Month: April 2026

By Amanda Boettcher

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    TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) — The sister of a man wanted for placing a bomb outside the MacDill Air Force Base visitors center is accused of using ChatGPT prompts to help her brother flee the country.

Ann Mary Zheng of Land O’ Lakes is charged with helping her brother, 20-year-old Alen Zheng, flee to China and destroying evidence after he placed an improvised explosive device (IED) outside of the base’s visitor center on March 10. The device did not detonate.

Ann was in federal court on March 31 for a bond hearing. Prosecutors said Ann used ChatGPT to try to find out how to obtain a Chinese visa, transfer property in her brother’s name to her, and find schools Alen could attend in China.

The court is giving the government until 5 p.m. on April 3 to respond to the 27-year-old defendant’s motion to set a reasonable bond.

The Department of Justice said Alen is still at large and believed to be in China. He faces federal charges of attempted damage of government property by fire or explosion, unlawful making of a destructive device, and possession of an unregistered destructive device.

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 Mercy Sackor, Bob Jones

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    AKRON, Ohio (WEWS) — After running away from his Akron home and being missing for months, a Pomeranian Husky named after the Greek god of sky and thunder recently had a heartwarming reunion with his owners, Rose Baun and Gio Diago.

Zeus is cute and fluffy, but proved he has his own brand of strength and toughness.

“He’s got his little thunderbolt we like to say on his head,” Baun said. “I think he’s a very resilient dog.”

The 22-pound dog is also a bit of a troublemaker.

Last August, Zeus somehow broke out of a window of his home and jumped outside. A neighbor grabbed Zeus and put him in a cage, but he escaped from that too, running off just a few weeks before his owners celebrated their daughter Gianna’s first birthday.

“This is like my first son. He was like my son before I had a daughter,” Diago said.

As Zeus was on the loose, the couple spent months searching different neighborhoods.

“We were really out there searching, and it was just dead on dead ends,” Diago said.

Baun added, “I did start to lose a little bit of hope after probably like four months.”

Still, the couple continued posting several messages on Facebook asking for help with bringing their dog home. Dozens of tips and possible sightings came in.

“People would say, ‘Oh, I think I saw him. I hear this, that and the other.’ But we couldn’t ever like track him down to an area,” Baun said.

Seven months after Zeus disappeared, Diago received a video via socail media on March 24 that apparently showed a man walking the dog in the Chapel Hill neighborhood.

“There were a couple of people that did confirm that he was being passed around,” Baun said.

The next day, Diago said he went to the area and talked with a homeless man who said Zeus was with a woman inside Summit Ridge Apartments. Police were called to the scene and remained on the scene for almost two hours, and after using a microchip scanner, they were able to confirm the dog was indeed Zeus.

Patrol officers Anderson and Davis, along with Sgt. Farr, assisted in the retrieval of the dog.

“This is a huge win. We understand the importance of the connection and the relationship that people have with their pets,” Akron Police Lt. Michael Murphy said.

“So he comes back with Zeus in hand, and I’m like, ‘Oh, thank God,'” Baun said. “It was amazing, like I cried, obviously.”

No charges were filed in the case. The owners are just happy Zeus is finally home.

“It means the world to me, like realistically to me, it feels like he was never gone. I always told her (Baun) he was gonna come back,” said Diago.

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 Kaylee Olivas

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    CUYAHOGA COUNTY, Ohio (WEWS) — A college education isn’t cheap, but programs like the Cuyahoga County College Savings Account are supposed to alleviate some of that financial pain. The program shut down more than a decade ago, though, so now parents are wondering where that money went.

According to a pamphlet for the program, it was free to participate.

Each Cuyahoga County kindergartner, like now-senior in high school, Arianna Vaughn, was automatically enrolled at the start of this program.

Cuyahoga County deposited $100 into each account to get the ball rolling, and then families were provided physical deposit slips to continue adding to the pot.

“The College Savings Account program may secure donated funds to add to your account, but the primary way your child’s account will grow is through your contributions,” a pamphlet for the program says.

The account was opened through KeyBank. An account number associated with Vaughn’s name was created.

Vaughn’s mom, Deborah, said she didn’t use any of the deposit slips, so all that was sitting in this account was the county’s $100 contribution.

With Vaughn graduating soon and heading to Kent State in the fall for nursing, Deborah said she went to withdraw the $100 a couple of weeks ago, but found out the account had been closed and there was no money available to her.

“I went down to the bank to find out all the accounts had been closed out. I was asking every parent I could think of and parents couldn’t remember the program,” Deborah said.

She then shared her experience on Facebook. That’s when, through other parents, she found out all accounts had been allegedly closed in 2015.

