Author: CNN Newsource

By Sara Molina

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    DETROIT (WXYZ) — Detroit drivers say rising gas prices are forcing them to make difficult choices about how they spend their money, with some cutting back on groceries and other essentials to keep their tanks full.

“I will be on E before I get some gas for 4.99 from downtown,” driver Teandra said.

According to AAA, gas prices across the state are averaging $4.30 a gallon. Prices have spiked more than 25 cents in just the past week, and the average price is nearly 20 cents higher than it was at this time last year.

For drivers filling up every week, that extra cost adds up fast.

Naisha Wells lives in Detroit but makes the roughly 40- to 45-minute drive to Ann Arbor regularly to visit her 37-week-old daughter, True Miracle, who has been living in the neonatal intensive care unit.

“Ann Arbor from here is like 40, 45 minutes, so like financially throughout the week, I’m spending at least four (hundred) or 500 just on gas to get back and forth,” Wells said.

When asked whether those costs had forced her to cut back in other areas, Wells said yes.

“Yeah. I mean, because OK, like with work and like bills and stuff, sometimes, I have to call in and say ‘hey, I can’t pay my credit card until this Friday till I get paid because I got to get gas to go see my baby,’ and I had my baby in June,'” she said. “This is like a slap and a blow to the gut.”

Other drivers echoed that sentiment. Driver Vincent Jamison said the rising prices have turned routine decisions into difficult trade-offs.

“I can’t make a conscious decision on what I want. Is it the gas or buy another loaf of bread?” Jamison said.

Gas prices typically drop heading into the winter months as stations switch to a winter blend. But drivers said they are not expecting relief this year.

“I know it’s gonna be a lot harder because of the snow. It’s gonna be a struggle,” Jamison said.

The war in the Middle East continues to put pressure on oil prices. Despite the typical seasonal trend of falling prices, metro Detroit drivers are instead seeing prices rise.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. WXYZ 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 Taylor Epps

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    BALTIMORE (WMAR) — Every day, Christen Ierardi prepares incubators, monitors fragile newborns and supports families in the neonatal intensive care unit at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital.

But long before she became a NICU nurse, she was one of the babies receiving care there.

As hospitals across the country recognize NICU Awareness Month in September, Ierardi’s story highlights the lasting impact neonatal care can have on patients and families.

Ierardi and her twin sister were born at 36 weeks and both spent time in the NICU at Ascension Saint Agnes.

“My mom had a complicated pregnancy,” Ierardi said. “I was here for 10 days, and my sister was here almost three months.”

It’s a story she heard a lot about growing up.

“Looking back on those pictures and hearing how well we were taken care of and how comfortable my mom was having to leave her babies here, I was like, ‘That’s a cool job,'” she said.

By middle school, Ierardi knew she wanted to pursue nursing. She became a certified nursing assistant while still in high school, completed nursing school and later applied for a position in the very NICU where she spent her earliest days.

“The hiring manager was actually one of the nurses who took care of us,” Ierardi said. “One of the nurse practitioners was one of our nurses. One of our doctors took care of us.”

Today, she works alongside healthcare professionals who helped care for her as an infant. She and her fellow nurses take special care to walk families through the process.

“Every baby that we care for is a little extension of yourself, and you see them as kind of like your own,” she said.

The work brings both joyful moments and heartbreak: caring for tiny patients while parents wait for them to be healthy enough to come home.

“That parent who no longer has their baby with them as you thought you would,” Ierardi said. “That was a challenge, something I couldn’t fully understand until experiencing that.”

Four years ago, her perspective shifted even further when she returned to Ascension Saint Agnes not as a nurse, but as a parent.

Her newborn son developed an infection and experienced breathing difficulties shortly after birth, requiring a weeklong stay in the NICU with many of Ierardi’s coworkers caring for him.

“There was always that confidence that he was in wonderful hands,” she said. “But that separation was something I can’t even put into words.”

The experience shaped the way she cares for parents today.

“Explaining, ‘I’ve been there, and he’s gonna get home to you. What can I do to make it a little bit easier?'” she said. “It enhanced my connection to parents and meeting their needs a little bit more.”

As NICU Awareness Month shines a spotlight on the challenges families face and the healthcare professionals who support them, Ierardi hopes people recognize the compassion that fills neonatal intensive care units every day.

“There’s a lot of bright sides to every story,” she said. “We’re here to help, and we’re here to hold hands, and they’re fighters. They’re the best patients.”

