Month: May 2026

By Naomi Ruchim

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    NEW YORK (WCBS) — With the Knicks just one win away from reaching the NBA Finals, the New York City Police Department says it won’t support any more playoff watch parties outside Madison Square Garden due to unruly fan behavior.

Knicks playoff games have been shown on large outdoor screens on 33rd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues. The watch parties are free to attend, and have drawn huge crowds. According to the NYPD, about 6,000 people attended the watch party Thursday night for Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals.

The NYPD said at Thursday’s watch party, some attendees jumped over police barriers, threw things into the crowd, blocked vehicle traffic on multiple streets, and climbed on top of subway entrances. There were also reports of public drinking. Six people were arrested.

“This is not about having enough of the unruly fans – this is about keeping people safe,” an NYPD spokesperson said in a statement, in part.

City Councilmember Oswald Feliz, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, spoke out against the decision Saturday.

“Public safety has to be a top priority, but this is a city with a lot of resources,” he said, “and we should be able to have these events and, at the same time, be able to have them in a safe way and also in a successful way.”

Dr. Darrin Porcher, a former NYPD lieutenant who spent 20 years with the department, said he doesn’t think the NYPD made the right call.

“It baffles me that the permit has been denied for 6,000 people because this is something that the NYPD has been doing for years on end,” he said.

Some fans said they understand the decision and that a few bad apples are ruining the fun for everyone.

“It kinda sucks, but I honestly get it,” fan Joe Raguso said. “I understand partying, having fun. This is a special time of year. But once you start fighting, that’s not cool, man. We all gotta love each other. We’re the Knicks. We’re all together right now.”

“It kind of sucks because this fan base is hungry,” fan Shaughnessy Moody said. “We haven’t won a championship in over 50 years.”

“Everybody is just trying to have fun. They’re enjoying the Knicks season,” fan Nick Malacary said.

Police said they will review requests to hold watch parties at other locations, such as SummerStage in Central Park.

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 Loureen Ayyoub

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    SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — Opera singer Tim Blevins performs regularly outside San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre, where his powerful voice has become familiar to many passing through the Civic Center neighborhood. But for Blevins, music is more than performance; it is survival.

“Singing probably saved my life,” Blevins said. “Because I was kind of an anomaly to be a Black man singing opera, and be good at it.”

Blevins, 61, earned a master’s degree from Juilliard School and has performed on major opera and Broadway stages throughout his career. But after struggling with drug addiction, he experienced periods of homelessness that drastically changed the course of his life.

Still, he said music remained the constant that carried him through.

“No matter what has ever happened in my life, singing is what I have always fallen back on,” Blevins said. “If I ever need to eat, I sing.”

Now living in the Civic Center area, Blevins often performs for donations along Market Street near Eighth Street, an area known for both heavy foot traffic and a visible homeless population.

Injuries, including one to his hip, have left him using a wheelchair. Even so, Blevins said he remains confident in his voice, though he admits performing in public can still make him uncomfortable.

“I’m kind of introverted, you know,” he said. “I’m shy because I messed my teeth up. And so, I don’t really look up and sing.”

But even without making eye contact, Blevins’ performances routinely stop pedestrians in their tracks.

Angela Allen, one of two friends who recently stopped to listen to Blevins perform, said his music immediately resonated with them.

“Music really speaks to you,” Allen said. “I think it’s a universal language. And no matter where you come from and who you are, it just stops you in your tracks. And how wonderful to be out here and hear something like this. So, we were blessed.”

Blevins said the reactions he receives from strangers often remind him why he continues to perform.

“I’ve had people say they were getting ready to go kill somebody and they heard me sing and it stopped it,” he said.

For Blevins, the voice that brings peace to others also helps sustain him financially, allowing him to save money for food and family support.

“Survival,” Blevins said. “Singing is survival for me. So no matter what, I have to sing.”

And so he does, continuing to perform on the corner of Market and Eighth streets, where opera echoes through the heart of the city.

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 Andrea Nakano

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    SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — It was a ride a San Francisco couple will never forget and will never want to take again. Elliot Slade and his fiancée took a Waymo from San Mateo, hoping to reach their Mission District home.

Instead, the Waymo sped through a construction zone, was chased by police, then veered off the highway into a residential neighborhood.

“The Waymo started freaking out as we got closer to the merge cause the lanes were kind of all merging,” Slade said. “One lane was gone, another lane was, who knows where it was. Cars were all over the place going in.”

Slade captured cellphone video showing the Waymo trying to merge, but it was what happened next that terrified him and his fiancée.

“The scariest part, we’re all like OK, something’s happening,” he said. “We’re just going to pull over, we’re going to be safe. Then it accelerated to highway speeds down this construction lane.”

