Author: CNN Newsource

By Rachel Ramsey

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    PUEBLO, Colorado (KKTV) — A Southern Colorado man says he was switched at birth, and the man he says he was switched with and their parents are suing the hospital where the two men were born.

Jeremy Morrison said the discovery was made on an ancestry website.

His aunt gave DNA, and a man by the name of Kyle Bylin matched as her nephew.

Morrison said he does not have any cousins, though.

The Southern Coloradan said he has always felt different from his family.

“I didn’t have anyone that looked like me in my family,” Morrison continued. “I was that blonde-haired kid that stood out in a family full of brown-haired people. ”

Two years ago, at age 36, Morrison finally found out why he felt that way when he took a DNA test, and the results came back showing his parents are not his parents.

“I know I definitely wouldn’t be here in Colorado today if I went home with the right parents.” Morrison continued. “I would have been working the farm with my older brother that I never knew I had.”

Morrison said the man he was switched at birth with, Kyle Bylin, was born just hours before him on January 26, 1988, at the same hospital in Grafton, North Dakota.

“I believe we were the only babies born that day,” said Morrison.

Morrison, Bylin and their parents are suing Unity Medical Center, saying the hospital switched the two men as babies.

Litigation records show the hospital denies the allegation and provided 11 News with the following statement:

Unity Medical Center has been honored to serve the people of this region for more than 100 years. Throughout that time, our commitment has remained the same, to provide compassionate, high-quality care while keeping the well-being of our patients and their families at the center of everything we do.

We are currently working to better understand a highly unusual situation involving two men who apparently were separated from their biological parents at some point during their lives. Both men were born at our hospital on the same day in 1988, and we recognize the profound impact this discovery has had on them and their families.

Unfortunately, because of the passage of nearly four decades, the medical and staffing records that might have provided additional clarity no longer exist, and no members of the delivery team from that time are still employed by the hospital. While we deeply sympathize with the men and their families, we have found no evidence to support claims that Unity Medical Center or its staff were responsible for what occurred.

As caregivers, our hearts go out to both men and to everyone affected by this difficult situation. We can only imagine the range of emotions they and their loved ones are experiencing.

Morrison said he never would have guessed this would happen to him.

“Me and Kyle didn’t grow up in the same area; we couldn’t have gotten switched at daycare or anything like that,” said Morrison.

Morrison said he is spreading awareness so people know this can happen.

“If you feel like you look different than everyone else, there might be a reason for it,” said Morrison.

Both sets of parents have met their biological sons, but the two men have not met each other yet.

The families’ attorney said the lawsuit was made public just the other week.

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 Roberts

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    BRYANT, Arkansas (KHBS, KHOG) — A 9-year-old girl in Bryant, Arkansas, is recovering after being swept into a storm drain during heavy rain on Wednesday evening, an incident that has prompted city officials to take immediate safety measures.

The storm drain on Center Street, now taped off, became the site of a frightening rescue after the girl slipped and fell while playing outside with her cousin, according to Bryant Mayor Chris Treat.

“And her cousin tried to pull her out, but the current was too strong and took her in,” Treat said.

The girl’s family quickly called 911, and Officer Chris Carnley of the Bryant Police Department said search efforts began immediately.

“I saw other officers already basically swimming into the ditch looking for her, which the water is moving really fast, and about that time we realized we needed to find out where that drain came to,” Carnley said.

A call to Bryant Waste Management revealed that the drain led to a creek more than a mile away.

The current was so strong where it carried her about 200 yards. That’s the length of two football fields. She somehow got out and made her way across the street into a neighborhood.

A 911 call from a nearby home brought the news everyone had been hoping for.

“Hi, this is Saline County 911. We just received a call from this number,” the dispatcher said.

“Yes ma’am, a little girl just showed up at our house. She’s soaking wet and she needs some help,” the caller responded.

Carnley described the relief of finding the girl safe.

“They had met me on the front porch and, you know, she had scrapes, all that stuff, and I’ve never received a hug so big in my life,” he said.

Reflecting on the incident, Carnley said, “You kind of think like, oh, what if that was my kid when you walk up and you just see how deep the water was just right here alone. Yeah, it’s gut-wrenching.”

