CNN – National

By Kevin Flower, CNN The mother of one of the four college students killed near the University of Idaho last month expressed frustration over police communications on the status of the investigation into the murders. “It’s sleepless nights. It’s feeling sick to your stomach. It’s just being left in the dark,” Kristi Goncalves, the mother

By Jade Gordon, Alta Spells and Nick Valencia, CNN Five law enforcement officers involved in the May 2019 death of Black motorist Ronald Greene have been indicted on state charges by a grand jury in Union Parish, Louisiana. The charges brought against four Louisiana State Police (LSP) troopers and one Union Parish deputy range from

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN The Cambridge Dictionary recently updated its entries for “man” and “woman” to include transgender people — the latest dictionary to broaden its lexicon to reflect evolving language around gender. A spokesperson for the Cambridge Dictionary told CNN that the updates went into effect in October. But the move seemed to go

By Dakin Andone, CNN Mississippi has executed Thomas Loden Jr., who was sentenced to death for the 2000 murder of a 16-year-old girl, amid a legal challenge by him and other inmates to the state’s lethal injection protocol. Loden, 58, was pronounced dead Wednesday at 6:12 p.m. CT. He expressed his remorse to victim Leesa

By Michelle Watson and Jason Hanna, CNN One of the three University of Virginia football players shot dead as they returned from a field trip last month was on the phone with his mother just before the shooting, she told NBC. D’Sean Perry, 22, had been talking to his mom, Happy Perry, but “his cell

By Paradise Afshar, CNN A sheriff in Washington state who was accused of tailing a Black man delivering newspapers and falsely accusing the man of threatening his life has been found not guilty on related charges. Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer was charged with false reporting and making a false or misleading statement to a

By Isa Kaufman Geballe, CNN A Michigan man accused of making death threats against Black Lives Matter supporters during unrest following George Floyd’s killing in 2020 pleaded guilty in federal court to two hate crime charges, officials said. Kenneth Pilon, 61, pleaded guilty to willfully intimidating and attempting to intimidate citizens from engaging in lawful

By Andy Rose, CNN The family of Athena Strand, the 7-year-old Texas girl allegedly kidnapped and killed by a delivery driver, is suing FedEx and one of its subcontractors, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The man suspected of killing Athena — Tanner Lynn Horner — delivered packages for FedEx Ground but was employed through

By Melissa Bell, Saskya Vandoorne and Christina Maxouris, CNN The woman who hosted an American college student studying in France before he went missing told CNN she thinks he may have left voluntarily — a claim echoed by a French prosecutor. But the young man’s parents don’t believe that’s the case and on Wednesday, the

By Bill Kirkos and Ray Sanchez, CNN A Texas jury began deliberations Wednesday in the trial of a former Fort Worth police officer accused of murder in the 2019 shooting of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her home. The deliberations got underway after closing arguments in which the state portrayed Aaron Dean as a power-hungry former

By Devon M. Sayers, Michelle Watson and Eric Levenson, CNN Five people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism in Atlanta on Tuesday after a clash between activists and law enforcement at a site set to be turned into a state-of-the-art training facility for police, state investigators said. The planned $90 million, 85-acre Atlanta Public

By Nouran Salahieh and Cheri Mossburg, CNN A Los Angeles jury will meet for a 10th day Monday in the second sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein, the former movie producer accused of using his Hollywood influence to lure women into private meetings and assault them. The jury had already deliberated for about 37 total

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN Among the cocktail of extreme weather events that plow through the United States, tornadoes can be the most destructive and the most deadly especially for those unprepared for what’s to come. As severe weather events intensify, occur more often and exacerbate the country’s growing economic toll, science is running to keep

By Matt Phillips, CNN Two police officers were shot and killed early Wednesday morning in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, officials said. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves identified the slain officers as Officer Branden Estorffe and Sgt. Steven Robin, according to a tweet from his verified account. “I am heartbroken by this terrible loss of two brave

By Kristina Sgueglia and Eric Levenson, CNN Grant Wahl, the American soccer reporter who collapsed and died while covering the World Cup in Qatar last week, died of an aortic aneurysm that ruptured, his wife, Dr. Celine Gounder, said Wednesday. “It’s just one of these things that had been likely brewing for years, and for

