Month: July 2026

By Olivia Young

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    ASPEN ACRES, Colorado (KCNC) — The Aspen Acres Fire has forced at least 11,000 people from their homes. Many of those displaced don’t know if they have a home to go back to.

As fire crews battle the ever-growing wildfire, more Colorado communities are packing the essentials and fleeing the flames.

“Never thought I’d see my hometown burning,” said Ethan Dunn, who evacuated from his Colorado City home Friday. “I had to pack in a hurry. It’s just a bunch of things that have been gathered up over time throughout my life, and then I have other people’s stuff in my car, too.”

“Little eerie. It’s pretty frightening out there,” another Colorado City evacuee said. “It’s always in the back of your mind, and it’s in your peripheral vision wherever you look, it’s really all-consuming, so I feel for everyone who has lost their house so far.”

Many of the latest evacuees fled to Pueblo, where they joined thousands of others displaced by the fire in recent days.

“Beulah is the paradise that I always wanted to find, and I found it just too late,” said Daisy Weeks.

Daisy Weeks had been living on her father’s Beulah property while she waited for a double lung transplant.

“About a year ago, I’ve discovered I was very sick, and so in the last year, I’ve quit my job, sold my house, I made a plan, bought an RV — a fifth wheel — moved it to my father’s property, and I really thought, this is where this is my last, this is my final move, this is where I’m going for the rest of my life,” said Weeks. “We’re at the top of a hill, and I can see I have a picture window, I can see out over this valley with fields and llamas and deer.”

Monday morning, the Aspen Acres Fire encroached on that paradise.

“We could look up and the sun was red, we’re starting to experience ashes like snow, and we knew that we had to leave,” said Weeks.

But Daisy’s 82-year-old father refused to leave his beloved home.

“He was just… he was not going to leave,” said Weeks. “I actually said the words, ‘this is literally the hill you’re going to die on? Here? Now?'”

After her pleas to her father were ignored, Daisy finally proceeded down the driveway, where she continued to call her father and loved ones for help.

“Somebody’s got to convince him, I haven’t left yet, he can still come down to my car. He didn’t, and they called me back and said, ‘You need to go, you can’t breathe, you got to get out of there,'” said Weeks.

Finally, unable to breathe, she left.

“I really thought this is the last time I see my father and I thought he was gone with the house, because I knew the fire was coming,” said Weeks.

But hours later, she got a miraculous call from law enforcement.

“Told me ‘I have your father, I’m taking him to the shelter,'” said Weeks.

She says her father had been rescued after climbing down a cliff when the fire overtook their land. The pair were reunited at a shelter. Her father was not injured.

“I’m going to cry right now. I couldn’t believe it. He’s there, and he had his cat,” said Weeks. “We got each other, and that’s all right. We got each other. Because we have nothing else. We have no other possessions.”

A neighbor confirmed the fire had destroyed their beloved home, along with all their belongings, Daisy’s fifth wheel RV, her artwork and their chickens.

“It’s in the morning when you first wake up when you remember,” said Weeks.

Daisy’s paradise is lost, and her small community likely won’t be the last to fall victim to this fire.

“Whenever somebody had a problem in town, everybody would help and chip in. It’s that kind of community,” said Weeks. “I’ve really come to love the people there, and this is just the worst thing I could imagine for them. I’m so sorry.”

Daisy and her father are currently staying with friends. She says he plans to rebuild on the land, but she’s not sure she will be able to go back.

“I don’t know if I can deal with the emotions of being there,” said Weeks.

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 Rachelle Graham

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    DETROIT (WWJ) — The Detroit Auto Show has spent more than a century evolving alongside the auto industry. It has grown from a small, local exhibition into one of the world’s premier automotive events.

The show started in 1907 at a beer garden near the Belle Isle Bridge and was inspired by the Paris Auto Show, according to Detroit Historical Society Automotive and Industrial Curator Dave Marchioni.

“The Detroit Auto Show actually started as the mirror to France,” Marchioni said. “The French auto show was the biggest auto show when it was first done, and then Detroit immediately parroted. If you remember, for a long time, Detroit was called the Paris of the East.”

As attendance grew, the show moved from the beer garden to the Light Guard Armory, then the Michigan State Fairgrounds, before finding a permanent home at Cobo Hall in 1965.

For decades, the event gave consumers a rare opportunity to compare vehicles from multiple automakers in one place before the internet transformed the car buying process.