The girl was taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital for treatment, and Mayor Treat said the city is now focusing on safety improvements.

“So what we’re doing now is we’re just gonna take action, uh, make sure that we put up a brand all-new fence, take care of all this, make sure that it’s safe, uh, and then we’ll deal with the property owners, uh, later,” Treat said.

Police noted that the storm drain’s location is out of compliance, lacking required fencing and warning signs. While the lot is owned by a private LLC, the city is taking immediate action to address the issue.

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 Olivia Hickey

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    EDMOND, Oklahoma (KOCO) — The mother of a 20-year-old man who drowned at Arcadia Lake on Sunday wants her son’s story told after he went swimming and didn’t make it back to shore.

Seth Nash’s family was at the lake for his mother’s birthday party. Seth had helped coordinate the party for her.

“We went to the lake to celebrate me,” Ginger Nash said.

What was supposed to be a day of celebration ended with the last time she would see her son alive.

Ginger said Seth is remembered as a reader, gamer and helper.

“He’s a CNA. He works in nursing homes, and he actually enjoyed it,” Ginger said.

His life was cut short when he went into the lake to swim. Crews responded to what investigators called a “tragic, accidental drowning,” and a dive team pulled him from the water.

“I didn’t even get a picture of me and all my kids. I wanted one,” Ginger said.

She said she was on an inflatable boat, taking turns with the children to make sure no one got hurt, when she heard Seth go under and he didn’t resurface.

“My boyfriend, who tried to help him, told me he was getting pulled under, too. He was afraid that my son was going to pull them both under,” Ginger said. “I would have kept trying no matter what. But then, where would his siblings be without me, too?”

She said she joined the search efforts and prayed, but she said she knew he had been underwater for a long time.

“I knew when I stepped out of that lake, I was going to step into hell, and I was right,” Ginger said.

She said her son was strong, but that wasn’t enough.

“I don’t know what could have been enough in that moment,” Ginger said.

His mother is calling on the community to help give her son a proper farewell. A GoFundMe has been created to help the family with funeral costs.

“I got to kiss him goodbye. But now, I want to do it again,” Ginger 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 Caleb Barnes

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    ESTILL COUNTY, Kentucky (WLEX) — When animal shelters are near or at maximum capacity, there can still be needs for strays or abandoned animals around central Kentucky – especially in rural areas. With no place for shelter, one Madison County couple is working to meet the needs of animals where they’re at in their communities.

“We don’t know how long it’s been since somebody’s actually lived out here,” said Chris Winters at a property covered in leaves and vines.

Winters was asked to help care for a dog that lived there.

“She’s a senior dog and she’s up here abandoned,” he said.

Another man had previously been visiting the property to feed the dog.

“The guy’s been out here caring for her for some time,” Winters said. “He had a medical condition or crisis that caused him to be hospitalized, but after two days of being in the hospital, he reached out to us and said he cannot come out here anymore to feed her.”

This ‘mountain dog’ living alone is one of the many animals Winters and his girlfriend Dakota Rollins take time to visit.

“We’re field work, we’re a rescue,” he said. “We know where they’re at.”

While Winters is based out of Madison County, he takes calls and makes trips all around central Kentucky to find or respond to needs of animals. Among his stops in Estill County, he checked in on three stray dogs and stopped by to leave food for a number of feral cats.

Winters picked up some medication for another animal, and he visited a foster home hosting puppies that he just helped rescue a few days ago.

“I got a text saying that there was 3 to 5 puppies abandoned off of Red Lick by the bridge,” said Winters. “It was just luck of the draw for somebody to see them and call them before some sort of coyote, wildlife, or the river got them.”

At the stop, Winters found a few more ticks on some of the puppies, and he took turns clipping their nails. He spends most of his time helping animals in need at no cost.

“I didn’t have anybody,” Winters said. “I went from place to place, bounced place to place, group homes, foster homes, psychiatric hospitals, juvenile department corrections, and eventually into prison.”

“My passion comes from being able to relate to them. The animals are left behind. They’re forgotten. That’s how I felt my whole entire life.”