By Will Simon, CNN They were living ordinary and full lives in the small New England town of Newtown, Connecticut, unprepared for the devastation that would unfold and occupy the rest of their days. Mark Barden was a professional musician. Nicole Hockley had recently arrived in Newtown after a corporate marketing career in the United

By Amir Vera, Joe Sutton and Jason Hanna, CNN At least three people have died and more than a dozen were left injured across Louisiana over the past 24 hours as severe weather moves across the South carving a path of destruction. A tornado touched down in New Orleans around 4 p.m. CT Wednesday, the

Compiled by CNN Staff They were pianists and painters, swimmers and dancers, budding readers, little brothers and big sisters. Then, in a flash of violence, their 20 bright smiles were snuffed out forever in a rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary that haunts the nation to this day. Also stolen that chilly Friday — just 11

By Michelle Watson and Amanda Musa, CNN Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, has reached a $2 million dollar settlement with the City of Louisville, resolving lawsuits Walker filed in response to “the unlawful police raid that led to Ms. Taylor’s death,” a news release from Walker’s legal team says. Breonna Taylor, 26, was shot

By Nouran Salahieh and Cheri Mossburg, CNN A Los Angeles jury met for an eighth day Tuesday in the second sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul accused of using his Hollywood influence to lure women into private meetings and assault them. After about 32.5 total hours of deliberations without reaching a

By Michelle Watson and Amanda Musa, CNN Criminal charges against former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder will be dismissed, a recent court order shows. Snyder was previously indicted in January 2021 on two misdemeanor charges of willful neglect in connection to the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, the court document said. The charges were punishable with up

By Holly Yan, CNN Just days before he was supposed to come home for Christmas, an American college student studying in France is still missing as his father challenged the local prosecutor’s claims about his son. Kenny DeLand Jr., a senior at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York, had been studying at the

By Stephanie Elam, CNN Across the country, overflow health care workers are struggling to catch their breath as hospitals fill with sick patients battling a trifecta of respiratory illnesses — Covid-19, RSV and the flu. “We’ve seen a real increase in cases … particularly since Thanksgiving,” said Dr. Christopher Longhurst, chief medical officer at UC

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN Each year, the Arctic region goes through an annual health checkup — and the results are in: From a rapid decline in snow cover to an unprecedented late season melting event to another year of seabird die-offs, the Arctic has once again shown clear symptoms of an ailing planet. A report

By Ella Nilsen, CNN US Department of Energy officials announced a history-making accomplishment in nuclear fusion Tuesday: For the first time, US scientists produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy they used to power the experiment. A so-called “net energy gain” is a major milestone in a decadeslong attempt to source clean, limitless

By Aya Elamroussi, CNN A month after the gruesome killings of four University of Idaho students in their off-campus home, authorities have yet to name a suspect or locate the murder weapon as hundreds of students take final exams before winter break. The students, Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernodle’s

By Abby Phillip and Nouran Salahieh, CNN Freed from a Russian penal colony and back on American soil, WNBA star Brittney Griner got her first taste of a return to normal life over the weekend at a Texas military facility. But though she’s home, Griner is heartbroken that Paul Whelan is still detained, her agent

By Holly Yan, Aya Elamroussi and Taylor Romine, CNN It was a magnificent light show that illuminated Hawaii’s Big Island, but now it’s over. The world’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa, and its neighbor Kilauea have both stopped erupting, the US Geological Survey said. Lava stopped spewing out of a fissure on Mauna Loa on

By Wayne Sterling and Matt Phillips, CNN University of Texas at Austin men’s basketball head coach Chris Beard was arrested and charged with a third-degree felony assault on Monday. Officers responded to a “disturbance” on the 1900 block of Vista Lane at 12:15 a.m. local time and Beard was arrested, according to Austin Police Department.