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 Caroleina Hassett

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    SANDY, Utah (KSTU) — They say a little hard work and some elbow grease makes a successful fall cleanup, but there was someone missing.

“I met Alyia my freshman year when I started playing lacrosse. She was the most happy, kind, funny person ever,” said Hannah Qureshi, Alyia’s best friend.

“Alyia was a ray of sunshine,” said her mother Melissa Christensen, “she used to always just tell me, “Mom, it takes zero energy to be a good person.”

It was Alyia’s dream to clean up her mom’s backyard, but that dream was cut short on August 21. Alyia had epilepsy and experienced a seizure that took her life.

“We didn’t expect to lose her. And if I could do anything, it would be bring awareness to this and that there’s alarms and there’s things that you can do to save your kids,” Christensen said, “Losing her is like losing a part of me, and same with her siblings, like she was like the glue in our family.”

With Alyia gone, the backyard fell quiet until Saturday, when her lacrosse teammates showed up to finish what she started.

“I just want to be here to support her family and make what dreams she had and projects she was doing come true,” Qureshi said.

“It’s so easy to change people’s lives just by one nice thing. Just spread kindness, and these kids have done it in such a beautiful way,” Christensen said, “this would mean the world to her.”

Even the boys lacrosse team showed up to lend a helping hand.

“This is a good group of boys. They just want to do the right things a lot of times in life, and this just is a demonstration of the character that they have and the parents that are raising them to be good boys,” said the Alta High School boys varsity lacrosse coach Brandon Horoba.

Even with a finished backyard, they have to learn how to go on with a gaping hole on the lacrosse field, and in their heart.

“For me this season, I’m definitely doing it for her,” Qureshi said.

“I think it’s going to be hard the first time they take the field… but they’ve got to realize that that was her happy place, and so they need to make it their happy place,” Horoba said.

“As a 16-year-old, you just wouldn’t realize like how much of an impact she could make…from the old lady next door to the people at the gym,” Christensen said, “I can’t think of a better legacy for a kid.”

To support Alyia’s family, you can visit their GoFundMe.

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 Sooji Nam

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    SAN MATEO COUNTY, California (KPIX) — It was a normal field survey along the California coastline in San Mateo County that turned into a fascinating discovery.

“She did a reverse Google image search and found out that it might be a molar of an Ice Age mastodon. And so, at that point, the Midpeninsula Open Space Preserve (Midpen) contacted me about confirming whether it was a tooth or not because it was gigantic,” Wayne Thompson, a paleontologist with Pacific Paleontology, told CBS News Bay Area.

Thompson said Brigid Lynch, a geomorphologist with Balance Hydrologics, was doing research for Midpen on how to support the threatened California red-legged frog.

“What initially appeared to be an oddly shaped rock was later confirmed by paleontologists to be an intact, adult Pacific mastodon molar,” the press release stated.

Researchers believe the tooth is 10,000 years old.

“I confirmed it was a mastodon tooth. And everybody is pretty excited about it, because these don’t show up all that often,” Thompson said.

Thompson has been a paleontologist for the past five decades.

“Typically, what you find out is that mastodon teeth tend to get broken up pretty easily. This one’s hardly broken at all. So, the skull that it came from is very nearby,” he said. “The coloring is very characteristic of mastodon teeth that are preserved.”

Midpen is not disclosing the exact location of where the fossil was found, but told CBS News Bay Area that it was within the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains in San Mateo County.

“These Ice Age creatures are really coming more to the surface. Also on construction sites because they do afford environmental protections, and so new construction sites, they are discovered,” Thompson said.

Mastodons went extinct around 11,700 years ago, and researchers believe the species lived in areas of what has now become states like California, Oregon, the northern Rocky Mountain region of the western U.S. and some parts of Mexico.

“The mastodons are interesting to me just because the wooly mammoth and everything like that. It makes me think of elephants, but we don’t have those over here,” Donovan Summers, who was visiting San Mateo County, said.

“I think that’s pretty cool. I hope people are aware of that and don’t disturb the artifacts. Let the professionals do the discovery to find more, to contribute to science,” Rick Guan, another resident, said.

Midpen donated the fossil to Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability, where researchers hope to determine its exact age and also print a 3D copy of the fossil for educational outreach.

“We get a really good idea that climate has changed so drastically compared to what we are going through now. And we can certainly make scientific models that include the data for paleontology and fossils in our conversation for global climate change going forward. If the animals could talk, they would say, ‘Please slow down,'” Thompson said.