At that point, Slade wondered if he was going to make it out of the Waymo alive.

“There were construction signs,” he added. “There were lights going on. Police in the distance and it sped up. That’s when I looked at my fiancée, we’re done. This is it. We’re dead. We’re going to die right here in the Waymo.”

Slade says the Waymo sped up for roughly 20 seconds. It eventually got off the highway and pulled over in a residential neighborhood. That’s when they finally heard from a Waymo representative.

“She came on the line and said from what I could see, it seemed like a stressful experience,” he recalls the voice saying. “What do you want to do next? I was like we want to get out. They’re like do you want to continue the journey; I was like absolutely not.”

Waymo started service on the freeways in November of 2025 in four cities: San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Miami.

“Safety is Waymo’s top priority, both for our riders and everyone we share the road with,” Waymo said in a statement. “We have temporarily paused freeway operations, as we work to integrate recent technical learnings into our software and expect to resume these routes soon.”

Waymo offered Slade three free rides up to $40 each in the future, but he’s not sure if he’ll take them up on it, definitely not a ride that would require getting on the highway.

“What was scary was that for the first time, we felt completely helpless,” he said. “You can’t jump into the seat. No one was picking up. It was going at 70 [mph] on this construction lane into what we thought were like trucks. And police and everything. I was like what can we do. We can’t even open the door. What do we do at this point?”

Slade is hoping Waymo will thoroughly look into the incident and see how the company can prevent similar incidents from happening again. He says after his ride, he will have a hard time trusting autonomous vehicles until an independent study is done and transparent data is released.

“It was one of those things, once you lost your autonomy in the car, I don’t want to feel that again,” he said. “Like it was a really freaky moment.”

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 Conor McGill

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    ROCKLIN, California (KOVR) — Rising tensions in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are continuing to push gas and diesel prices higher, adding new pressure to school districts that rely heavily on fuel to transport students every day.

The Rocklin Unified School District is among several districts in the region moving toward increased use of electric school buses, a transition leaders say will lower long-term fuel costs while reshaping the experience for students, drivers, and families.

For grandparents like Debby Wells, the difference is noticeable before the bus even arrives.

“It’s very, very quiet and I have to really listen hard for it,” Wells said while waiting with her grandchildren at a Rocklin Unified bus stop.

Inside the district’s transportation yard, Director of Transportation Matt Hebb says the shift toward electric buses is happening quickly.

“They’re all yellow, school bus yellow. Just walking up to it, it’s difficult to tell the difference,” Hebb said. “But the IC has the electric up on the upper part and on the nameplate on the side.”

Rocklin Unified says that within the next year, electric buses are expected to outnumber diesel buses in the district’s fleet.

“We’re going to have over 50% electric buses, so it’ll be almost all electric going around this yard,” Hebb said.

District leaders say the transition is about more than reducing emissions. With diesel prices remaining volatile, officials say electric buses are also helping reduce transportation costs.

According to the district, diesel buses cost about 88 cents per mile to fuel, while electricity costs around 31 cents per mile.

Rocklin Unified says its 11 electric buses have already logged approximately 120,000 miles this year, saving an estimated $37,000 in fuel costs.

Charging the buses is also relatively simple for drivers, according to Hebb.

“When you come in to recharge, you just plug it in and it’s communicating with the charger to establish connection and go ahead and recharge,” he said.

The transition has also meant adapting to new technology inside the district’s maintenance shop.

Senior mechanic Charlie Elias, who spent more than three decades working on diesel engines, now helps maintain the district’s growing electric fleet.

“We get about a 10 to 15% less miles, but over in the hilly districts of El Dorado County, they’re getting a lot less because they’re using regen more going downhill,” Elias said.

Elias says regenerative braking helps recharge the battery, but can also increase wear on the tires.

“When the regen activates, it basically skids the tires to turn the motor into a generator instead of a power plant,” he said.

For Wells, the technology may continue to evolve, but she believes transportation systems still need to keep moving forward.

“Electric vehicles might not stay, might not be permanent. There’s always alternatives,” Wells said. “But we can’t stay with the status quo. We have to keep moving forward.”

In Rocklin, that future is already rolling through the district, one quiet ride at a time.

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 Luzdelia Caballero, Lauren Pozen

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    ORANGE COUNTY, California (KCAL, KCBS) — Thousands of people in Orange County are once again being told to leave their homes after a chemical leak from an aerospace facility first prompted evacuation orders overnight. With five shelters now active, most of which have reached capacity, many are left wondering what to do.

For the second time in less than 24 hours, families in Garden Grove and nearby neighborhoods were forced to pack up and leave with their pets, essential paperwork, and medication, with no answers to when they can return home.

