Month: May 2026

By Rishi Oza

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    EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — Martin Aceves has been legally blind his whole life. He’s an El Paso native and University of Texas at El Paso graduate trying to find a way to involve the blind community in public more.

For the last three years, he worked to make a game of billiards for the blind. A guide maker, whose son is blind, helped Aveces make wooden guides for the game.

The game is similar to normal billiards; the goal is to get the balls into the pockets, but you can’t see. Players can’t fully see what’s going on, but they can feel it.

“When they could see, they actually played the game. And that comes back, the full feelings get into effect and getting involved with the game,” said Aceves.

The first Tuesday of every month, the players get together at the Marty Robbins Rec Center in East El Paso. The group calls themselves the “Sharp Shooters.”

“Living on your own is hard, but it’s possible,” said Carlos Mosqueda, a member of the group.

Another member, Frank Rodriguez, said he never thought he would be able to play pool again.

“We want the people to get involved and come and do something, you know, to get them out of the house,” said Rodriguez.

According to Aceves, about 5,000 people are visually impaired throughout El Paso. He wants to get as many involved in his game as he can.

“Blindness is a major tragic issue, more so than other disabilities. It completely cancels a person’s life until they get retrained into society,” said Aceves.

His next steps are getting all of Texas involved, and creating a tournament around the state.

“I’m 70. Between now and 80, I want to see a state championship of this,” he said. “Let’s say I see a thousand individuals playing pool and that I started this? Give me a break. That’s very enjoyable.”

To get involved, Aceves says that you can meet them at the Marty Robbins Center and get started.

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 Jeremy Tombs

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    BRIGHAM CITY, Utah (KSTU) — More than three weeks after the Box Elder County Commission decided to green-light a massive data center, hundreds came to Brigham City to voice their continued frustration over the Stratos Project.

Those opposed to the proposed data center showed up on Wednesday from across northern Utah.

“I’m a single mother from Eagle Mountain. I made a rant [on social media] to meet up here at one of their meetings, and it just kind of exploded!” said protest organizer Tiffany Larson.

Many of those who protested outside the courthouse were from diverging ideological backgrounds.

“I look around here, this is probably not my type of crowd. So what do we all have in common? We don’t like being treated poorly,” shared former Utah State Rep. Phil Lyman.

The protesters coalesced around a general feeling of being unheard.

“Together, we can make them listen,” shouted Brigette Cottam to a cheering crowd.

Having grown up in nearby Willard, Cottam is part of the Box Elder Accountability Referendum group (BEAR), and hopes the listening happens through the possibility of a referendum that currently hangs in the balance of county officials.

“Tomorrow, we should be hearing back on approval or denial of the referendum,” said Cottam. “Tomorrow, no matter what they say, we hit the ground running.”

At the rally, protestors took their concerns into the county commission chambers, where many first learned of the 40,000-acre plan.

“Every year we pray for rain… we’re worried about our water. We live it in the desert. Utah’s a special place, and we need to treat it with the love and respect it deserves,” said Box Elder County resident Elizabeth Hulbert.

As the commissioners listened to an hour’s worth of comments without reply, the angry locals made sure their message got across to county leaders and those behind the project.

“I didn’t see any buses. I’m trusting none of you got paid to show up,” BEAR organizer Farrah Pliley asked the crowd. “You woke up all the ‘BEARS’. An entire state of them. All these angry BEARS against one shark. Good luck, you’ve got quite the fight ahead of you.”

Earlier Wednesday, a water rights change application for the Stratos Project had been pulled for the second time. Murray Hollow L.C. withdrew the application that had about 700 official protests written against it. All of that money will again go to the state’s general fund, and none will be refunded to the protesters who filed them.

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 Jeremy Fredricks

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    OMAHA, Nebraska (KMTV) — School counselors in the Omaha area are beginning to use specially designed AI chatbots to help identify causes and solutions for students dealing with mental health challenges, even as concerns about AI’s impact on young people’s mental health continue to grow.

