CNN – National

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

By Steve Almasy, CNN The autopsy report for Elijah McClain, an unarmed Black man who died while in police custody in Colorado three years ago, has been changed to update the cause of death from “undetermined” to “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint,” Adams County Chief Coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan said Friday. In August 2019,

By Rebekah Riess and Theresa Waldrop, CNN A jury in Hunt County, Texas, on Thursday found former Wolfe City Police officer Shaun Lucas not guilty of murder in the 2020 killing of Jonathan Price outside a convenience store, court records show. Lucas, a 24-year-old White man, was charged with murdering Price, who was Black, after

By Jamiel Lynch and Theresa Waldrop, CNN Four residents of Jackson, Mississippi, have filed a class action lawsuit against the city, the mayor, a former mayor and several others regarding the city’s water issues. The 99-page complaint filed last week is asking for an unspecified amount of relief to “remediate the harm caused by lack

By Alexandra Meeks, CNN Halloween is still more than a month away, but some major retailers are already prepping for Christmas. Walmart and Target have said they’re getting an earlier start on the holiday shopping season this year in stores and online as households nationwide continue to grapple with persistently high inflation that’s forcing them

By Tina Burnside and Dakin Andone, CNN The state of Alabama halted the execution of a death row inmate Thursday evening due to an inability to meet protocols before a midnight deadline, officials say. Alan Eugene Miller was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection after a US Supreme Court ruling earlier Thursday vacated a

By Melissa Alonso and Dianne Gallagher, CNN A former top state official in Mississippi pleaded guilty Thursday to state and federal charges in connection to an embezzlement scheme that auditors say misused millions of welfare dollars, including funneling funds into projects linked to prominent Mississippians like former NFL star Brett Favre. Officials from the US

By Adrienne Broaddus and Christina Maxouris, CNN Roughly two and a half months after getting shot in the Highland Park, Illinois, Fourth of July attack and after multiple surgeries and weeks of rehabilitation, 8-year-old Cooper Roberts is back home — and the road to his “new normal” begins. “There was a time, not all that