CNN – National

By Ray Sanchez and Brad Parks, CNN A former Minneapolis police officer who assisted in the fatal restraint of George Floyd was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison Friday for his role in the killing. J. Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter on the day his state trial was to

By Kevin Conlon, CNN South Carolina prosecutors have put forth what they believe was Alex Murdaugh’s motive for killing his wife and son. He wanted to distract attention from the illicit schemes he was running to avoid financial ruin, they allege in a motion filed Thursday. “The evidence will show Murdaugh accrued substantial debts over

By Mark Morales, Emma Tucker and Ray Sanchez, CNN The gunman who killed 10 people and wounded three in a racist attack at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, would be willing to plead guilty to federal charges — including hate crimes — if prosecutors agree to take the

By Nouran Salahieh and Cheri Mossburg, CNN 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, will continue Monday after a Los Angeles jury deliberated for another day Friday. Weinstein, behind bars in a medical unit, awaits

By Rebekah Riess, CNN The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says there’s “no evidence” to back up a claim by a woman that her late father disposed of dozens of bodies of people he had killed decades ago in rural Iowa. Following an investigation that involved the FBI, the DCI said in a statement on

By David Culver, Anna-Maja Rappard and Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN Since Hawaii’s Mauna Loa began erupting last week, photographer CJ Kale has sacrificed hours of sleep, rising before dawn to catch the volcano against the sunrise and working late into the night to capture its magnificent glow. For years, Kale has been going to extraordinary lengths

By Alexandra Meeks, CNN It’s common for South Koreans to have not just one age, but three. Sounds confusing? Well, it is — and it’s causing discrepancies in official documents and in legal matters. In response, the country’s parliament passed a new law that aims to standardize how age is calculated. And technically, this means

By Travis Caldwell, Tina Burnside, Rosalina Nieves and Rosa Flores, CNN For the first time in almost 300 days, Brittney Griner, the American basketball star detained by Russian authorities in February, will spend the night in a bed in her home country. Griner, 32, returned to the United States early Friday after being released from

By Rob Frehse and Emma Tucker, CNN A former officer with the New York Police Department was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Thursday after he was found guilty last month of murder in the second degree related to the death of his 8-year-old son, Thomas. Michael Valva, 45, was also found guilty

By Lauren del Valle and Christina Maxouris, CNN Attorneys for Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the Indiana doctor who provided abortion services to a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio, and her medical partner dropped their lawsuit against the state attorney general Thursday. In July, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced an investigation into Bernard’s potential failure to

By Stephanie Gallman and Andy Rose, CNN The FedEx driver accused of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Athena Strand delivered her Christmas present — Barbie dolls — before the girl’s disappearance, her mother said Thursday. Maitlyn Gandy called for stricter screening policies for delivery drivers at a news conference. On an easel beside her was the

By Josh Campbell, CNN Andrew Do was afraid to play sports his last two years of high school. “I didn’t want to walk home alone after practices and be harassed, and beat up, and strangled,” he said in an interview with CNN. After law school, while out running for exercise, he said motorists would throw

By Amir Vera, Jeremy Harlan, Amanda Musa and Rebekah Riess, CNN An unsealed case file revealed new details about what took place during a 2021 bomb threat incident that led to the arrest of the Club Q shooting suspect. Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Robin Chittum ordered the unsealing of the case file Thursday, ruling

By Nouran Salahieh and Cheri Mossburg, CNN A Los Angeles jury will meet for a sixth day Friday to continue its deliberations in the second sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein, the former movie producer who is accused of using his Hollywood influence to lure women into private meetings and assault them. Weinstein, awaiting the

By Mark Morales and Dakin Andone, CNN The “Boy in the Box” finally has a name. Police on Thursday publicly identified a boy found dead in a box in Philadelphia 65 years ago as four-year-old Joseph Augustus Zarelli, the victim of what police say is one of the city’s oldest unsolved homicides. The identification, made

By Rebekah Riess, CNN A former US Border Patrol agent charged with fatally shooting four women in and around the border city of Laredo, Texas, in 2018 was found guilty of capital murder Wednesday for their killings, according to the Webb and Zapata County District Attorney’s Office. Juan David Ortiz was convicted by a Bexar