While Lynch was unavailable for an interview with CBS News Bay Area on Sunday, Midpen’s press release provided a quote.

“As a geologist, I’ve gone out and seen stuff in the field, but definitely nothing as exciting as this,” Lynch 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.

By Kennedy Cook

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    DENVER (KCNC) — Four years ago, Colorado teen Zykyrah “Ky” Bess-Reed was just getting started on wheels. Now, at 14, she’s a member of Team USA and training for the world stage.

“I started out on some lime green rollerblades,” Ky recalled.

Now, she’s heading to the Speed Skating World Championships: “We are about to go to Paraguay here soon, so I am training for that.”

Speed skating may look simple from the outside, but Ky says she quickly learned just how much work goes into the sport.

“What shocked me was how much work you got to put in,” she said.

Her coach, Kelly Springer, described it simply: “We put wheels on our feet and we go as fast as we can.” But she added that speed skating requires much more than speed.

“It’s a very demanding sport. A lot of technique involved,” Springer said.

Right now, Ky is in the peak phase of her training, practicing every day, sometimes twice a day.

“It’s definitely hard. My coach is whipping my butt right now, but that’s a good thing,” Ky said.

And while making Team USA at such a young age is an accomplishment, getting to the starting line at the World Championships comes with a significant cost. Between skates, wheels and bearings, along with travel expenses like flights and lodging, fundraising is a major part of the sport.

For Ky’s family, the trip to Worlds in Paraguay is expected to cost roughly $10,000.

And as Ky knows, simply showing up to a race isn’t enough.

“You can’t just show up to a race and race it and expect to win a trophy,” she said.

Now, she’s hoping the community will help her take the next step all the way to the world stage.

To support Ky’s journey to Worlds and follow her story, visit sendkytoworlds.com.

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 Wakisha Bailey

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    PHILADELPHIA (KYW) — Fifteen-year-old Mas’ood Holloman is a baseball player, an entrepreneur and now a published author.

His first children’s book, “Finding My Voice,” is inspired by his own experience growing up with a stutter.

The story follows a young baseball player who faces speech challenges but ultimately learns to embrace his stutter as part of what makes him unique.

“He goes through struggles. It’s based off of me,” Mas’ood said.

Mas’ood’s mother first noticed his stutter when he was about 3 years old. Because Mas’ood has a twin brother, she was able to see that their speech was developing differently.

Mas’ood said his stutter has changed over the years, but so has his confidence.

His aunt encouraged him to turn his experience into a book that could help other young people facing similar challenges.

“[She said] we should write a kids’ book because I stutter, and for the people who stutter just like me,” Mas’ood said. “She said it would inspire them to keep going.”

The book’s main character also plays baseball, just like Mas’ood. When he is not working on the field, the young author is busy promoting and selling his book.

Every Thursday afternoon, Mas’ood sets up a stand at the Point Breeze Community Market in Philadelphia. He also takes his sales pitch door to door.

That determination is how Mas’ood first arrived at the CBS Philadelphia studios with his mother and a copy of his book in hand.

Now, he hopes his story will remind other children that a stutter does not have to stand in the way of their goals.

“It makes me proud inside that I actually wrote a book,” Mas’ood said.

Mas’ood is already working on a second book titled “The Young Voice of a Muslim.”

He sells “Finding My Voice” Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Point Breeze Community Market.

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 Paul Burton

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    FRAMINGHAM, Massachusetts (WBZ) — A Massachusetts family is finally feeling closure 25 years after losing their loved one in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Paul Keating’s mother, Barbara Keating, was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston when hijackers crashed the plane into the World Trade Center in New York City.

“It’s truly amazing that 24 years and two months later we get notified that my mom’s remains are identified,” Keating said.

For years, the family was told her remains would never be recovered.

“We were all told there would never be any remains. You were not to expect it,” he said.

But through DNA technology, Keating said last year, the New York City Medical Examiner’s office identified the remains of Barbara Keating.

The 72-year-old dedicated much of her life to helping children with Big Brother and Big Sister, working with kids who have Down syndrome.

“Besides having a big Irish Catholic family in Boston of seven, she worked her whole life with children,” he smiled.

To mark 25 years since the 9/11 attacks, the family held a ceremony Friday morning.

“We laid my mom to rest with my dad. We had a complete ceremony all over again and placed the urn in the ground,” he said.

