside the patrol car that was hit by a train. Rios-Gonzalez is hospitalized

By Alaa Elassar, CNN Iranian Americans are staging demonstrations across the United States this weekend in solidarity with ongoing protests in Iran over the death of a 22-year-old woman who collapsed while in custody of morality police. “Join us in solidarity and be the voice of the Iranian people who are getting brutally suppressed for

By Ray Sanchez, CNN Photographs by Elijah Nouvelage for CNN At the end of Valencia Street in this southeastern coastal town, Carmen Baez was proud that neighbors were using her washing machine valves to collect fresh water. The valves, sprouting like flowers from the ground, were all that was left of her small house near

By Martha Shade, CNN Police encounters with people dealing with mental health issues can go very wrong, very quickly. Often, the presence of a law enforcement officer can escalate the situation. “A lot of people with special needs may not react very well to a police in uniform, but they may just react very well

By Zoe Sottile, CNN Visitors at the Virginia Zoo had the experience of a lifetime after a giraffe unexpectedly gave birth in front of them. Imara, an endangered Masai giraffe, gave birth to her ninth calf on September 9, according to a Facebook post from the zoo. Masai giraffes, one of four giraffe subspecies, are

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN Spotted lanternflies are thriving in the Northeast this summer. In New York City, where this year’s invasion seems particularly extreme, people squash them on the streets, on railings and even on their restaurant tables. The exterior walls of Big Apple buildings are blanketed with speckled, red bugs. Some are dead. Some

By Christina Maxouris, CNN Photos by Austin Steele, CNN Videos by Matthew Gannon, CNN When Ram moved to the Boulder Walk neighborhood just southeast of Atlanta five years ago, it felt like finding a hidden gem: It was a diverse, affordable and family-friendly community just steps away from the local high school, bordering a forest

By Zoe Sottile, CNN Over two years after they were removed from California’s San Gabriel Mountains due to the Bobcat Fire, endangered mountain yellow-legged frogs have been released into their native habitat. The Aquarium of the Pacific acquired a total of 275 mountain yellow-legged frog tadpoles last July, according to Erin Lundy, who helps care

By Zenebou Sylla, CNN A high school football player died nearly two weeks after he was “critically injured” during a football game, the Linden, New Jersey, Public School District said in a statement. Xavier McClain,16, was a sophomore playing for the Linden Tigers varsity boys football team when he suffered a head injury during a

By Andy Rose, CNN A dugout canoe used by indigenous people 3,000 years ago recently recovered from Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota is the oldest canoe ever found in the Great Lakes region, the Wisconsin Historical Society said Thursday. The canoe, which was found in pieces in the lake bed, was removed in collaboration with Wisconsin’s Native