Month: March 2026

By Eva Andersen, Scott Jacobson

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    Philadelphia (KYW) — A South Jersey nonprofit is teaching women how to defend themselves while also launching a new effort to support those recovering from difficult situations.

Inside a Willingboro gym, women practiced how to break free, create distance and get to safety during a free self-defense class hosted by Strike It Strong.

Organizers said the training is about more than physical technique.

“Helping them to reclaim their power — finding themselves again through feeling strong,” said instructor Jamie Miller, who is a retired MMA fighter and domestic violence survivor.

Strike it Strong hosts events about every other month, according to organizers. The annual Willingboro class is now in its third year. Co-founder Cheryl Squadrito said the goal is to help women stay prepared.

“Make women aware of their surroundings, being careful,” she said.

While some of the moves may look intense, organizers said the environment is designed to be supportive.

“When you walk out of here, you’re going to feel a little bit taller,” co-founder Nancy Starr said.

This year, the organization is expanding its mission with the launch of the “Step Up Fund,” created in honor of Squadrito’s sister, Marilyn, a former rape counselor — and a wife, mother and grandmother — who passed away in 2025.

“She died unexpectedly, and in her honor, I wanted to do something — my friends wanted to help,” Squadrito said.

The fund is meant to provide practical support for women in need.

“Whether they need their apartment fixed up, whether they need presents for their kids, or clothes — and we’re partnering with other agencies to help,” she said.

Participants said the class offers a release.

“Not only am I learning skills — but I have a chance to decompress,” Merisha Sturgis said.

Organizers said the goal is for women to leave not just with new techniques, but with a stronger sense of confidence. Starr said she encourages everyone to give classes a try, even if they’re hesitant at first.

“It can be scary, we get it,” she said. “Someone says, ‘I don’t want to go and get punched in the face!’ You’re not going to be punched in the face, we promise you. It’s going to be a good experience.”

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Mark Prussin

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    NEW YORK (WCBS) — The first New York City public school student arrested by federal immigration officials under the Trump administration’s crackdown has been released 10 months after his detention sparked protests.

Dylan Lopez Contreras, a student from Venezuela who attended school in the Bronx, was released from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Pennsylvania on Wednesday morning and was heading back to his family in the city, two advocates with ROCC NYC said Wednesday.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed in a statement, in part, that Contreras has been released with a GPS tracking device.

“He will receive full due process. If a judge finds he has no right to remain in the U.S., he will be swiftly removed,” the statement added.

Contreras’ arrest Contreras was 20 years old and had no criminal history when he was arrested on May 21, 2025, after showing up for an asylum hearing at federal immigration court in Lower Manhattan. He was enrolled at Ellis Prep High School, which serves immigrant students and English language learners.

At the time, DHS said Contreras was subject to expedited removal and ICE called him “an illegal alien from Venezuela who illegally entered the U.S. more than one year ago. Under the Biden administration, he was encountered at the border and released into the country.”

Days after Contreras was arrested, nearly two dozen people were arrested outside the immigration court as protesters and police officers clashed around the barricades.

Last June, the Adams administration filed a legal challenge against ICE seeking Contreras’ immediate release.

Reaction to Contreras’ release Contreras’ attorneys said their client entered the U.S. legally.

“As legal advocates, we know all too well just how many more people are still out there, remain unjustly detained, risk separation from loved ones, or spend each day living in fear and uncertainty under this current political climate,” said Melissa Chua of NYLAG.

“Dylan’s life was unjustly interrupted, his young adulthood put on hold by a broken immigration system that tore him from his family. We have witnessed firsthand what an exceptional person he is. His extraordinary grit, fortitude and resilience in the face of this horrific situation are inspiring,” a statement said from co-directors Power Malu and Candice Braun said.

“All glory and honor belong to God, who opened doors and made the impossible possible,” said Raiza Contreras, Dylan’s mother. “I am grateful to everyone who, in one way or another, played a part in offering support and strength, and were always there. Very soon, my son will be back with his siblings and me—it is both a relief and a blessing.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement the city “is overjoyed that Dylan has finally been released.”

