CNN – National

By Sonia Moghe, CNN For the first time since R. Kelly and Aaliyah’s 1994 wedding, the minister who officiated spoke publicly about it as he testified Wednesday under subpoena at Kelly’s criminal trial. On the day after the 27th anniversary of their wedding, Nathan Edmond, 73, a Chicago-area ordained minister, testified that he officiated for

By Emma Tucker, CNN A new pro-gun law in Texas that went into effect Wednesday allows most Texans who legally own a firearm to carry it openly in public without obtaining a permit or training, a measure that experts say will make it more challenging for law enforcement to protect the public from gun violence.

By David Williams, CNN A Texas school district is closing all of its schools until after the Labor Day holiday after two junior high teachers died of Covid-19 complications in the same week. In an email to parents on Monday, Connally Independent School District said that was closing all of its campuses due to an

By Elizabeth Stuart, CNN An Oregon schools superintendent was fired during a Monday night school board meeting, after he enforced the state’s mask mandate in the district’s public schools, according to a report from the Malheur Enterprise newspaper, which had reporters in attendance at the meeting. Adrian School District Superintendent Kevin Purnell was terminated after

By Lauren M. Johnson and Ariane de Vogue, CNN A Texas high school valedictorian, who went viral after she changed her speech to speak out against the state’s newly passed abortion law, reacted to the news that the abortion ban will not be stopped by the courts. “It’s very sad to see, and it is

By Claudia Dominguez and Jason Hanna, CNN One student was fatally wounded Wednesday in a shooting at a high school in the North Carolina city of Winston-Salem, and the suspect is in custody, officials said. The shooting happened at Mount Tabor High School on the city’s northwest side. Police officers and Forsyth County sheriff’s deputies

By Eric Levenson and Stella Chan, CNN A Colorado grand jury indicted three police officers and two paramedics involved in the August 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who was stopped by police while walking home from a store, placed in a carotid hold and then injected with ketamine, Colorado Attorney General

By Nicole Chavez, CNN A new Texas law aimed at restricting discussions of race and history in schools has some educators second guessing themselves and forgoing civics-related activities to avoid running afoul of it. HB3979, one of the legislative efforts to ban critical race theory in American classrooms, went into effect Wednesday as schools in

By Eric Levenson and Gary Tuchman, CNN Grand Isle, Louisiana’s last remaining inhabited barrier island at the southern tip of the state, bore the brunt of Hurricane Ida and was devastated by the Category 4 storm’s high winds, rain and storm surge. “I’ve never seen it look like this,” Bryan Adams, director of Jefferson Parish

By Jean Casarez, CNN USA Gymnastics is proposing a $425 million settlement with sexual abuse victims as part of a reorganization plan submitted jointly with a court-appointed Committee of Sexual Abuse survivors amid bankruptcy proceedings. USAG filed for bankruptcy in 2018 as the organization struggled to recover from the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal. The

By Daniel Wolfe and Priya Krishnakumar, CNN As students and staff return to school, the highly transmissible Delta variant of Covid-19 has caused cases, hospitalizations and death rates to soar across the country. Children under 12 are particularly vulnerable to infection as they are not yet eligible for vaccination, including the FDA-approved Pfizer vaccine. Contrary

By Holly Yan, CNN Storm victims returning to damaged homes after Ida face a torrent of challenges — if they’re lucky enough to have a home standing at all. In the most devastated places, “Power outages will last weeks to possibly months,” the National Hurricane Center said. “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for

By Cheri Mossburg, CNN Federal forest officials closed trails and campgrounds in a remote area near Yosemite National Park because of “unknown hazards” located in the area where a family and their dog were mysteriously found dead last month. The bodies of Jonathan Gerrish, Ellen Chung, their 1-year-old daughter, Miju, and the family dog, Oksi,