Karla Sextro, a counselor at DC West Schools in Valley, said she had not used AI to assist her work with students until recently. A specially designed chatbot provided her with ideas on causes and treatments for a first-grade boy who refused to go to school.

“I’m scared to use AI,” Sextro said.

The chatbot walked through details the counselor had already discussed with the student’s caregiver.

“It explained a lot that we’ve already discussed with the caregiver,” Sextro said.

More than 1 in 8 people 21 and younger use generative AI for mental health advice, according to a study published in November 2025. Most of those tools are general-use AI chatbots.

Thang Tran, a professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and a team developed specific chatbots designed for school counselors. One helps counselors identify possible causes and solutions for students, and the other addresses ethical concerns.

“I don’t know exactly what the AI is actually saying to them for their particular situation, so that’s where the consultation, supervision, and really the follow-up is helpful, important and necessary,” Tran said.

Tran said AI can make mistakes and that there are concerns about confidentiality. Sextro said she plans to incorporate AI more into her work but describes it as one tool among many.

“I think it’s a great tool. I don’t think it’s what you should go to and use completely,” Sextro said.

Tran said he is working on an updated version of the chatbot to address counselors’ ethical questions.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. KMTV verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

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 Kristine Sorensen

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    PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (KDKA) — New moms now have more support with the statewide expansion of a mom-to-mom texting program through a nonprofit called NurturePA.

Six thousand moms in Allegheny County have used the free service since NurturePA started it in 2014. It’s now open to anyone in Pennsylvania who’s pregnant or caring for a child up to age five. Trained mentors, who are moms themselves, are paired with a new mom for anonymous, nonjudgmental texting support.

Sharon Welburn used the service with her firstborn child and loved having someone to vent to and learn from.

“I didn’t realize how common jaundice in babies was until my baby was jaundiced,” Welburn said. “I was panicking that I did something wrong, and then my mentor texted, ‘You’re OK. You’re not doing anything wrong. It’s something that sometimes happens. My kid had jaundice when they were born.'”

The trained mentors screen for postpartum depression eight times in the first year after the baby is born. NurturePA Executive Director Susan Crookston says the service is especially ideal for moms in rural areas who are further from support networks. She says for many new moms, having a baby can feel disorienting because so much changes.

“New baby, new everything,” Crookston said. “Your body is different … Every element of your life can be upended by a baby, and though it’s a wonderful and joyous experience, it’s also incredibly challenging.”

Nurture PA is also collecting parenting wisdom from moms across Pennsylvania to be shared across their platforms and in an art exhibit.

To share your words of wisdom or enroll in the free mom-to-mom texting service as a new mom or a mentor, go to the NurturePA website. And for more advice and local resources for new parents, go to Kidsburgh.org.

KDKA is proud to partner with kidsburgh.org.

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 De’Jah Gross

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    CINCINNATI (WCPO) — A Cincinnati man in recovery from alcohol use disorder is walking across a graduation stage Thursday, and the diploma he thought he never earned has been waiting for him all along.

Shawn Hughes, 58, is a resident at Prospect House, a long-term men’s spiritual recovery center in Price Hill. For decades, Hughes believed he had not graduated from Woodward High School after missing three days of summer school in 1987.

“I was absent from school those three days they gave me, so I assumed that I didn’t graduate,” Hughes said.

That assumption turned out to be wrong.

Hughes enrolled in Cincinnati Public Schools’ ASPIRE program, which offers free day and evening classes for people looking to earn their GED. Three weeks in, the staff made a discovery that stopped him in his tracks.

“Three weeks into me taking the classes, they called me into the office and said, ‘Sean, you already have your diploma.’ I said, ‘What?'” Hughes said. “This is surprising to me. I came here to get my GED.”

His diploma had been sitting in the basement of the school.

Hughes will walk across the stage Thursday as part of the ASPIRE program’s graduation ceremony, finally marking the milestone he thought had passed him by nearly 40 years ago.