“What should have been a time for him to focus on finishing high school instead became 10 long months of isolation, after he was taken into custody at what was supposed to be a routine immigration hearing last May,” Mamdani said.

“It’s a profound relief to see Dylan finally on his way home. He’s been deeply missed by his family and school community, and his strength through this unimaginable time is not something any child should have to bear. Time meant for learning, laughter, and growth, was taken from him, and we stand firm and united against the unlawful detention of young people. With the support of Project Open Arms, we will ensure Dylan has a supported transition back to school, while continuing our unwavering commitment to protect every student, in every classroom,” New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar H. Samuels said in a statement.

“We are overjoyed that Dylan is finally able to return home, where he should have been for the last nearly 10 months he’s spent unjustly detained for simply following the rules,” said New York Legal Assistance Group attorney Kate Fetrow.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that Contreras “did everything right, he entered legally, worked to support his family and enrolled in school, and he should have never been detained.”

“I am glad the administration has heeded my calls and righted this wrong, but there are many more families like Dylan’s that have been torn apart because of ICE,” Schumer added.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Emily McLeod

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    ATLANTA (WUPA) — Most people think of October with breast cancer awareness, but the work being done by advocates and organizations like Susan G. Komen happens year-round.

Peachtree City resident Heather Tucker was diagnosed with De Novo Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer three years ago at just 28 years old.

She received her diagnosis on a Friday, and by Tuesday, she was back at work trying cases as a misdemeanor prosecutor with Fulton County.

“I put on my heels, put on my Spanx, and got two DUI convictions,” Tucker said.

Despite the diagnosis, she wanted to see her cases through.

“I do a lot of DUIs and a lot of domestic violence cases, so these are very important too,” Tucker said. “So yeah, that’s what keeps me going.”

Tucker found out about her cancer after a visit to the urgent care clinic. She had been sick for nearly a week when her mom suggested she go to the doctor.

“The doctor came in, she was like, ‘Is your back hurting?'” Tucker said. “And I was like, ‘Oh, extremely, extremely.’ But I didn’t really complain because I figured everybody’s back hurts. And she said, ‘Well, cancer is eating your spine.’ Those are her exact words I’ll never forget.”

Cancer had spread to Tucker’s bones, liver, and ovaries. But three months after her 30th birthday, Tucker went into remission.

“When it’s metastatic breast cancer, metastatic means it’s spread from the original location,” Tucker said. “The fight is never really over. The cancer is just so aggressive. I’m going to be on chemo for the rest of my life.”

Yet, Tucker still finds joy.

“When I found that out, I just decided I was not going to let cancer run my life or make decisions for me,” Tucker said.

Tucker lives her life going to concerts, spending time with her dog, Knight, and sharing her story with others.

“If I can turn this terrible thing that’s happened to me into, you know, a potentially good thing and inspirational thing, helpful to others, that’s just what I want to do,” Tucker said.

Tucker also raises money for Susan G. Komen while believing the cure for cancer will be found in her lifetime.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Breana Pitts

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    BOSTON (WBZ) — Tapping a tree for maple syrup is a tradition in New England. They’re doing it with a modern twist at the Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary in Sharon, Massachusetts.

“For some people, this is their first real understanding of how maple syrup is done and maybe their first time getting out into a place like this,” said nature camp director Shawn Moriarty.

The section of the forest where trees are tapped is known as a “sugar bush,” and Moriarty said the weather has to cooperate for sap to flow. Ideal conditions include nights around 25 degrees and daytime temperatures climbing into the upper 30s or low 40s. But this year, the season got off to a slow start.

“We would have tapped the third or fourth week of January, but this year it was too cold. We didn’t tap until just before February vacation, so we’re almost three to four weeks behind schedule,” Moriarty said.

And while many people may picture thick syrup coming straight from the tree, that’s not the case. It looks like water.

“They think it comes out of the tree looking like syrup, which I can understand,” Moriarty said. “At best it’s two percent sugar.”

The process itself has deep historical roots in New England.

