CNN – National

By Celina Tebor and Eric Levenson, CNN The flashy, jewelry-flaunting Brooklyn pastor who reported being robbed while preaching at his church this past summer was arrested on federal charges Monday — unrelated to the July incident — for allegedly defrauding a parishioner, trying to extort a businessman and lying to the FBI, according to a

By Kristina Sgueglia and Nicki Brown, CNN New York City unveiled the “Gate of the Exonerated” in Central Park Monday to honor the group of Black and Hispanic teens known as the “Central Park Five” who were wrongfully convicted of beating and raping a White female jogger in the park more than 30 years ago.

By Ray Sanchez and Eric Levenson, CNN A jury began deliberations Monday on a sentence for the former Texas police officer who was convicted of manslaughter last week for shooting Atatiana Jefferson in her own home in 2019. Aaron Dean, the 38-year-old White former Fort Worth police officer, faces up to 20 years in prison

By Matt Lait and Samira Jafari, CNN Drew Griffin, CNN’s award-winning Senior Investigative Correspondent, known for getting even the cagiest of interview subjects to engage in a story, died Saturday after a long battle with cancer, his family said. He was 60. A gifted storyteller, Griffin had a well-earned reputation for holding powerful people and

By Gloria Pazmino, CNN As New York continues to grapple with a growing influx of asylum-seekers, two buses carrying migrants arrived in the city Sunday, with at least 10 to 15 more buses expected over the next few days, according to an email from Mayor Eric Adam’s office obtained by CNN. The email sent Sunday

By Pete Muntean and Chris Boyette, CNN At least 36 people on a Hawaiian Airlines flight were injured, with 20 taken to emergency rooms, after their plane encountered “severe turbulence” on a flight from Phoenix to Honolulu on Sunday, authorities said. Eleven patients were in serious condition, Honolulu Emergency Medical Services said in a statement.

By Rosa Flores, CNN Border authorities in the Rio Grande Valley have encountered between 900 and 1,200 migrants daily during the past two weeks, according to a federal law enforcement source familiar with daily operations in South Texas. These types of numbers are reminiscent of the 2019 surge, when agents encountered at least 1,000 migrants

By Zoe Sottile, CNN The Big Apple is getting just a little bit brighter tonight. The world’s largest menorah will be lit on Sunday night in Manhattan to mark the start of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. The 36-foot tall menorah was erected in Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza, near midtown, on Thursday. Israeli artist

By Amir Vera, Hannah Sarisohn and Tina Burnside, CNN In the span of three weeks, shootings in Atlanta have killed four children between the ages of 11 and 16, and Mayor Andre Dickens said Sunday the recent trend is unacceptable. “A week before Christmas, families should be preparing to celebrate,” Dickens wrote in a statement.

By Melissa Alonso and Zoe Sottile, CNN An iguana caused “a large-scale outage” in Lake Worth Beach, Florida earlier this month — the third iguana-triggered outage in the city this year. The outage impacted about 1,400 customers in Lake Worth Beach in Palm County, city spokesman Ben Kerr told CNN. The power was restored within

By Eric Levenson and Tina Burnside, CNN The parents of missing 11-year-old North Carolina girl Madalina Cojocari were arrested Saturday for failure to report her missing, the Cornelius Police Department said in a news release. Madalina’s mother Diana Cojocari, 37, and her stepfather Christopher Palmiter, 60, were arrested on Saturday for failure to report the

By Yenny Sanchez, CNN Here’s your flippin’ chance to name a baby penguin. The Tulsa Zoo is asking the public for help naming an African penguin chick that hatched to parents Dassen and Ireland on October 3. Since the chick’s sex hasn’t yet been determined, the zoo has provided three gender-neutral names to vote on:

By Tina Burnside, CNN A man and woman in Arkansas have been arrested and face capital murder charges after the body of the woman’s 6-year-old son was discovered beneath the floor of a home Friday night, according to the Arkansas State Police. The mother, 28-year-old Ashley Roland, and Nathan Bridges, 33, are being held at

By AJ Willingham, CNN Welcome to the weird two-week stretch where nothing really gets done and everyone’s just riding it through the holidays. (Well, unless you work in the restaurant industry, or shipping, or retail, or the healthcare industry, or janitorial services, or at a gas station, or an airport, or a place of worship,

By Rikki Klaus, CNN When high school student Trevor Reed was automatically enrolled in a Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) class in 2020, both he and his mother objected. “We don’t have to look far outside of our family to see the effect that the military has, especially when you have to go off

By John Blake, CNN On a frigid December night outside a suburban Chicago church, a group of parents and wide-eyed children line up to see Santa Claus. He awaits them with the classic St. Nick look: pink, cherubic cheeks, twinkling eyes, a gray beard and a plump belly — squeezed into a red suit with