CNN – National

By John Blake, CNN I was about five years old when I was abducted. It was one of the most beautiful days of my childhood. A couple of strangers lured me away from my front porch that summer afternoon. I knew they were intruders, but they somehow felt familiar. I wasn’t afraid. They were white

By Tina Burnside, Cheri Mossburg and Dakin Andone, CNN Officials in Davis, California, have lifted an overnight shelter-in-place order after they were unable to find a suspect in a knife attack late Monday — the third such incident following two fatal stabbings in less than a week near the campus of the University of California,

By Alexandra Meeks, CNN You may recall a few months ago when officials warned that a giant blob of seaweed would reach the shores of Florida by summertime. Well, to many travelers’ dismay, the smelly brown sargassum is already starting to pile up along beaches in the Caribbean, Mexico and South Florida. Here’s what else

By Tina Burnside, Caroll Alvarado and Eric Levenson, CNN A convicted sex offender and two missing teenage girls were believed to be among seven bodies found at the man’s Oklahoma home on Monday, authorities said. Jesse L. McFadden, the 39-year-old offender, was found dead at his home in Henryetta, about 90 miles from Oklahoma City,

By Artemis Moshtaghian, CNN Officials in Rochester, New York, said an investigation found no basis for criminal charges in a concert stampede in March that left three people dead. The announcement came after a months-long, multi-departmental investigation into the incident at Rochester’s Main Street Armory, the City of Rochester said in a statement. The probe

By Josh Campbell, Ed Lavandera and Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN A man accused of fatally shooting five people at a neighbor’s home in Texas last week, including a mother and her 9-year-old son, was arrested Tuesday evening after a dayslong manhunt, officials announced. The suspect, Francisco Oropesa, was found in a house just miles from the

By Christina Maxouris, Amy Simonson and Dianne Gallagher, CNN Federal and state law enforcement in Virginia and North Carolina are searching for two men who escaped from jail, one of whom was facing a murder charge in the death of a sheriff’s deputy. The two men escaped from a Farmville, Virginia, jail sometime over the

By Raja Razek and Zoe Sottile, CNN Seven bodies, including two that investigators believe belong to two missing teenage girls, were found Monday afternoon at an Oklahoma residence of a man who authorities were seeking in the teens’ disappearance, officials said. The bodies were found at a property in Henryetta, a city about 90 miles

By Jennifer Henderson and Zoe Sottile, CNN An 18-year-old Texas college baseball player was seriously injured after being struck by a stray bullet during a game on Saturday, according to police. Matthew Delaney, a student athlete at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, was standing in the bullpen area when he was hit, police said. He was hospitalized

By Joe Sutton, Rebekah Riess and Brad Parks, CNN An interstate in central Illinois reopened Tuesday, a day after at least seven people were killed as more than 70 vehicles crashed in a dust storm, officials said. The crashes along Interstate 55 happened shortly before 11 a.m. in Montgomery and Sangamon counties south of the

By Leyla Santiago, Zoe Sottile and Sara Weisfeldt, CNN Ginny Matts and her boyfriend were excited to celebrate her 60th birthday in Key West. But their vacation was spoiled by an unexpected guest: a record-breaking amount of smelly seaweed known as sargassum that is coating the iconic Florida island’s popular beaches. What Matts and her

By Cheri Mossburg and Dakin Andone, CNN A student at the University of California, Davis was stabbed to death at a local park Saturday evening, days after a similar attack, prompting the involvement of state authorities and the FBI as police search for a suspect. Authorities are still working to determine any possible connection between

By Jackie Wattles and Ella Nilsen, CNN Environmental groups are suing the Federal Aviation Administration in federal court over SpaceX’s launch of its massive Starship rocket last month. The groups argue that the agency failed to adequately investigate the potential harm the launch — or a mishap — could do to the surrounding environment. The

By Theresa Waldrop, Bill Kirkos and Adrienne Broaddus, CNN As a slow-moving crest works its way down the Mississippi River this week, flood-weary Iowans living along the water were doing their best to cope with the rising water. In Davenport on Sunday, River Drive lived up to its name: The street looked like a river,

By Michelle Watson and Eric Levenson, CNN A man accused of killing four people in random encounters in the Tampa, Florida, area of Seminole Heights in fall 2017 pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and was sentenced to life in prison Monday. Howell Donaldson III changed his plea from not guilty to guilty Monday

By Celina Tebor, CNN On the one-year anniversary of a New Jersey student’s death by suicide, the school he attended admitted it “fell tragically short” of protecting his safety and well-being. Jack Reid, 17, died by suicide on April 30, 2022, in a residential house at the Lawrenceville School, a boarding and preparatory school in

