CNN – National

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

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