By Shimon Prokupecz and Matthew J. Friedman, CNN Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco does not appear to have completed an active shooter training course, according to documents CNN obtained Monday from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the regulatory agency for peace officers in Texas. The information comes on the heels of a contentious Uvalde

By Amir Vera and Andi Babineau, CNN Former NFL player Kevin Ware Jr. agreed to a plea deal Monday on drug and weapons charges, all while still facing separate charges in Texas in connection with the death of his girlfriend, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. Court records indicate jury selection for the

By Nicki Brown, CNN An entrance to Central Park will be named the “Gate of the Exonerated” 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. Individuals from the

Ella Nilsen and René Marsh, CNN Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility have made history by successfully producing a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain, a breakthrough hailed by US officials as a “landmark achievement” and a “milestone for the future of clean energy.” Here’s what you need to

By Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Their busy, buzzing business partners pollinate everything from almonds in California to blueberries in Maine, so few people understand the state of American agriculture quite like Florida beekeepers. But colliding climate crises have left few as sad and worried. The storms and droughts of ’22 had already taken

By Michelle Watson and Nicole Chavez, CNN The city of Richmond, Virginia, started removing its last standing Confederate monument on Monday. City workers lifted the bronze statue depicting Gen. A.P. Hill, a Confederate general killed during the Third Battle of Petersburg in the American Civil War, from its base at the intersection of the city’s

By Michelle Watson, CNN A man hiking near the summit of Mt. Willard in New Hampshire fell 300 feet to his death, authorities said. The man was hiking with his wife Saturday morning when he fell and yelled out for help, New Hampshire Fish and Game said in a news release. “The hiker’s wife heard

By Nouran Salahieh and Cheri Mossburg, CNN A Los Angeles jury will head into its eighth day of deliberations Tuesday in the second sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul accused of using his Hollywood influence to lure women into private meetings and assault them. The jury has deliberated for a total

By Ashley Killough and Eric Levenson, CNN The former Fort Worth police officer charged with murder for the 2019 shooting of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her own home testified Monday he fired at her because she pointed a gun at him. “As I started to get that second phrase out, ‘Show me your hands,’ I

By Andy Rose, Saskya Vandoorne and Allegra Goodwin, CNN A prosecutor in France has opened an investigation into the disappearance of an American college student who, his family says, has not been heard from in more than two weeks. Kenny DeLand Jr.’s fellow students reported him missing on November 29, prompting the investigation, according to

By Alexandra Meeks, CNN As you scroll through social media this week, there’s a chance you’ll see pictures of your friends, but re-imagined as celestial beings or cartoon-like characters. Perhaps you’ve even seen a few of the eye-catching portraits already — or maybe you’re grimacing at the notion of another viral trend hijacking your feed.

By Nouran Salahieh and Holly Yan, CNN Fresh off her elated return to the US after months in Russian custody, two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner is back on a basketball court. But her reintegration into American life is far from over, as is the fight by WNBA players for equity as US professional athletes.

By Jacob Lev, CNN Going from Mr. Irrelevant in the 2022 NFL Draft to spoiling Tom Brady’s homecoming, San Francisco 49ers rookie quarterback Brock Purdy has almost seen it all following Sunday’s 35-7 blowout win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The 22-year-old Purdy outdueled Brady, throwing for 185 yards and two touchdowns. Purdy also added

By Homero De la Fuente, CNN Former NBA All-Star and longtime head coach Paul Silas has died at the of age 79, the league announced Sunday. “We mourn the passing of former NBA All-Star and head coach Paul Silas. Paul’s lasting contributions to the game are seen through the many players and coaches he inspired,

CNN Editorial Research Here is a look back at the events of 2022. Notable US Events January 3 – The US Food and Drug Administration expands the emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine boosters to children ages 12 to 15. On January 5, the CDC updates its recommendations for the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine booster.

By Michelle Watson, CNN Father Michael Pfleger, the senior pastor of the St. Sabina Parish in Chicago, has been reinstated after an independent review board found “no reason” to keep him away following the latest accusation of sexual abuse against him. Pfleger posted a picture of the letter from the archbishop of Chicago to the

By Tricia Escobedo and Allie Torgan, CNN Nelly Cheboi, who in 2019 quit a lucrative software engineering job in Chicago to create computer labs for Kenyan schoolchildren, is the 2022 CNN Hero of the Year. Online voters selected her from among this year’s Top 10 CNN Heroes. Cheboi’s nonprofit, TechLit Africa, has provided thousands of

By Andrew Torgan, CNN If all goes according to plan, NASA’s Orion spacecraft will splash down in the Pacific later today. The agency’s Artemis I mission, the next step in preparing to return humans to the moon, lifted off on November 16. The uncrewed spacecraft traveled beyond the moon, reaching a maximum distance of nearly

By Sara Smart, CNN A 90-year-old woman will finally walk across the stage and receive her diploma, 71 years after she first enrolled in college. Joyce DeFauw, then Joyce Viola Kane, started her freshman year at Northern Illinois University in 1951 with a plan to graduate with a degree in home economics. But those plans