By Chris Boyette and Dakin Andone, CNN Authorities have arrested and charged with arson a man federal prosecutors said is responsible for setting fires at two Minneapolis mosques and separately spray-painting the district office door of a Muslim American member of Congress, according to a news release from the US Attorney’s Office for the District

By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN Headlines were bleak when results from the test known as the “Nation’s Report Card” came out last year. Local newspapers around the country documented their districts’ declining scores. Editorials warned that US schools had failed students during the pandemic. Officials described the exam as an alarming wake-up call. But one

By Artemis Moshtaghian and Melissa Alonso, CNN Up to 100 homes are damaged and a state of emergency is in place in Virginia Beach, Virginia, after an EF3 tornado hit the city, prompting the closure Monday of at least three schools, officials said, as a South Florida community also recovers from a weekend tornado. No

By Alexandra Meeks, CNN Today is the start of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month — a commemorative time designated by Congress to celebrate the more than 24 million people in the US with roots in East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam, Fiji, Tonga, the Marshall Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and other

By Gabe Cohen, CNN Desperate to find educators amid a nationwide shortage, an Arizona school district is breaking ground on an unusual recruitment tool: tiny homes for teachers. Chino Valley Unified School District is using federal money to build 10 studio units, each 400 square feet, on a vacant lot behind an elementary school, where

By Artemis Moshtaghian, CNN At least fourteen people were injured and taken to nearby hospitals after a roof collapsed at a Columbus, Ohio, home near Ohio State University because too many people were standing atop the roof, according to officials. “It appears that the roof was overloaded with students, we’ve heard numbers between 15 and

By Ed Lavandera, Holly Yan, Elizabeth Wolfe and Rosa Flores, CNN The man wanted by law enforcement for the killings of five Texas neighbors — including a 9-year-old boy — had entered the US illegally and been deported by immigration officials at least four times, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement source said. The suspect,

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN Asian American. APA. APIDA. AAPI. AANHPI. There are a lot of terms and acronyms to describe this population of more than 24 million people with roots in East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam, Fiji, Tonga, Marshall Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and other Pacific islands. It comprises

By Liam Reilly, CNN Leaders of three Rutgers University unions approved a tentative agreement with the school Sunday evening, just weeks after going on a five-day strike — the first in the New Jersey university’s 257-year history. Elected officials from the three unions — Rutgers AAUP-AFT, the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and the AAUP-BHSNJ —

By Nicole Grether and Samantha Beech, CNN An American woman who traveled from New York to Sudan to celebrate Ramadan with family there is now desperate to escape as fighting between rival military forces continues to worsen. Myadah Kaila, a 28-year-old Sudanese-born public health professional, left her home in Syracuse, New York in mid-March. Within

By Jacob Lev, CNN The 2-year-old daughter of Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Shaquil Barrett drowned in a swimming pool Sunday at the family’s Florida home, police said. Officers responded to a Beach Park home in Tampa at 9:30 a.m. after a child had fallen into a pool, the Tampa Police Department said. The child was

By Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN Just weeks before stepping foot on Smith College’s campus, Avery finally came to understand something that cast doubt on whether the small women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts, would be the perfect fit for the incoming first-year student after all. Avery realized he is a transgender man. And Smith — while it

By Claudia Dominguez, CNN Authorities have arrested and charged a 19-year-old for a shooting early Sunday morning that left two teenagers dead and left four others wounded, according to a news release from the police department of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Cameron Brand was initially arrested on six charges of aggravated assault after he was

By Liam Reilly, CNN Fleeing what she called the “dire condition” of life in Haiti, Dieuvena came to the US, hoping “she can at least get on her feet, find a job, and take care of her family.” For Dieuvena, 28, that family includes her husband Banel, 28, and their 4-year-old son, Matéo Sebastien. She

By Celina Tebor, CNN Three teenagers — including a 14-year-old — were killed and another was injured during a shooting in Philadelphia Friday afternoon, police said. Philadelphia police say officers responded to a report of a shooting around 3:30 p.m. Friday in the Lawncrest neighborhood northeast of downtown Philadelphia, where they found three victims. Police

By Phil Gast, CNN It wasn’t just bullets and slashing swords that Isaac C. Hart had to fear during the Civil War. As a White Army officer leading Black troops, Hart faced the possibility of being treated harshly if taken captive by the Confederacy. The men in his company, part of United States Colored Troops

Essay by John Blake, CNN I don’t remember what I said because I was too shocked to respond. But I remember where I stood when it happened. I was 17, just months away from leaving home for college, when my father called me into his bedroom one afternoon. He was sitting up in bed with