“I’m old enough to remember when there wasn’t the internet, so it was a chance to get these cars. You could look at a Chrysler, look at a Ford, look at a Dodge. You could look at a GM product all in the same place and really sit in them, see what they felt like and see what they looked like without a salesman being around you,” Marchioni said.

As online shopping changed how consumers researched and purchased vehicles, the Detroit Auto Show shifted its focus from selling cars to creating memorable experiences.

Today’s event features concept vehicles, interactive exhibits, indoor test tracks, vehicle demonstrations and attractions designed to appeal to enthusiasts and families alike.

“What the auto shows had to do is kind of adapt itself to less of a marketing tool and to more of the enthusiast group,” Marchioni said.

The show’s influence expanded beyond Detroit as foreign automakers increased their presence in North America. In 1989, it was renamed the North American International Auto Show, reflecting its growing international significance.

Marchioni said the new identity helped attract global automakers and media while reinforcing Detroit’s status as the Motor City.

“It invites international press, it invites international manufacturers and it really gives Detroit the chance to show everybody what they’re built, made of and how they can compete within the international market,” he said.

The event has continued to evolve through economic downturns, changes in consumer demand and advances in automotive technology.

“If it would’ve stayed as it was in the 50s, it wouldn’t be around now,” Marchioni said.

Today, the Detroit Auto Show is held at Huntington Place, continuing a tradition that began more than 100 years and demonstrating how adapting to change has helped keep one of Michigan’s most recognizable events relevant for generations.

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 Ubah Ali

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    MINNEAPOLIS-ST.PAUL, Minnesota (WCCO) — A Twin Cities family is asking for answers after their loved one somehow ended up on the interstate in the middle of the night. The Minnesota State Patrol said 61-year-old Sonja Brown was a passenger in a car and “fell out” before other drivers hit her early Wednesday morning. But Brown’s family say they believe someone inside the vehicle she was riding in is responsible for her death. Her daughter Enjeania Brown says her mother was picked up from her sister’s house by two people she knew. She says she wanted to go to the ATM then home. She never made it. “I honestly think she was pushed,” said her daughter Enjeania Brown. “I’m being told that she was threatened, and she was fearful. I know my mom and anybody who’s heard this version immediately says: Sonja wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t afraid of anything.” The family describes Sonja Brown as a fearless woman, who loved to cook and feed anyone who came around. It’s one of the things her granddaughter Ta’Myah Bramlett says she will miss most.

“My grandma and I talked a lot and one thing that I did love, and I will miss about her is she always just randomly spoke life into me and she would always tell me like I’m so proud of you,” Bramlett said. While investigators piece together what happened, Sonja Brown’s family say they are focused on finding the truth. They say they will continue fighting for answers and justice for as long as it takes. WCCO reached out to the State Patrol for an update, but they said they couldn’t comment. They did say they’re still investigating what exactly happened.

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 Ken Molestina

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    KERRVILLE, Texas (KTVT) — A recently released single, “27 Little Butterflies,” by country singer and songwriter Josh Abbott, pays tribute to the Camp Mystic campers and counselors who died during the July 4th, 2025, floods that swept through the Texas Hill Country.

In an interview with CBS News Texas, Josh Abbott of the Josh Abbott Band opened up about why he wrote the song, and the kind of healing he hopes it might offer the grief-stricken families.

“I knew that I wanted to write a song about it, but I didn’t want to rush that process,” Abbott said. “I didn’t want it to be just a super somber sad song…Then on Feb. 13 of this year, I couldn’t sleep, and I just went into my little writing room and started writing the song, and it came pretty naturally.”

Abbott is a father of two himself and says he personally knew families who sent their daughters to Camp Mystic. One of those girls included Mary Barrett Stevens, his daughter’s friend, who tragically died in the floods.

“Mary Barrett Stevens and my daughter grew up together,” said Abbott. “We sent our kids to the same little pre-school here in Austin, TX, and that’s where we met the Stevens family and became friends.”

Abbott said he chose to refer to the victims as butterflies because it was fitting, adding, “Butterflies was essentially personal to us because this hat I’m wearing is the symbol for Mary Barrett Stevens and ‘Live like Mary Barrett,’ the foundations that the Stevens founded, and so I was just picturing this little butterfly, and I pictured a whole group of them. A whole cluster of them.”