By Christina Maxouris, CNN There were a million things running through James Slaugh’s mind as he was rushed to a nearby hospital after the deadly rampage in Club Q, in Colorado Springs, last month. Among them: what kind of bills he would be facing. “My first night in the ER, that was in the back

By Nouran Salahieh, CNN As freed WNBA star Brittney Griner visits a Texas military medical facility following nearly 10 months of imprisonment in Russia, Jorge Toledo — one of the “Citgo 6” — spoke to CNN Saturday about how reintegration into society can take time and effort. Toledo was released in October as part of

By Zoe Sottile, CNN After over twenty years in captivity, Mark, the last of Albania’s “restaurant bears,” has safely arrived at his new home, an animal sanctuary in Austria, according to the animal rescue group Four Paws International. So-called “restaurant bears” have historically been kept in tiny cages near restaurants or hotels, where they served

By Nouran Salahieh and Paradise Afshar, CNN The eruption of the world’s largest active volcano — Mauna Loa in Hawaii — may soon come to an end, according to the US Geological Survey. Mauna Loa began erupting November 27, choreographing a spectacular display that sent rivers of molten rock gushing down its side and drawing

By Celina Tebor, CNN Attorneys representing the brother of Hae Min Lee, the teenager whose 1999 killing was investigated on the hit podcast “Serial,” requested a redo of the hearing in which a judge vacated the murder conviction of Adnan Syed. Syed had been accused of killing the teen and served more than 20 years

By Emma Tucker, CNN After spending 25 years in prison on murder convictions related to the 1996 shooting death of their friend, two Georgia men were exonerated this week, after new evidence uncovered in a true-crime podcast last year proved their innocence, their lawyers said. Darrell Lee Clark and his co-defendant Cain Joshua Storey were

By Amanda Watts and Jason Hanna, CNN A New Orleans Police Department employee who was driving for Uber in her time off was stabbed to death by a passenger on Thursday, and a suspect has been arrested, authorities said. Yolanda Dillion, 54, picked up an Uber passenger in New Orleans and drove to the adjacent

By Zoe Sottile, CNN Ninety-five residents of Tampa, Kansas, had the opportunity to experience life in the other Tampa. The residents constitute almost all of the population of Tampa, Kansas, according to a news release from the Tampa International Airport. The trip was a collaboration between Visit Tampa Bay, the Florida city’s tourism marketing agency,

By Andy Rose, CNN A mail carrier was shot to death Friday evening in Milwaukee, police said. Police said the 44-year-old man had worked for the US Postal Service for 18 years. They did not release his name. “The Milwaukee Police Department sends our sincere condolences to the victim’s family and to the USPS for

By Zoe Sottile, CNN Julius’ Bar, one of New York City’s oldest LGBT bars and the location of a crucial 1960s protest, has been officially recognized as a city landmark. The bar was officially recognized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on December 6th, according to a news release from the New York

By Aya Elamroussi, CNN After being imprisoned in Russia for nearly 10 months, WNBA star Brittney Griner’s safe return to the US on Friday was marked by a stop at a Texas military medical facility for a routine evaluation, the US State Department said. Griner arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas,

By Amir Vera, CNN College football fans and HBCU alumni are still coming to terms with Deion Sanders announcing his departure from Jackson State University for his new head coaching gig at the University of Colorado. The move struck a chord, especially among alumni of the Mississippi college, with some calling Sanders a “sell out”

By Rob Frehse, CNN A top thoroughbred trainer who prosecutors said doped nearly all the horses under his control pleaded guilty Friday in a federal court, the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York announced. Jason Servis pleaded guilty for his role acquiring, distributing and directing others to administer performance enhancing drugs

CNN Editorial Research Here is a look at the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where cost-cutting measures led to tainted drinking water that contained lead and other toxins. Facts Flint once thrived as the home of the nation’s largest General Motors plant. The city’s economic decline began during the 1980s, when GM downsized. In 2011,

By Kiely Westhoff, Celina Tebor and Emma Tucker, CNN New York Mayor Eric Adams, a vocal rat opponent who made fighting rodents in the city a priority, got his fine dismissed after he was issued a health code violation for an infestation at his Brooklyn property, his spokesman told CNN Friday. Adams was issued a