By Aya Elamroussi and Raja Razek, CNN After allegedly killing five people and injuring more than a dozen others, the 22-year-old suspect in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, apologized to medical staff after being taken into custody, according to a court document unsealed Wednesday. Anderson Lee Aldrich is accused

By Tavleen Tarrant, CNN A Virginia school superintendent was fired Tuesday, a day after a report from the state accused him of lying about a sexual assault involving a student in May 2021. The special grand jury report, conducted by the office of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, also criticized former school superintendent Dr. Scott

By Aya Elamroussi, CNN Investigators in the killings of four University of Idaho students are searching for at least one person they believe was inside a white sedan seen near the crime scene around the time of the deaths last month, police said Wednesday. A 2011-2013 Hyundai Elantra was spotted “in the immediate area” of

By Nouran Salahieh, John Miller and Holly Yan, CNN A growing number of reported threats to power infrastructure are under investigation following attacks on substations in the South and on the West Coast as electricity becomes a more critical need in winter. Even before the gun assaults Saturday in Moore County, North Carolina, wiped out

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN People are moving in droves to places with a high risk of climate disasters, researchers say, despite extreme weather events increasing in frequency and intensity in recent years. A study released Thursday by researchers from the University of Vermont found that over the past decade, Americans have moved out of some

By Celina Tebor and Kiely Westhoff, CNN New York Mayor Eric Adams, a vocal rat opponent who has made fighting the rodents a priority for City Hall, was fined for a rat infestation at one of his Brooklyn properties, according to a copy of a health code violation and a spokesperson for the mayor. Adams

By Nicquel Terry Ellis and Nicole Chavez, CNN Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election is being celebrated by supporters across the nation with many political observers crediting the work of voting rights groups for the consequential win. Warnock delivered a victory speech to a fiery crowd in Atlanta on Tuesday night that touched on the power of

By Jason Hanna and Michelle Watson, CNN The family of a Black man fatally shot in the head by a Michigan police officer has sued the ex-officer and the city who employed him, alleging in part that the slain man’s civil rights were violated through excessive force. Patrick Lyoya’s family filed the civil lawsuit against

By Holly Yan, CNN The incessant lava shooting out of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes has stirred memories of Kilauea’s devastating 2018 eruption, which swallowed hundreds of homes. But the current eruptions are different. While it’s unclear how far the lava will travel from either volcano, experts say history and context can provide clues.

By Melissa Alonso and Dakin Andone, CNN Atlanta Police have arrested two teenagers in connection to a shooting last month that left a 12-year-old and 15-year-old dead, Deputy Chief Charles Hampton Jr. said in a news conference Wednesday. At least four other teenagers were injured in the shooting, which police previously said occurred on the

By Lauren del Valle, Eric Levenson and Kristina Sgueglia, CNN A grand jury indicted two men — one of whom is Jewish and a descendant of a Holocaust survivor — in connection with an online threat last month to attack a synagogue in New York City. Christopher Brown and Matthew Mahrer were both indicted on

By Ray Sanchez and Melissa Alonso, CNN At least one person was injured Wednesday in a shooting outside a Walmart near the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, Cobb County Police said. Police in a tweet initially reported several injuries, but Deputy Chief Ben Cohen later said at least one person was shot and transported in a

By Nouran Salahieh and Cheri Mossburg, CNN As disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein awaits a verdict from behind bars, a Los Angeles jury will meet Thursday for a fifth day of deliberations in the former producer’s second sexual assault trial. Jurors began deliberations Friday and, as of Wednesday, have deliberated for about 15 and a

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN Brown University now explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of caste, joining a number of US colleges and universities in shoring up protections against an ill-understood, insidious form of oppression. The university’s governing body voted this fall to add caste as a protected characteristic to its nondiscrimination policy, alongside categories such

By Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have said “we know a ripple of hope can turn into a wave of change” after they were honored in New York for their work on racial justice and mental health. Prince Harry and Meghan were in the Big Apple to receive the 2022 Ripple

By Elizabeth Wolfe and Paradise Afshar, CNN Authorities in Canada believe the remains of two indigenous women who died at the hands of an alleged serial killer are likely in a landfill, but police have decided not to conduct a search at the site, citing hazards and ground conditions. The victims — Morgan Beatrice Harris,

By Taylor Romine and Aya Elamroussi, CNN San Francisco officials voted Tuesday against a controversial measure that would have allowed police to deploy robots to use lethal force in extreme situations, reversing course after public outcry against the policy. The about-face from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors comes a week after the board voted

By John Miller, Jason Hanna and Whitney Wild, CNN Investigators — who have found nearly two dozen shell casings from a high-powered rifle — are zeroing in on two threads of possible motives centered around extremist behavior for the weekend assault on two North Carolina electric substations, according to law-enforcement sources briefed on the investigation.

