CNN – National

By Rebekah Riess and Zoe Sottile, CNN A woman hiking with a group of friends in the Columbia River Gorge outside Portland, Oregon, died on Friday after falling approximately 100 feet and suffering a head injury, say officials. Deputies from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and firefighters from the Corbett Fire District responded to a

By Chuck Johnston and Zoe Sottile, CNN Eight students were injured after their school bus crashed on Friday in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, says the school district. The bus was carrying students from New Heights Middle School and Jefferson Elementary School when it crashed at 4:00 p.m. in the Jefferson area, according to a Facebook

By Laura Studley and Zoe Sottile, CNN Officials have identified four people killed in the McKinney Fire in California as residents of the same community. Kathleen Shoopman, 73, Charles Kays, 79, Judith Kays, 82, and John Cogan, 76, were all residents of Klamath River, the Siskiyou County Sheriff said in a tweet on Friday. Officials

By Wayne Sterling and Zoe Sottile, CNN The injured Little League player who fractured his skull after falling from his bunk bed on Monday continues to face challenges in his recovery, including swelling which may block his vision. Doctors told the parents swelling in 12-year-old Easton “Tank” Oliverson’s face has increased, according to an Instagram

By Zoe Sottile, CNN If you see a squirrel splayed on its belly, you might be worried for the critter’s welfare. But don’t worry: It’s just “splooting,” as officials say — and it’s perfectly healthy. The term splooting exploded on the internet shortly after the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation posted about

By Zoe Sottile and Tina Burnside, CNN A partial foot inside a shoe was found floating in one of the deepest hot springs in Yellowstone Park, prompting an investigation by the National Park Service. An employee made the discovery Tuesday, according to a statement from Morgan Warthin, public affairs officer for Yellowstone National Park. The

By Nicquel Terry Ellis, CNN Samson Williams was working in the mortgage lending industry in 2014 when a colleague convinced him to invest in cryptocurrency. At the time, Williams didn’t know much about cryptocurrency but decided to invest a little more than $200 to see where it would get him. “No one knew what it

By Paradise Afshar, CNN A 25-year-old wildland firefighter was killed after being struck by a tree while battling the Rum Creek Fire in Oregon, officials said Friday, marking the second fire personnel death in the state this month. Logan Taylor of Talent, Oregon, was critically injured Thursday, according to a joint statement from the Oregon

By Caroll Alvarado, CNN Uber driver Fritz Sam is being hailed a “hero” by the company’s CEO after he sprang into action and helped evacuate residents from a burning building in New York City. Sam was driving his passenger, Jemimah Wei, through Brooklyn to the airport around 8 a.m. on Wednesday when they came across

By Chuck Johnston, CNN A county NAACP chapter in northern Alabama is calling for the resignation of a school board member and local Republican Party chairman, who says his sharing on social media of a GOP elephant logo that included KKK imagery was unintended. The Facebook page of the Lawrence County Republican Party had included

By Yenny Sanchez, CNN US Customs and Border Protection officers in Ohio seized three shipments of counterfeit watches and jewelry worth an estimated street value of nearly $7 million, officials said. The officers intercepted the shipments from Hong Kong in Cincinnati, CBP said in a news release earlier this month. They contained more than 800

By Amanda Musa, CNN A pregnant woman in Louisiana alleges that she was denied an abortion despite the fetus being diagnosed with a fatal condition. At about 10 weeks, Nancy Davis’ baby was diagnosed with acrania, a rare congenital disorder in which a fetus’ skull does not form inside of the womb, according to a

By Paradise Afshar, CNN A Utah judge granted a preliminary injunction Friday allowing transgender girls to compete on girls’ teams, but they will not be automatically eligible to play. The decision “will allow transgender girls to compete on girls’ teams only when it is fair, as confidentially determined by a legislature-created commission,” according to the

By Jade Gordon, CNN The city council in Vincent, Alabama, voted to abolish its police department on Thursday, at least temporarily, two months after one of the officers sent a text message containing racist language to a colleague. The council had previously voted to dissolve the three-member police department over the texts that were sent

By Claudia Dominguez and Sharif Paget, CNN A massive boatyard in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts on Friday filled the skies above Buzzard’s Bay with black smoke and damaged dozens of boats and cars as well as several structures, CNN affiliate WCVB reported. “We had a tremendous amount of fire in the main building and surrounding buildings,” Mattapoisett

By Paul Vercammen, CNN Doreen Jansen looked at the brown hills from her Thousand Oaks home. “My plants are suffering,” Jansen said. “The animals, coyotes, rattlesnakes; they are all out in droves. It’s dry and unusually hot.” The signs of drought are everywhere here, from the shrinking lakes to the deathly drained color of trees

By Chuck Johnston, CNN Eighty-five suspects were arrested and over $12.8 million in drugs were confiscated in a two-year undercover drug trafficking investigation, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said on Friday. The investigation entitled, “Operation Flying Ice,” stemmed from a September 2020 search warrant in Winter Haven, Florida, that netted just one pound of methamphetamine.