“I was happy, actually surprised,” Hughes said.

Cincinnati Public Schools is working to spread the word about the program. ASPIRE sites are offered in partnership with community agencies throughout the city of Cincinnati.

According to the district’s website, classes are free and available year-round during the day and evening. Online courses are also available.

“I said to myself, I’m going to start doing things for myself that I wouldn’t do if I were still out there,” Hughes said.

Hughes said the road to this moment was not easy. He has spent years battling alcohol use disorder.

“Prior to me having my children, I was an alcoholic, and I got in some trouble a few times through the court system, and the third time I got a DUI, and they decided to put me in a treatment program through Talbert House,” Hughes said.

He stayed sober for eight years before falling back off.

“Spent 25 years doing the same thing. I called my sister, who’s been in sobriety for 35 years, to help me,” Hughes said. “I wasn’t doing anything, but destroying myself and looking at death.”

Recovery at Prospect House, where he’s been for five months, has given him a new foundation. The center offers a treatment program, three-quarter housing and alumni housing, creating a community where men at different stages of sobriety can support one another.

“We take them in regardless of their resources or ability to pay, being willing, having that gift of desperation, having seen unsuccessful attempts, and being ready to commit to long-term abstinence-based treatment is really the key,” Paul Quertermous, executive director of Prospect House, said. “We don’t accept anyone on medication-assisted treatment. We are one model, abstinence-based, 12-step, and we work very hard to maintain that model, and to keep everybody on the same path.”

For Hughes, returning to education was about more than a diploma. It was about understanding himself.

“I just always turned to that, even though when the alcohol went away, I still had that problem still there. So I just wanted to take time out for myself and learn me. I needed to know who I really was,” Hughes said.

Quertermous said watching Hughes reach this point has been meaningful.

“They don’t know if they’re ever going to make it, and Shawn is at that point where he can see that he can build a life now, and that’s a wonderful thing to see,” Quertermous said.

Hughes is also one of the newest cooks at Prospect House. His next goal is to attend college to study robotics and continue growing a bond with children.

“If I die tomorrow, I can say I did something,” Hughes said.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. WCPO verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

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 Frank Marzullo

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    CINCINNATI (WCPO) — On May 28, 2016, the course of Cincinnati history changed when a 3-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.

Harambe, a 17-year-old western lowland silverback gorilla, entered the moat where the child had fallen and was seen dragging and moving the boy through the water inside the enclosure.

Zoo officials made the difficult decision to shoot and kill Harambe to protect the child.

The incident, which occurred 10 years ago, sparked an intense global debate over zoo safety, animal rights and parental responsibility that dominated social media for months.

Current Ohio Supreme Court Justice Joe Deters was the Hamilton County prosecutor when Harambe was killed.

He told me the decision not to charge the boy’s mother was not a difficult one — despite intense national and global pressure following the killing of the silverback gorilla.

“It wasn’t even close to being negligent in my mind,” Deters said.

Deters sat down with me to discuss his thought process on whether to pursue child neglect charges against the mother of the boy involved. He acknowledged the public grief over the gorilla’s death, while making clear where his priorities stood.

“Harambe was a beautiful animal, but this is a 3-year-old kid,” Deters said.

The public reaction was unlike anything Deters had seen in his career. He said he received letters from Europe and South America, and one letter from either New Zealand or Australia arrived with a bloody hand print on it.

“Viral mix of people. Wanted somebody to pay for this,” Deters said.

Deters said the case also presented a practical challenge in court.

“But more importantly, prosecutors, when you look at a case, you have to believe that you have a likelihood of success at trial,” Deters said. “We would have had to try this mother in front of a jury probably full of grandmothers and grandfathers and you know, moms and dads, and they’re gonna say, well, my kid’s wandered off before, you know, that kind of thing. It just was not, it wasn’t even a close call for me.”

Deters put the case in perspective against others he handled during his tenure.