By Amanda Musa, CNN More than six decades after a boy was found dead in a box in Philadelphia, investigators have identified the child with the help of DNA, police announced Tuesday. In what would come to be known as the “Boy in the Box” case, the child was discovered wrapped in a blanket inside

By Amanda Musa and Jamiel Lynch, CNN The parents of Gabby Petito have filed a motion to add Laundrie family attorney Steven Bertolino as a defendant in an ongoing civil lawsuit against Brian Laundrie’s parents, Christopher and Roberta Laundrie. Petito, an aspiring travel influencer, vanished in the summer of 2021 on a cross-country road trip

By Veronica Miracle, Stella Chan, Jason Hanna and Theresa Waldrop, CNN Police on Wednesday will begin returning to their families some personal belongings of the four University of Idaho students found slain last month, the Moscow department said. “It’s time for us to give those things back that really mean something to those families and

By Celina Tebor, CNN New York City Mayor Eric Adams appointed the first Black woman to serve as the city’s First Deputy Mayor on Tuesday, rounding off a year of high-profile appointments of women, including women of color. Beginning in January, Sheena Wright will step in as the first deputy mayor of New York. Outgoing

By Amir Vera, Amy Simonson and Rebekah Riess, CNN A Nevada fire department that closed one of its stations for an “undetermined amount of time” because of a bat infestation is now preparing to hand that station back over to the state and move to a new building. The Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District said

By AJ Willingham, CNN How was your 2022? Did you spend it going into full goblin mode, trying to distract yourself from the general feeling of permacrisis brewing about you? Perhaps you had to stave off gaslighting of some sort, or learned more about the theatrical (literally) origins of the term. Every year, the top

By Nouran Salahieh and Cheri Mossburg, CNN A Los Angeles jury will begin the fourth day of deliberations Wednesday in the sexual assault trial of former movie producer Harvey Weinstein, who’s awaiting a verdict while already serving prison time for a rape conviction in New York. Jurors began deliberations Friday and have been deliberating for

By Pete Muntean Investigators say the pilot of a private plane that crashed into power lines and cut electricity to 120,000 people was flying too low for miles. In a just-released report, data accessed by the National Transportation Safety Board shows the pilot was below key minimum altitudes required to land in poor visibility at

By Dakin Andone, CNN The suspected gunman accused of killing five people in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last month has been formally charged with 305 counts, including charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, assault and bias-motivated crimes causing bodily injury. Anderson Lee Aldrich, wearing a bright yellow

By Justin Gamble and Rikki Klaus, CNN Theresa Czapieski couldn’t hold back tears when police in Tacoma, Washington, showed her what her daughter could look like today. She has not stopped searching for the then-2-year-old Teekah Lewis since 1999. “I’m not giving up until my daughter is found,” Czapieski told CNN. Tacoma police released an

By Aya Elamroussi and Holly Yan, CNN The relentless eruption of the world’s largest active volcano has prompted Hawaii’s National Guard to step in as residents and tourists flock to see it. For 10 days, Mauna Loa has been shooting jets of lava toward the sky and down the massive mountain. While officials say there’s

By Andi Babineau and Raja Razek, CNN More than three years after a boy was thrown over a balcony at the Mall of America in Minnesota, the child’s family has reached a settlement with the mall, the family’s attorneys said. The 5-year-old, publicly identified only as Landen, was standing with his mother outside the third-floor

By Steve Almasy, Jason Hanna and Amanda Musa, CNN The tens of thousands of customers in central North Carolina who haven’t had power since two weekend attacks on utility substations should see the lights come on by late Wednesday, a spokesperson for Duke Energy said at a news conference. The two substations in Moore County

By Taylor Romine and Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN One of the people charged in the shooting and robbery of Lady Gaga’s dog walker last year has been sentenced to 21 years in state prison, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office said Monday. James Howard Jackson, 20, pleaded no contest to one count of attempted murder