Winters learned how to train dogs, and he said he perfected the skill during his time in prison. He now runs ALPHA Dog Training & Animal Rescue Services, and Winters and Rollins have a GoFundMe to go toward their goal to build a rescue for the animals he’s helping.

“If we had a facility to house these babies, we wouldn’t have to come to the properties and feed them in their place,” Winters said.

Community donations are how Winters and Rollins are able to care for so many animals. They hope to help the rescues they’ve found to end up in homes. You can find more information about the work they do on Facebook.

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 Jiovanni Lieggi

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    HAMBURG, New York (WKBW) — For most barbershops, closing time comes at the end of the day.

However, at Jay’s Barbershop on Buffalo Street in the Village of Hamburg, the clippers will keep buzzing for a full 24 hours as owner Jason Lape and his team of barbers cut hair around the clock to raise money and awareness for suicide prevention.

What began as a one-day haircut marathon to honor one of Lape’s customers who died by suicide has quickly grown into something much bigger.

“This has turned into more of a festival and less of an inside-the-shop kind of destination,” Lape said.

The event returns for its second year beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 18, and continuing through 10 a.m. Sunday.

In addition to the 24-hour haircut marathon, Buffalo Street will feature food trucks, music, local vendors and a car show, with proceeds benefiting the Erie County Suicide Prevention Coalition.

Last year, organizers raised just under $12,000. This year, they’re hoping to surpass $15,000 while continuing to grow the event into an annual community tradition.

For Lape, though, the fundraiser is about more than the money.

He hopes the event encourages conversations about mental health while honoring the memory of the customer who inspired it.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available.

You can call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or chat online at 988lifeline.org/chat. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911.

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 Clay LePard

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    BURTON, Ohio (WEWS) — For Hannah Bomback, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Berkshire Middle School, it’s a lesson worth emulating outside the classroom.

This past April, Bomback donated one of her kidneys to help the mother of one of her students get closer to a lifesaving transplant.

It’s been a journey for Arieauna Johnson as her mother, Melissa, battles kidney failure.

“It’s been difficult. That’s why I’ve been helping her a lot,” Arieauna Johnson explained.

“I have something called polycystic kidney disease, and cysts grow on the kidney and take over the function, but they also get very large,” Melissa Johnson said. “So I had to get both my kidneys removed. They were like 10 pounds of kidney each.”

Melissa, a mother of five, started dialysis in 2022 when her kidneys began to fail and then moved back to Northeast Ohio.

“We spent five years in Tennessee and came back when my health started to get bad because we wanted to get closer to the Cleveland Clinic, because they’re the best of the best,” Melissa Johnson said.

Bomback, who taught Johnson’s four older children, became worried when she noticed Arieauna was absent from class last fall.

“When she was absent, I was asking another teacher if they knew why she was missing, and I found out her mom was having surgery,” Bomback said. “I knew I needed to do something.”

After weeks of researching, Bomback made the decision to donate a kidney, despite not being a perfect match for Melissa.

“My mother was born with one kidney — so I knew that a completely normal life is possible with one kidney,” Bomback said.

Bomback donated one of her kidneys to a stranger this past April through the National Kidney Registry. That donation generated a voucher that moved Melissa, who has O-negative blood type, up the transplant waiting list.

“It was pretty smooth, I’ll say,” Bomback said of the donation process.

“Now they’re actively looking for a living donor for me, which would not have been possible if she hadn’t have done that,” Melissa Johnson said. “I would have just hoped for a deceased donor, which could take years, if ever. Getting a living donor is a much better option.”

There is no perfect match yet, but Melissa said the act of generosity has given her hope.

“It’s the thought of getting my life back,” Melissa Johnson said. “There’s so many people waiting for a kidney right now. You can live a perfectly normal life with one kidney. So if you’re willing to share your spare, it could help a lot of people.”

“When you give to other people, your life is made so much better,” Bomback said. “It feels weird because I personally have gotten so much joy out of it. I’ve benefited so much.”

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 Jordan Cioppa

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    PLUM, Pennsylvania (WTAE) — Ron Sakolsky taught at the Plum Borough School District for 28 years. To his students, he’s known as Mr. S.

“I taught seventh-grade world history and eighth-grade civics for three years, and then I was straight seventh-grade world history,” Sakolsky told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 Reporter Jordan Cioppa.