“I was stunned. It was a bank account. I mean, I didn’t think you could just go in and withdraw money from somebody else’s bank account. Once you have a bank account, it’s secured I thought. Somebody else opened it, I didn’t think you could just go in and take the money out,” Deborah said.

Now she’s asking where the money intended for her daughter went and why she wasn’t notified of the program’s ending.

“I would just like to know what their ultimate plan was because this is a program that was started in kindergarten and the students are just becoming seniors now, so it was a long term investment,” Deborah said.

“Do you feel like the county owes you answers?,” I asked her.

Deborah said, “I think they should let us know. They should let us know.”

I reached out to Cuyahoga County Press Secretary Jennifer Ciaccia for information on Wednesday.

Ciaccia confirmed the program ended in 2015.

“At this time it appears that most everyone who participated received their money. The county does still have a small amount of funds that weren’t dispersed/collected because we could not locate the individuals to pay out, or they didn’t respond to notices that were sent out,” Ciaccia said.

The Vaughn family is now getting in touch with the county in an effort to collect the money.

If anyone else was a part of this program but has yet to see any money returned to them, email fiscalquestions@cuyahogacounty.gov.

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 Darren Cunningham

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    FERNDALE, Michigan (WXYZ) — Imagine your car is stolen right out of your driveway. You report it and after a month, you count it a loss and settle with insurance.

Months later, you find out the car was never really “missing” at all.

It happened to a woman from Ferndale.

On Sept. 14, 2025, Sharon Crane’s 2015 Hyundai Sonata disappeared from her driveway. Surveillance footage captures a car pulling up, someone got out and stole it in a matter of seconds.

“I came out and I was in shock and disbelief,” Crane recalled.

The 64-year-old retiree said Ferndale police came over right away and took a police report.

“And I hadn’t heard anything, no sightings or anything and I called them a couple times and they hadn’t heard anything either,” she recalled.

After a month, her insurance counted it as a loss and paid her $8,900 in October. About two weeks ago, Crane said she got an unexpected call from Ferndale police.

“They said that my car had been found in Detroit,” she said.

Six months later, Crane learned her car had been found on Griggs Avenue near 7 Mile Road in Detroit, about 2 miles from her home.

But when she looked at the Detroit Police Department’s investigative report, the bittersweet relief turned to pure disgust.

The police report shows DPD recovered it the same day it disappeared from her driveway.

“Why did it take 6 months to let me know?” Crane asked. “They knew about the car, they had the car before I even knew it was stolen.”

While her insurance rates were likely spiking, her car sat untouched in a Detroit police impound lot. Her belongings were still inside. The car was in perfect condition. But because six months had passed and the insurance company had already paid the claim. Crane no longer owned her car.

“Now it goes to auction. Cause I called my insurance when I found out they found it, seeing what I could do and she said now it goes to auction,” Crane explained.

“And I have to bid on it like anybody else if I want it back.”

So, where was the disconnect? Ferndale police took the report, but Detroit police recovered the vehicle.

“And that’s the reason I reached out to you is if it happened to me, how many other people did it happen to?” Crane said.

7 News Detroit reached out to DPD. A spokesperson said systems and processes are in place to make sure owners are notified the moment a vehicle is recovered. The department is looking into this situation to see how it was handled.

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 Daniel Woodruff

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    WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (KSL) — Angela Jensen was at home on Tuesday when a man stopped in front of her Little Free Library.

It’s not unusual for people to stop. After all, the sign near the book-sharing stand on King Arthur Drive in West Valley City encourages visitors to “take a book” or “leave a book.”

But this person had other ideas. Jensen’s Ring camera caught the moment he grabbed an entire stack and put it into his car, leaving just one or two books on the top shelf.

“The whole thing was cleared out,” Jensen told KSL.

Little Free Library is a Minnesota-based nonprofit organization with locations around the country. Jensen has hosted one for five years. She takes it seriously, posting updates about available books on Instagram and regularly rotating the selection.

She even hand-painted her stand and decorates it for the holidays.

“I want all of our neighborhoods to have access to free books, to banned books, too,” she said. “Anything that they want to access or get knowledge about, I think that it’s fair to have it accessible to everybody.”

After her books were stolen, Jensen posted about it on social media, and she got a response.

“A lot of people reached out willing to come by and donate books,” she said. “I actually have seen a couple people come by and drop by books.”

Jensen hopes those donations will continue, and she’s grateful for the response that shows there are people who care.

“They were actually really compassionate because I was worried that I was going to get backlash from people being like, ‘Why are you putting this out there?’ Or, ‘Why are you posting him,'” she said. “But I’m not against public shaming if you’re doing bad things against your neighborhood.”

Jensen said she didn’t file a police report after the theft, but she posted the video so people could keep an eye out — especially those who run Little Free Libraries of their own — so it hopefully doesn’t happen to them.

“I was pretty shocked,” she said.

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.