By Chris Lau and Junko Fukutome, CNN Tokyo (CNN) — It’s a steamy summer afternoon in the Japanese city of Osaka, where a group of around 60 men and women have gathered for a session of “omiai,” or matchmaking, to find true love. They mingle away, hopping from one end of the conference room at
Continue Reading By Emma Tucker, CNN (CNN) — Tens of thousands of people attending the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert are being told to conserve food, water and fuel as they shelter in place in the Black Rock Desert after a heavy rainstorm pummeled the area, festival organizers said. Attendees saw their campsites transformed by
Continue Reading By Jamiel Lynch and Ashley R. Williams, CNN (CNN) — An alligator bit a child at a New Orleans beach that has been officially closed to the public since 1964, a hospital spokesperson said. The child, whose age and condition were not released, was transported Friday to the Children’s Hospital of New Orleans after the
Continue Reading By Mark Morales, CNN (CNN) — The New York City Police Department will deploy a fleet of hi-tech drones during the Labor Day weekend to monitor complaints about large gatherings associated with West Indian American Day celebrations, a tactic that has been denounced by civil liberties advocates. Police enforcement for the yearly festivities, which culminate
Continue Reading By Lauren del Valle and Jean Casarez, CNN (CNN) — A law enforcement team in northeast Oklahoma believes the prolific serial killer known as “BTK” may be responsible for several additional unsolved missing person and homicide cases. Now they’re hoping the public can help them identify barns and silos in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri that
Continue Reading By Sophie Tanno and Eve Brennan, CNN (CNN) — Pope Francis formally began his 8,000-kilometer trip to Mongolia on Saturday, a country sandwiched between Russia and China that has a tiny Catholic population. Catholics from Mongolia and other countries, some seen waving Chinese flags, gathered in the main square of capital city Ulaanbaatar to catch
Continue Reading By Niamh Kennedy, Dan Wright and Olga Voitovych, CNN (CNN) — Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “moving forward” after Kyiv made some headway in its campaign to recapture territory seized by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday. “Ukrainian forces are moving forward. Despite everything and no matter what anyone says, we are advancing, and that
Continue Reading By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Some of our strongest memories can be rooted in scents and sounds. Human brains are wired in a way to make connections between memory and the senses, such as hearing a favorite song and recalling a road trip in which you listened to it on repeat — or smelling freshly baked
Continue Reading By Raja Razek, CNN (CNN) — A ship missing since the late 1800s has been discovered in Lake Michigan, the Wisconsin Historical Society said Friday. “Shipwreck hunters and historians Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck located the wreck of the schooner Trinidad in 270 feet of water off Algoma earlier this year,” read a Facebook post.
Continue Reading By Eve Brennan, Sophie Tanno, Niamh Kennedy and Olga Voitovych, CNN (CNN) — The Nobel Foundation has U-turned on a controversial decision to invite the ambassadors of Russia, Belarus and Iran to the Nobel Prize award ceremony after facing widespread criticism. The foundation announced in a press release Saturday that ambassadors from the three countries
Continue Reading By Michelle Watson, CNN (CNN) — A new law in Texas requires convicted drunk drivers to pay child support if they kill a child’s parent or guardian, according to House Bill 393. The law, which went into effect Friday, says those convicted of intoxication manslaughter must pay restitution. The offender will be expected to make
Continue Reading By Maxime Tamsett and Fabiana Chaparro, CNN (CNN) — A 100-year-old African tortoise named Biscuit has been reunited with his family after being rescued from a canal, according to the Parish of Ascension in Louisiana. A local animal control team rescued the tortoise on Wednesday after the sheriff’s office found it “in distress” in New
Continue Reading By Ashley R. Williams, CNN (CNN) — In what has become an unexpected annual tradition for a coastal city in Maine, gigantic inflatable ducks are once again floating in Belfast Harbor, and for the third year running, the mystery of how they got there has yet to be solved. The massive yellow ducks first appeared
Continue Reading CNN By Rob Picheta, CNN (CNN) — Mohamed Al-Fayed, the outspoken Egyptian tycoon who transformed the fortunes of two London institutions, the Harrods department store and Fulham Football Club, and waged a war of words with Britain’s royals after his son was killed in a car crash alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, has died, according
Continue Reading By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Indonesian archaeologist Thomas Sutikna was nursing a fever in a hotel room on September 2, 2003, when a coworker shared news of what turned out to be a once-in-a-generation discovery. Earlier that day, a colleague’s trowel had hit a tiny human-like skull encased in 6-meter (19.7-foot) deep sediment in
Continue Reading By Ana María Cañizares, Marlon Sorto and Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN (CNN) — Fifty prison guards and seven police officers have been freed after being taken hostage by inmates held in six prisons across Ecuador, authorities said, part of a coordinated protest against security operations being conducted inside the country’s violence-plagued penitentiaries. The protests began on
Continue Reading By Rachel Ramirez, CNN (CNN) — As Texas baked in record-breaking heat this summer and a growing drought pushed water levels down, a group of volunteers uncovered something sort of magnificent: new giant dinosaur tracks that are believed to be from around 110 million years ago. Paul Baker, the retail manager at Dinosaur Valley State
Continue Reading By Nouran Salahieh and Mitchell McCluskey, CNN (CNN) — “Persistent bear activity” forced fire crews to leave a camp in British Columbia, Canada, authorities said Thursday. The camp near the community of Gold Bridge was housing crews working on the Downton Lake wildfire, which was reported on July 13 and has consumed more than 9,000
Continue Reading By Rachel Ramirez and Eric Levenson, CNN (CNN) — When torrential rainfall in August 2022 pushed the Pearl River in Mississippi to surge well beyond its banks, floodwaters spilled into the suburbs of Jackson and led an already-hobbled water treatment plant to fail. It was the final stroke in what experts described as a yearslong
Continue Reading By Kocha Olarn, CNN (CNN) — Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has endorsed a cabinet proposed by the country’s new prime minister, Srettha Thavisin. The announcement was published on a Thai government website, Royal Gazette on Saturday. Srettha has also been confirmed as the country’s Finance Minister. Thailand’s parliament on Tuesday voted for Thavisin to be
Continue Reading