“French explorers coming down through the Canadian Maritimes wrote about members of the Wabanaki Confederacy taking liquid from trees and making sugar out of it,” Moriarty said. “That was an unknown process to Europeans. It became a form of currency for colonists. If I can make sugar, now I can trade with my neighbors. If I can make sugar, I didn’t have to buy it from a British salesperson. You get into the 1800s, and it was freedom from sugar from the South, which was a real badge of pride in Massachusetts.”

Today, Moose Hill still uses a small number of traditional buckets for nostalgia, but most of the sap is now collected through a gravity-based tubing system that runs through the woods from tree to tree.

The sap eventually travels to a sugar house, where volunteers boil it down until it reaches exactly 219 degrees. That process concentrates the liquid from about two percent sugar to the 66 percent sugar content needed to become maple syrup.

While maple sugaring has been happening at Moose Hill since 1972, the focus here isn’t on mass production.

“We’re an educational producer. We’re not making thousands of gallons of syrup. We’ll make maybe 100 if we’re lucky,” Moriarty said.

Moriarty said the volunteers are part of what makes the experience so special.

“Knowing the people who help make it, knowing where it all comes from, and it’s something special that happens here in Sharon,” he said.

Visitors can buy the locally made maple syrup right at the sanctuary store.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Dennis Valera

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    BALTIMORE (WJZ) — When a man living in Virginia suddenly had to return to his home country of Brazil in 2025, he surrendered his four pet rabbits to a Howard County nonprofit.

Since Friends of Rabbits in Columbia took in those pets, staff and volunteers have worked to reunite them with their owners.

It took over a year, but their hard work paid off, and Filipe Silva was reunited with the rabbits.

Leaving his family behind Silva lived in the United States from 2017 to 2025. He originally came to study English and was able to extend his student visa year after year with no problems.

That is, until 2025, when his visa extension was denied.

From the moment he found out, Silva only had 30 days to figure out how to transport Cocoa, Cosmo, Conny, and Cobee — his pet rabbits — with him to Brazil.

After running out of options, money, and time, Silva knew he had to give them up.

“I used to come back from work every day, and when I got into the room, the first thing they did was run toward me,” Silva said. “I wasn’t sure if I would even see them [again].”

Silva ultimately surrendered them to Friends of Rabbits in Columbia, the largest rabbit rescue in the region.

The staff and volunteers there made sure his pets would be cared for.

“We don’t want to see people who care and love their animals so much have them end up at a shelter and possibly euthanized,” said Susan Wong, co-founder and treasurer for Friends of Rabbits.

Getting the rabbits to Brazil From the moment Silva’s four rabbits got into its custody, Friends of Rabbits made it its mission to get them back to Silva.

It took a lot of work, according to Wong and volunteer Jen Wilder, that included more than just a lot of paperwork.

“It involved veterinary clearances, it involved [finding] a U.S. cargo company and a Brazil cargo company. We had to get an import permit from Brazil,” Wilder said.

Friends of Rabbits worked with a number of companies, even finding a direct flight out of JFK Airport in New York City.

Wong drove the rabbits to the airport from Columbia herself.

All the efforts resulted in Silva getting back together with Cocoa, Cosmo, Conny and Cobee last week.

“When I saw them, these four white little dots inside the cages, it was magical for me,” Silva said. “I wanted to cry, I wanted to pick them up, I don’t have words to explain [my feelings].”

Friends of Rabbits is currently raising money to cover the costs of everything it did to make this happen.

The nonprofit has facilitated rabbit transports to Japan, Istanbul and Turkey as well.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By WABC Staff

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    BRANCHBURG, New Jersey (WABC) — Neighbors looked out for each other in Branchburg when a fire tore through a row of townhomes early Wednesday morning.

The fire burned through the attached homes at The Red Rock Preserve on Old York Road just before 5:45 a.m.

NewsCopter 7 was over the scene as the gas-fed flames quickly spread through the cockloft.

Families grabbed what they could in the terrifying early morning moments and ran out of the building, but say they are thankful that they escaped safely.

The fire gutted several townhouses. The building no longer has a roof after it melted away and parts of siding were left dangling in the wind.