“When I wrote this song, I just kept picturing Mary Barrett and those girls smiling,” he said. “That’s what I pictured the entire time I wrote it. That’s why I use certain terms and descriptions, because I wanted it to feel bright and happy. Like little girls playing the field with.”

The song itself is described as a departure from the kind of music Abbott and his band usually record.

On this song, Abbott traded in the more upbeat tunes he’s known for for one that uses love and remembrance to honor the lives lost.

He told CBS News Texas that he hopes the song offers a cathartic experience for anyone still grieving and needs to hear it.

“You know these communities…they say time heals everything, I don’t know. I don’t know how it ever heals from this,” Abbott said. “It’s just something I think everyone who lived through it will always remember.”

In a stripped-down acoustic version, Abbott played the song for CBS News Texas and said all the proceeds made on this recording will directly go to fund the Heaven’s Foundation, benefiting Camp Mystic families.

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 Marissa Sulek

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    EVANSTON, Massachusetts (WBBM) — An Evanston woman is recovering after a tree smashed through the car she was in during Friday’s storms.

The tree ended up through the windshield, just centimeters from her face.

During strong Friday afternoon storms, a mom, daughter, and one other person were inside this blue sports-utility vehicle when an entire tree slammed down on it.

Kitanya Robertson drove up behind them after it happened.

“I didn’t even know someone was in there until she started crying for help,” she said.

She says the daughter was driving and her mom was in the passenger seat.

“The tree was literally pointed at her like that,” she said.

Face-to-face with this massive tree limb.

“I was asking if she was ok, and she was like, ‘ No, I am not, I’m not, I’m bleeding, and I can’t move.'” Robertson said.

She said a branch did cut into her leg and told her to stay put until paramedics came.

Neighbors say the fire department got there quickly, started cutting down branches, and took two of the three people inside the car to the hospital.

“I was terrified and I wasn’t in the car, so I could just imagine the shock they were in,” Robertson said.

The people inside the car live down the block and were driving home at the time. A family member of the woman injured by the tree says she is still in the hospital recovering.

It appeared that the tree was decaying in the center before the incident—a concern for Robertson and neighbors nearby.

“I feel like the city should have or would have done something about it if they noticed it was rotting,” she said.

Robertson added that while she is glad to hear the woman she tried to help on Friday is physically doing fine, she could only imagine what mental trauma she might now have to deal with.

“I really felt for her. Felt really bad for her. It was like a rollercoaster of emotions for her,” Robertson said.

CBS News Chicago reached out to the city of Evanston to see if that tree had been inspected recently, but has not yet heard back.

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 Louisa Moller

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    CAPE COD, Massachusetts (WBZ) — When Andrew Coville attended night classes at Dennis Yarmouth Regional High School in the early 2000s, he was anxious, searching for purpose, and uninterested in schoolwork.

On the outside, his classmate, Nick Xiarhos, was on the opposite end of the spectrum.

“Nick was one of those guys in high school that made everyone feel like they were his best friend,” Coville said, “I felt like Nick, from the moment I got to know him, had conviction, had a sense of self that most kids really lack.”

Through fate and a call to service, both young men were drawn to the military and joined the Marine Corps at 17. Their enlistment turned the Yarmouth natives into best friends.

Now, 17 years after Marine Cpl. Nick Xiarhos was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, Coville is setting out to tell his friend’s story through film. He is creating a documentary called “Living the Dream,” in honor of Nick’s last words to his parents.

“He said, ‘Dad, I’m just tired and I can’t wait to come home,'” said Nick’s father, Steve Xiarhos, who described his last conversation with Nick to WBZ-TV.

Then Xiarhos, who is also a state representative, said his son changed his tone with his mother and said, “‘There’s nothing going on, don’t worry about me, I’m living the dream.'”

The documentary will chronicle Nick and Andrew’s time as Marines, from injuries during boot camp to a nation-building mission in Iraq and the dangerous deployment to the Helmand Province of Afghanistan, which ultimately led to Nick’s death in 2009.

Coville is also traveling the country to speak with Marines who served with Nick, including a three-star general who lost 193 Marines under his command in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I want to tell Nick’s story so that the whole world knows who he was, what he sacrificed, and the legacy that he leaves and also, in the process of that, tell the story of a whole generation of Marines who all volunteered and were all living their dream,” Coville said.

For Xiarhos, the documentary is an opportunity to highlight Nick’s mission and speak to a mission for all Americans.

“Living the dream to me means, live your dreams. Freedom is not free,” Xiarhos 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.