By Michelle Watson and Amanda Musa, CNN People in Bowling Green, Kentucky, won’t be deprived of a Christmas parade after all. The city on Saturday canceled the annual event scheduled for that day after threats against protesters related to the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till, a Black boy, in 1955. On Monday, Mary-John Carmon, chairwoman

By Amir Vera and Hannah Sarisohn, CNN Three weeks after four Idaho college students were found stabbed to death in an off-campus house, Moscow police said they are still looking into the possibility that one of the victims had a stalker. Police outlined a situation in October when a man appeared to be following Kaylee

By Mark Morales and Kristina Sgueglia, CNN A man known as the “Times Square Killer” — already serving life for murder — admitted five additional cold-case killings Monday in a New York court. Richard Cottingham, 76, pleaded guilty to one count of murder in the second degree for the 1968 killing of Diane Cusick, and

By Nouran Salahieh and Cheri Mossburg, CNN A Los Angeles jury will return Tuesday to continue its deliberations in the second sexual assault trial of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who is accused of using his Hollywood influence to lure women into private meetings and assault them. In total, jurors have been deliberating for more

Catfishing crimes have ensnared people for years.

By David Culver, Anna-Maja Rappard and Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN From a deep fracture in Mauna Loa’s dark terrain, the volcano’s magnificent eruption sends geyser-like fountains of lava spraying into the sky. The fissure — cracked open on the northeastern slope of the world’s largest active volcano — feeds a searing flow of molten rock that

By Eric Levenson, Rosalina Nieves, Ray Sanchez and Ashley Killough, CNN The former Fort Worth police officer who fatally shot 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in her own home in 2019 did not see her holding a gun in the split-second before firing at her through a back window, prosecutors said in opening statements of his murder

By Amanda Jackson and Dave Alsup, CNN Several school districts across Texas are encouraging students to wear pink Monday in honor of Athena Strand, the 7-year-old girl who was allegedly kidnapped outside her home and killed last week. More than 20 school districts, including Paradise Independent School District in the county where Strand was went

By Nouran Salahieh, CNN Power outages that left around 40,000 customers in the dark Saturday night in North Carolina and prompted an emergency declaration are the subject of a criminal investigation after crews found evidence that substations were “intentionally” damaged by gunfire, authorities said. The outage in Moore County was first reported around 7 p.m.

By Nouran Salahieh and Hannah Sarisohn, CNN With no suspects or motive announced, the FBI is joining the investigation into power outages in a North Carolina county believed to have been caused by “intentional” and “targeted” attacks on substations that left around 40,000 customers in the dark Saturday night, prompting a curfew and emergency declaration.

By Michelle Watson and Chris Boyette, CNN At a memorial service for four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death last month, a pastor from an Idaho church read aloud letters from the surviving roommates, recalling their memories of their friends and sharing their sadness. The service held Friday in Post Falls,

By David Williams, CNN A 2-year-old girl is recovering after being attacked by a coyote Friday afternoon in front of her house in a Los Angeles neighborhood, her father told CNN. Ariel Eliyahuo told CNN that his daughter, Ariya, had to have multiple rabies shots after the attack, which happened at about 3:45 p.m. after

By Keith Allen, CNN Tampa Police Chief Mary O’Connor has been placed on administrative leave after body camera footage taken from a traffic stop last month revealed she told a deputy she was “hoping that you’ll just let us go tonight” and flashed her badge. O’Connor was a passenger in a golf cart, which was pulled

By Rene Marsh, CNN A mom of three, Alicia Fout was going to college and working 30 hours a week but still often struggled to cover the cost of child care. The high price tag forced her to prioritize which monthly bills to pay, which meant frequent utility shut-off notices — and some extremely difficult

By Zoe Sottile, CNN An “amateur phone collective” in Philadelphia is working to bring back pay phones to the city — just without the actual payment. PhilTel, a volunteer organization that launched in June, is planning to open its first free-to-use payphone on December 17 at Iffy Books, a hacker-focused bookshop and workshop in the

By Andrew Torgan, CNN With the arrival of December, the year is drawing to a close — and some might say not a moment too soon. What does 2023 hold in store for us? Well, it appears the future looks bright … magenta to be exact. Here’s what else you need to know to Start