As the fire burned, firefighters hit the blaze from every angle as the red and orange flames glowed in the dark early morning hours.

Neighbors say the fire got worse by the minute. Canessa Stanley told Eyewitness News she got a call from a man begging her to get his wife to safety.

“He told me to go get his wife because she wasn’t answering her phone, so I ran over here, but then by the time I got there a neighbor had kicked her door in because she was in there sleeping and she didn’t even know what was going on,” she said. “A couple hours ago, this whole thing was up in a light blaze and then the roof caved in.”

“These are my babies right here. I just got to work and my wife called me and said the house was on fire. I ran out of my garage and I came back home as fast as I could,” a man said.

“I just want to say thank you to my neighbor. Because without him, we would probably be dead right now,” a child said.

“I have two disabled parents so I had to get them out as fast as I could and we weren’t able to save anything,” another neighbor said. “It was just all happening too quick. Eventually, it all just spread down to the top floor of the entire building.”

There are no known serious injuries. The cause of the fire is unknown.

Local officials are working with county partners to assist residents who have been displaced, including efforts to secure temporary housing and provide necessary support services.

The Red Rock Preserve is an affordable housing townhouse community that was just completed two years ago.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Karina Vargas

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    SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The ongoing federal government shutdown is forcing thousands of Transportation Security Administration officers in San Diego to work without pay during the busy spring break travel season.

At San Diego International Airport, TSA officers are still showing up to keep travelers safe, but behind the scenes, many are struggling to make ends meet.

Alondra Galvan is a single mother and a TSA officer currently working without pay because of the partial government shutdown.

“It’s very frustrating for everything, from financial restraints to mental instability. There’s times that at night I’m like what am I going to do, how am I going to do it,” Galvan said.

Galvan has been working as a TSA officer for two years. She said she has been trying to bounce back from the longest government shutdown in U.S. history last year, where she went without pay for 43 days. Now, it is happening all over again. For her, this shutdown is more than just politics; it is personal.

“I’m a single mom right now, my son usually goes to spring break camps, and I can’t afford that right now because there’s no money coming in, and I just don’t know what to do anymore. There’s no babysitter. I don’t have money to pay a babysitter, so it’s all around bad,” Galvan said.

The union representing TSA workers held a food bank for them. Galvan said anything helps.

“It’s just eggs, milk, and some vegetables, and some rice, but for me, that’s what we eat on the daily basis,” Galvan said.

Galvan said she decided to continue going to work, but she does not know how much longer she can handle it. She is already starting to look for other jobs to fall back on because she is being stretched thin financially.

“I’m down to my last like $100 and I just put gas in my car that was $50 I don’t know how I’m going to do it the next two weeks,” Galvan said.

The Department of Homeland Security said that since the shutdown started, over 350 TSA officers have left the force, and more continue to call out. TSA workers like Galvan want this to end.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Michael Martin

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    SALT LAKE CITY (KSTU) — Three people have been arrested, including two listed as juveniles, after the site of the proposed ICE detention center in Salt Lake City was vandalized.

The vandalism at the warehouse located west of Salt Lake City International Airport included graffiti with a swastika that had a line going through it, and the words, “Kill all Nazis.” Several windows at the facility were also smashed, and what appeared to be paint was on the door.

The incident occurred during a large protest held at the warehouse Wednesday in which hundreds gathered to express their anger over the planned detention facility after ICE purchased the building last week. Multiple state and city leaders, including Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and Republican Sen. John Curtis, have denounced the proposal for various reasons.

Chase Fredrickson, 18, was arrested early Thursday and faces charges of Property Damage and Riot. According to court documents, Fredrickson was allegedly captured on video throwing rocks at the exterior of the ICE warehouse during the protest.

“The throwing of the rocks caused the glass to shatter and break,” the arrest report said.

The identities of the two juveniles were not released. The court documents do not connect Frederickson or anyone else to the graffiti painted outside the building.

Federal agents on the scene told the arresting officer with the Salt Lake City Police Department that the damage was estimated to be $3,000.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.