“We’ve had much worse cases, believe me. We’ve had serial killers. We’ve had tons of other cases, but in terms of the effect of social media in a particular case. this took the prize by a long shot,” Deters said.

When asked whether any other case had generated a comparable level of public attention, Deters said none came close.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. WCPO verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

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 Julie Dunmire

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    ALLEGAN, Michigan (WXMI) — A baby boy made his grand entrance into the world in the parking lot of Corner Bible Church in Allegan, in the back seat of the family’s car.

Everett Sumerix was born weighing 10 pounds, 9 ounces, with 10 fingers and 10 toes.

His mother, Jaimy Piper, said the birth was not exactly what she had planned.

“Uhm, so, in the car actually. The back seat of the car,” Piper said, with a laugh.

On the way to the hospital, Piper said it became clear Everett would not wait.

“I was like, yep, you’re going to have to call somebody. So, he called 911,” Piper said.

A firefighter arrived on scene before other responders.

“It was a firefighter who made it here first,” Piper said.

“There was a tractor that was slowing everybody else down,” Piper said.

By the time that firefighter reached the car, the delivery was already underway.

“When he opened up the back door, his head was already out,” Piper said.

Piper said she hopes to track down the firefighter to express her gratitude.

“We actually are working on putting together a thank you basket for him, when we do find him,” Piper said.

For Piper, the experience was one she never could have anticipated.

“I never actually imagined giving birth in a car,” Piper said.

As for what the future holds for little Everett, his mother has a thought.

“I think it’d be cool if he grew up wanting to be a firefighter,” Piper said.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. WXMI verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

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 Shakeria Hawkins

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    SOUTHWEST LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A Las Vegas mother of four says she’s struggling to afford a $500 insurance deductible after a large inflatable display from a southwest valley smog shop allegedly slammed into her car during strong winds.

Marion Wagner says her 2017 Nissan Maxima was parked outside Smog Busters near Blue Diamond Road and Decatur Boulevard when the incident happened.

“All of the glass on top of my car was completely smashed,” Wagner said.

According to Wagner, the business’s inflatable display was picked up by the wind and crashed into her vehicle, shattering the windshield and sunroof.

“The wind picked up the inflatable guy and basically beat on my car,” Wagner said. “The front windshield was smashed in, the sunroof was completely smashed in.”

Wagner says the vehicle was unoccupied at the time. When she returned, she found shattered glass across the front windshield and roof of the car.

She says the situation has become a financial burden as she waits for the insurance process to play out.

“I do have insurance, but I don’t have an extra $500,” Wagner said. “The price of gas, the price of groceries… everybody is struggling.”

Wagner says the latest repair estimate is now around $7,700 after a body shop discovered additional damage around the sunroof frame.

“I’m not asking them to pay the total claim,” Wagner said. “I’m just asking them to cover my deductible.”

Channel 13 also spoke with Smog Busters manager James Leithner, who says the company is willing to work through the situation, but any payments or claims must go through insurance procedures first.

“We were actively trying to work through things,” Leithner said. “We have protocols in place and we have to involve our own insurance.”

Leithner also questioned some details surrounding how the damage occurred, while saying the company has never experienced an issue like this before.

“It was a pretty impressive physical event that took place that would be extraordinarily unusual,” Leithner said. “But that’s not for me to decide. That would be for the insurance companies to figure out.”

“We use this same inflatable every day at multiple locations and never had an issue like this,” he added.

A local attorney also told Channel 13 there is nothing legally preventing the company from paying Wagner’s deductible if they choose to, even while the insurance claim is under review.

For Wagner, she says finding an extra $500 right now feels impossible.

“I’m on a fixed income. There’s mortgage, groceries, gas… in today’s economy we’re all penny-pinching,” Wagner said. “There’s no extra five dollars, much less $500.”

Smog Busters management says they are continuing to work through the situation with Wagner, but maintain that any damages or payments must go through the company’s insurance process.

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.