By Zoe Sottile, CNN A team of firefighters and wildlife officials in Nevada accomplished a “bear-y” important rescue mission Wednesday. A bear was “spooked up a tree in front of a home” Wednesday morning in Reno, according to a Facebook post from the Nevada Department of Wildlife. “Between the busy roads, people, and all the

By Celina Tebor, CNN Amid humanitarian and security crises in their home country, Haitian migrants arriving in Boston have been sleeping overnight at one of the city’s major hospitals. The dramatic increase of migrants arriving in recent weeks has stretched resources, the hospital told CNN. About 55 people, most from Haiti, spent Wednesday night in

By Priscilla Alvarez and Rosa Flores, CNN Detention facilities along the US-Mexico border have surpassed capacity as a growing number of migrants cross into the United States leading up to the May 11 expiration of a Covid-era border restriction known as Title 42, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. As of Saturday morning,

By Paradise Afshar and Zoe Sottile, CNN One Volkswagen employee died and two others were injured after being struck by a vehicle at the German automaker’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Saturday, according to local police. One employee died at the scene, a second sustained leg trauma and a third sustained non-life-threatening injuries, Chattanooga Police

By Zoe Sottile, CNN A rare reward poster seeking the capture of the men responsible for President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination has sold at auction for $166,375. The poster, printed on April 20, 1865, advertises a total of $100,000 in rewards for the capture of John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices. Booth fatally shot Lincoln on

By Zoe Sottile, CNN The Pittsburgh Zoo has welcomed two adorable — and critically endangered — new bundles of joy. The zoo announced the birth of two delightful Amur leopard cubs in a Thursday news release. The babies were born March 18 to first-time mother Semba, according to the release. The cubs are still unnamed

By Jay Croft and Paradise Afshar, CNN The New Orleans Police Department said an employee of the popular Mandina’s Restaurant was the intended target of a fatal shooting Friday night near the annual Jazz Fest. Officers responded to a call of shots being fired in the 3800 block of Canal Street about 8:20 p.m., the

By AJ Willingham, CNN Mormonism is a religion practiced by millions around the world. And yet, many who are unfamiliar with it sometimes rely on vague stereotypes and pop culture references to define it. In reality, it’s a theologically complex religion with an unusual history. Here, we answer some of the most common questions about

By Taylor Romine, CNN A jury in California has convicted a woman of lying to authorities about a couple attempting to kidnap her children at a Bay Area Michaels craft store in 2020. Kathleen Sorensen, 31, could serve up to six months in jail after the jury returned a guilty verdict on one count of

By Faith Karimi, CNN Jennifer DeStefano’s phone rang one afternoon as she climbed out of her car outside the dance studio where her younger daughter Aubrey had a rehearsal. The caller showed up as unknown, and she briefly contemplated not picking up. But her older daughter, 15-year-old Brianna, was away training for a ski race

By Andy Rose and Aya Elamroussi, CNN A Texas man who was allegedly scammed of $40 in parking fees while on a date shot and killed the man who posed as the lot’s attendant — and then “nonchalantly” walked away to proceed with his dinner plans, court records show. Erick Aguirre, 29, appeared in court

By Raja Razek, Andy Rose and Ray Sanchez, CNN A gunman is still at large after allegedly fatally shooting five people, including a child, in a Cleveland, Texas home after a Friday night rampage that started with a noise complaint about gunfire, according to the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office. The suspect, identified as Francisco

By Steve Almasy and Laura Studley, CNN Democrats in the Oregon House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would decriminalize homeless encampments in public places and allow homeless people to sue for $1,000 if harassed or told to leave. The bill, HB 3501, would allow unhoused people to use public spaces “without discrimination and

By Matt Foster, CNN Phoenix Suns star forward Kevin Durant signed a lifetime contract with Nike on Friday, according to Boardroom, the media entity he co-owns. Durant becomes the third basketball star to sign such a contract, behind all-time greats Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Soccer phenomenon Cristiano Ronaldo signed a similar deal in 2016.

By Ray Sanchez, CNN In a front line state in the escalating US culture war over transgender rights, a son made an unsuccessful plea to his powerful father on behalf of the LGBTQ community. David Gianforte, 32, who uses he and they pronouns and identifies as nonbinary, is the son of Montana Republican Gov. Greg

By Cheri Mossburg and Jean Casarez, CNN One of the surviving roommates in a stabbing attack that left four University of Idaho students dead has agreed to speak to defense attorneys for suspect Bryan Kohberger after initially resisting efforts by his legal team to compel her testimony. In a court filing made Wednesday, obtained by