Although it’s been 25 years, the family says having her remains now provides a sense of peace and closure.

“We get closure. It’s literally that simple. Yes, we knew she was on the flight. Yes, we knew she died. And 25 years ago, we buried her, but we didn’t,” Paul Keating said. “It didn’t seem complete. It just did not. This changes it for us.”

She is now buried next to her husband of 32 years. The family thanks the Herculean efforts of the New York City Medical Examiner’s office.

“Their work is outstanding and they are still doing it all day every day all day. So we can’t thank them enough,” he 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.

By Adam Thompson, Drew Aunkst

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    GLEN BURNIE, Maryland (WJZ) — Some drivers whose cars have been stuck inside the Empire Towers underground parking garage in Glen Burnie, Maryland, since July 9 may soon be able to get them back.

The office building has been closed for more than two months after it was evacuated over structural concerns. Officials said unpermitted construction work in the garage caused ceilings to sag and exposed rebar.

In an email obtained by CBS News Baltimore, attorneys for Empire Towers’ owners told vehicle owners they are optimistic that at least half of the cars will be removed this month, starting as early as Sept. 21.

However, some vehicles still cannot be removed, while others have been damaged. The attorneys said all owners will receive photos and videos of their vehicles for insurance purposes.

The building’s attorneys also wrote that vehicle owners will have to sign a waiver of liability as a “precondition to removing vehicles from an active construction zone in a compromised building.”

The requirement is concerning for some vehicle owners.

“We haven’t received a copy of this waiver,” said Liam McGeehan, who works in the building and has been without his car for months. “They mentioned that it was just for the people that are going to be removing the cars, but, you know, a lot of people in this building — they work for lawyers, where they are lawyers — so I would like to see this waiver.”

McGeehan said he is also frustrated by what he described as a “complete lack of communication.”

“There’s been no transparency,” he said. “We’ve just been getting trickle-fed updates from the building’s attorneys.”

Last month, management told tenants that Phase 1 of the emergency stabilization process was completed Aug. 14. The work involved placing approximately 1,500 vertical shoring posts inside the garage to support the concrete slabs.

Officials had previously said vehicles remaining in the parking garage would need to wait until Phase 2 was completed, which could take until the end of September.

Phase 2 involves structural engineers and contractors installing horizontal braces. The building owners have said Empire Towers and the parking garage will remain unsafe until the work is finished.

The building’s management announced last month that a $3,000 payment would be provided to help cover transportation expenses for those whose vehicles remain trapped in the parking garage.

People who have been without their vehicles for weeks because of the stabilization work are asked to email empiretowers@rosenbergmartin.com with their name, address, email address and phone number; the tenant’s name and suite number; a description of the vehicle, including its make, color, year, model and license plate number; and the vehicle’s location in the garage.

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 Alexa Liacko

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    MCDONOUGH, Georgia (WUPA) — For a McDonough mother, homeschooling was the right choice for her son. But she didn’t want him to grow up without a community, so she created one.

Young Laureates brings homeschool families together through an education model centered on community, culture and connection.

Its founder, Quatavia Wilkins-Johnson, started Young Laureates after homeschooling her son, Lucas Johnson. He enjoyed learning at home, but he wanted something more.

“Just kind of wanted to ask if I could have some friends….And so she started this school.”

Wilkins-Johnson said she wanted her son to have a different educational experience than the one she had growing up.

“I just didn’t want him to deal with, like, the stereotypes and biases that I experienced growing up,” said Wilkins-Johnson.

After struggling to find a homeschool community that felt like the right fit, Wilkins-Johnson decided to build one herself.

Young Laureates allows students to learn at home while coming together several times a week for projects and classroom-style learning. Wilkins-Johnson said representation is an intentional part of the environment.

“I don’t think a lot of people know how important it is for kids to — I get emotional — for kids to, like, walk in and see themselves. Like, I don’t know if you noticed the books, everything is intentional.

The school also emphasizes an emotionally supportive curriculum designed to meet students where they are.

For Shardae Crawford, that sense of belonging has made a difference for her daughter.

“It’s really important for students to go to a place where they feel seen, just to know you matter. Your thoughts matter. Your words matter. I know my daughter told me. I feel like I finally have a place where I feel like I belong.”

That feeling of belonging has also drawn other families to Young Laureates after leaving the public school system.

Shakira Davis said she was looking for a place where her son could build his confidence. He was diagnosed with dyslexia and struggled in a public school setting.