“We know that what we’re breathing in is toxic. I can smell it,” one evacuee said while wearing a face mask. “It reminds me of the burn pits in Iraq, the smell. It’s just ridiculous that we have to sit here, not knowing.”

There were three evacuation centers for communities affected by the incident at GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove, with the latest number of evacuees on Friday reaching 40,000. Officials said air monitoring is ongoing, and that there are no air particulates “compromising anybody.”

At the Garden Grove Sports & Recreation Center evacuation site, evacuees were concerned about possible exposure to the chemical fumes and wanted clearer information from officials.

The compromised leaking tank contains a chemical called methyl methacrylate, a flammable plastic epoxy.

Health experts say it is a respiratory irritant and potential exposure could lead to lung, skin and eye irritation, nausea and dizziness. The chemical is heavier than air, so its vapor would settle and sink.

The OCFA said crews initially made progress toward removing the chemical product but determined Friday morning that the “tank that is in the biggest crisis is in fact unable to be secured and mitigated.” This led to the reissuance of evacuation orders on Friday.

Residents say the back-and-forth orders have left many confused, exhausted and worried about their safety. On top of that, the evacuation centers in both Garden Grove and Cypress had both filled, leaving thousands to hit the road again and search for another option.

“It’s been chaos, just dealing with everybody coming and going and nobody knows anything,” said Jacqueline Riegos, who evacuated from Stanton. “No one can really give us any details as to what is going on, and we don’t know how long this is going to be.”

Officials say it’s an unprecedented event, with a county hazmat team calling on experts throughout the state and country to help search for solutions to depressurize the affected tank and mitigate exposure.

Some evacuees, like Diane Chavira grabbed only the essentials before heading out once again.

“I was sleeping in my house until this morning, they told us we had to leave,” she said.

She gathered her four dogs and left, but was disappointed to find the evacuation center at Stanton City Hall and the community center closed.

“I’m just tired. I had a hip replaced a year ago, and it’s very hard. You know, because I have no transportation,” she said, noting that she can’t bike all the way to Garden Grove.

Now she, and other evacuees, are wondering where they will stay and how long they will be away from home.

A second evacuation center is at the Cypress Community Center, 5700 Orange Ave., in Cypress. Later in the day, a third and fourth option were made available in Anaheim, at Savannah High School on N. Gilbert Street, and Fountain Valley at the Mountain Square Regional Park-Freedom Hall on Euclid Street.

Late Friday night, after the Fountain Valley evacuation shelter reached capacity, Orange County officials announced that a fifth shelter was being made available to residents at John F. Kennedy High School at 8281 Walker Street in La Palma.

OCFA officials estimated that despite the orders to evacuate from their homes, 15% of residents opted to stay back.

City of Garden Grove 24-hour call center (714) 741- 5444, or visit: ggcity.org/emergency

Orange County public information hotline (714) 628-7085.

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 Kara Finnstrom

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    WEST HOLLYWOOD, California (KCAL, KCBS) — A West Hollywood barbershop saw the need to offer men not only cuts and shaves, but also a trained ear to listen and offer support.

Spike Eldib, a barber at Entourage, said that sometimes the barber’s chair feels more like a therapy couch, with regular customers opening up, talking, and asking for advice.

Men are significantly less likely than women to seek mental health help, and the National Institutes of Health says that’s partly due to societal norms and the notion that they should handle it on their own.

“Whatever they have on their mind, an issue that they can’t tell mom, dad, friend, anything they can say it here in the barber shop,” Eldib said.

That’s exactly what long-time customer Matthew Berdin does. He’s an emergency room nurse, a job that he says is physically and emotionally demanding.

“Holding all that inside is not very good for you overall, just not even like your mental health, but like your overall health,” Berdin said.

Eldib recently decided to formalize the supportive conversations that have long been happening in barbershops. He launched Hairapy.

Many barbers at Entourage are now being counseled on intentional listening and supportive conversation. Eldib noted that there are some challenges, such as when questions are too difficult to answer.

This is where Neal Tobisman, a licensed family and marriage therapist, comes into the picture. He sees Hairapy as another tool to support mental health.

“Sometimes there are barriers in terms of people just not even knowing who to speak to about it or there might be financial or insurance issues,” Tobisman said.

He also believes barbers are in a unique position to spot red flags and share information about important resources.

Hairapy joins a larger movement of barbers turned mental health advocates. The Confess Project focuses specifically on connecting Black men with mental health care. During the last decade, it’s spread to thousands of barbershops nationwide.

“There is a lot of stigma, and it’s resulted in a lot of people just kind of trying to manage these things on their own and just feeling kind of increasingly isolated and unsupported,” Tobisman said.

The overriding hope is to help men overcome mental health barriers with support from barbers they trust.

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.