By Alexandra Meeks, CNN More than 2 million species are believed to exist in the Earth’s oceans, but only about 240,000 have been described by scientists, according to the Ocean Census. The huge gaps in our knowledge of the ocean have unsettled researchers for decades, prompting them to now launch a global mission to explore

By Paradise Afshar and Melissa Alonso, CNN Three soldiers were killed and another was injured when two AH-64 Apache helicopters collided Thursday as they were flying back from a military training flight near Healy, Alaska, US Army officials said. Two of the soldiers died at the scene and a third died while being transported to

By Macie Goldfarb and Devon M. Sayers, CNN A former US Army soldier accused of plotting to “physically remove” Black and brown people in several North Carolina counties is now facing up to a decade in prison after pleading guilty to a separate, gun-related charge, federal prosecutors announced. Noah Edwin Anthony, 23, pleaded guilty to

By Ray Sanchez and Michelle Watson, CNN One of three teens accused of killing a 20-year-old Colorado woman after hurling a large rock through the windshield of her car snapped a photo “as a memento” of the crime, according to arrest affidavits released Thursday. Alexa Bartell was killed April 19 after her vehicle and several

By Taylor Romine, Cheri Mossburg and Veronica Miracle, CNN The suspect accused of using a metal pipe to attack a former San Francisco fire department official was released from custody Thursday and is to appear in court for a preliminary hearing in late May. Prosecutors say former San Francisco Fire Department Commissioner Don Carmignani sustained

By Zenebou Sylla, CNN Four Pennsylvania men have been arrested and charged after a Black Lehigh University student was allegedly called a racial slur, chased to his dorm and assaulted on campus earlier this month, according to the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office. Brandon John, 22, faces charges of simple assault and harassment; Michael Rosta,

By Michelle Watson and Sharif Paget, CNN A train derailment in southwestern Wisconsin on Thursday sent two derailed containers into the Mississippi River, and at least four employees were injured, according to officials. The train derailed around 12:15 p.m. local time near the village of De Soto and all crew members have since been accounted

By Dianne Gallagher, Sara Smart and Emma Tucker, CNN Carolyn Bryant Donham, the White woman whose accusation led to the 1955 lynching of Black teen Emmett Till in Mississippi — and whose role in the brutal death was reconsidered by a grand jury as recently as last year — has died in Louisiana, the Calcasieu

By Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN The parents of the Louisville bank shooter Connor Sturgeon are opening up in a new interview with NBC, sharing insight into the time leading up to the deadly shooting and how they are coping with the unfathomable tragedy. “We’re so sorry. We are heartbroken. We wish we could undo it but

By Alexandra Meeks, CNN Those who dare to climb Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, must first receive a permit to prove they can ascend its steep and harsh slopes. So far, a record 463 climbers have received permission to scale the mountain from Nepal’s side — even as experts worry about dangerous

By Holly Yan, CNN More than four years after what’s believed to be the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history, the man accused of fatally shooting 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue is about to stand trial in a rare federal death penalty case. Jury selection has begun in the trial of Robert

By Holly Yan, CNN A Massachusetts father accused of killing and dismembering his wife was denied bail Thursday, almost five months after she disappeared. But the whereabouts of Ana Walshe’s body remain a mystery. Brian Walshe shook his head as his murder charge was read aloud in Norfolk Superior Court. He pleaded not guilty to

By Elizabeth Wolfe, Devon M. Sayers and Alta Spells, CNN One of the four men who escaped from a Mississippi jail last weekend was apprehended in Texas on Thursday, as authorities continue their search for the two surviving escaped inmates after confirming the fourth died in a burning building. “Escapee Jerry Raynes is in custody

By Justin Gamble A high school senior in Louisiana has received more than 170 college acceptance letters and more than $9 million in scholarship offers. Dennis Maliq Barnes, a 16-year-old senior at International High School of New Orleans, told CNN he wasn’t initially looking to set any records. “As I applied to more schools, as

By Mitchell McCluskey and Chris Boyette, CNN Three decades after a woman in Florida was fatally shot by a person dressed as a clown, the longtime suspect — who went on to marry the victim’s widower — has pleaded guilty even as her lawyers maintain she is innocent. Sheila Keen-Warren, 59, withdrew her earlier plea

By Andy Rose, CNN A man was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in a 2018 road rage attack that left a child dead and injured his mother in a Denver suburb, officials said. Jeremy Webster, 28, had been accused of killing a 13-year-old boy, wounding his mother and injuring two

By Shimon Prokupecz, Hannah Rabinowitz and Rachel Clarke, CNN The Justice Department team tasked with reviewing the botched law enforcement response to the deadly rampage at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, is analyzing 13,000 pieces of evidence connected to the massacre ahead of a report it is expected to publish, the department said Wednesday.