“I was searching for an empowerment place where he can build his self-esteem. Came over here, and his confidence, his speech has improved…I mean, 100%.”

What started with a wish for her son has grown into a larger community — something Wilkins-Johnson said she never expected.

“To see them coding and building video games, and no one’s saying they can’t. It’s just I, I don’t even…I can’t put it in words,” said Wilkins-Johnson.

For Lucas, the community means he no longer feels like he’s learning alone. “I have people to talk to, and I wasn’t doing everything in a room alone.”

Other students said the experience has helped them become more comfortable connecting with others.

Alexander Thornell said he has learned, “to finally, like, be more open to people instead of like just staying home.”

Nala Mayifuila said the experience has helped her become more confident. “I feel like I’m more independent now,” she said.

Young Laureates may offer a different kind of educational model, but Wilkins-Johnson said the lessons she hopes students take away go beyond academics.

“I want them to belong,” said Wilkins-Johnson.

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 Brian Unger

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    ATLANTA (WUPA) — Inside a welding booth, a four-year degree can only get you so far. You can either do this expertly, or you can’t. And 25-year-old JhiKayla Mathis can.

Mathis, who is from Columbus, Georgia, is at the top of her class at Tulsa Welding School’s Atlanta-area campus, carrying a 4.0 grade-point average in a field she once never imagined entering.

“I always wanted to go follow in the medical field with my family, as the women in my family,” Mathis said.

Instead, inspired by her grandfather, she picked up a welding torch. She is preparing to enter a job market where women remain very much the exception.

“I feel like I have to work 20 times harder, because you know, it is a male-dominated field,” Mathis said. “There’s not a lot of women in here. There’s not a lot of Black women. So I try to go as hard as I can.”

At Tulsa Welding School’s Atlanta campus, President Tamekia Morris is betting on women like Mathis — a pool of talent the skilled trades have largely overlooked.

“If we really want to talk about closing this gap and the shortage in the workforce, in the skilled trades, we have to tap into the untapped market, which are women,” Morris said.

Women currently make up about 16% of the student body at the Atlanta campus, according to Morris. Nationally, the gap is much larger. Women accounted for just 4.3% of construction trade workers in 2025, according to an analysis of federal Current Population Survey data by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Women represented just 3.1% of carpenters, 3.1% of plumbers, pipe fitters and steamfitters, and 3.5% of electricians.

At the same time, metro Atlanta needs more skilled workers. More than 201,000 people work in skilled trades in the metro area, accounting for about 7% of all jobs, according to WorkSource Metro Atlanta. The Metro Atlanta Chamber’s 2026 Talent Supply Report identifies skilled trades and industrial maintenance as occupations where demand consistently outpaces the available supply of workers.

That demand is being fueled by the construction of homes, roads, factories, and an extraordinary expansion of data centers. According to the latest industry report from commercial real estate firm CBRE, Atlanta has overtaken Northern Virginia to become North America’s leading market for data-center capacity under construction.

All of it requires people who know how to build things.

“For so long this was not an option for us, right?” Morris said. “Our parents didn’t raise us to think about welding and HVAC and electrical.”

For Morris, that observation is personal. Growing up in Miami, she planned on becoming a doctor and followed the traditional educational path she had been taught to pursue.

“We just did what we were taught,” Morris said. “Go to school, graduate high school, leave at 18 and go away for college. So I did that.”

Morris earned a college degree and a master’s degree, but medical school never happened. Instead, she found her way into education, initially helping students obtain externships in medical offices. Nearly two decades later, she is leading a school that trains students for careers she says she was never encouraged to consider herself.

If she had it to do over again, Morris said she might make a different choice.

“I probably would not have gone that route,” she said. “It’s just what we were taught.”

Mathis is already taking a different path. When she graduates next month, she plans to go back to school to become an underwater welder. Asked why she would choose an even more specialized field, Mathis had a quick answer.

“No women in the field,” she said. “Might as well go dominate that too.”

Mathis says learning to weld has changed the way she sees herself and helped other women see what is possible.

“If they see me here doing this and another woman in here doing this, they’re like, ‘Okay, I can do it,'” she said.

The school has a saying: “The more you burn, the more you learn” — meaning the more time students spend behind a welding torch, the better they get. The welding program can be completed in seven months, putting students on a relatively quick path into a workforce that badly needs them.

In an economy hungry for people who can build, women like Mathis and Morris are demonstrating there is more than one career path — and changing ideas about who can walk it.

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.