In 1999, Sakolsky’s love for teaching took him out of the halls of what was then A.E. O’Block Junior High and into the classrooms of schools in Luoyang, China. He was one of 14 teachers in the United States to be chosen for a teaching exchange program.

“China made me the person I am today. The Chinese taught me a tremendous amount,” Sakolsky said. “Within two months, they had already shown me that you appreciate the simple things in life – that you don’t have to have a fancy home or lots of money or a fancy car.”

Sakolsky returned to Plum after spending a year abroad, bringing home treasured keepsakes, memories and stories.

“I brought everything back with me, down to the little Baijiu glasses, which is Chinese rice whiskey,” Sakolsky said as he pointed to a corner curio cabinet full of Chinese gifts he received.

The people of China made a lasting impact on Sakolsky, and 27 years later, he learned he did the same for them.

“Two months ago, I start getting all of these emails and text messages. Some from students of mine, some from colleagues of mine,” Sakolsky said.

A video of a woman in China circulated online. She was looking for Sakolsky.

“Hello, Mr. Ronald Sakolsky. If you happen to come across this video, I’d like to sincerely invite you back to China,” the video began.

The woman in the video is Yin Yuzhen.

During his stay in China, Sakolsky was watching TV when a segment on Yin caught his attention. She and her husband were on a mission to plant trees in a desert in Inner Mongolia.

Touched by her story, Sakolsky secured a $5,000 donation for Yin with the help of an organization out of Boston.

The two connected a few months later, on the land that became known as the Sakolsky Forest.

“We’re standing in the middle of nothing, just sand,” Sakolsky said. “The idea was that the trees would keep the sand from blowing into the wind and then literally traveling 100 kilometers to Beijing, and the sand would blow down the streets of Beijing.”

Yin took to social media a couple of months ago in hopes of finding Sakolsky and inviting him back to China.

It turns out his good deed over two decades ago grew into a forest of 50,000 trees.

“This is what’s amazing: there was nothing there when I was there,” Sakolsky said while watching Yin’s video.

Sakolsky and Yin reconnected over the phone recently, but soon they will reunite in person.

Their story went viral in China, and even reached the Chinese ambassador to the U.S.

“The next thing I know, I get invited to Washington, D.C., as his guest of honor. What a thrill,” Sakolsky said.

In June, Ambassador Xie Feng issued Sakolsky a 10-year visa so he can visit China once again.

Eagerly awaiting to see him, Yin shared a video message with Sakolsky on Pittsburgh’s Action News 4.

“Hello, big brother. I saw that you got your visa that day. I’m very happy. I was laughing and crying,” Yin said in Chinese, surrounded by the lush green trees of the Sakolsky Forest. “I just want to see you right away.”

Like the trees, a friendship that sprouted from an act of kindness in 1999 continues to grow in 2026.

“All I wanted to do was thank China for what they had taught me, and changed me, made me a better person, help Miss Yin to beautify China. That’s all I wanted to do,” Sakolsky said. “I just wanted to help. That’s all I did.”

Sakolsky plans to travel to China in late August.

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 Edward Franco

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    LEHIGH ACRES, Florida (WBBH) — A Lehigh Acres woman is facing two felony charges after the Lee County Sheriff’s Office says a homeowner watched her allegedly abuse and sexually assault his dog through a Ring doorbell camera while he was at work.

Angel Bianca Santiago, 36, was arrested Monday and faces charges of aggravated animal cruelty and sexual contact with an animal, according to LCSO.

The dog’s owner, who asked Gulf Coast News not to identify him, said he received a Ring notification while he was at work and immediately opened the live feed from his home.

“It’s pretty traumatic. It was definitely rough seeing my dogs being treated like that,” he said.

The owner said what he saw prompted him to call 911 immediately.

“I didn’t know if the little guy was even going to be alive by the sounds and noises I was hearing on the video,” he said.

According to the arrest report, deputies responded to the home on Leroy Avenue off Leeland Heights Boulevard in Lehigh Acres after the owner reported seeing Santiago physically abusing his dog, Tobey, through the home’s Ring camera.

Investigators say the video showed two of the owner’s dogs, Tobey, a 7- to 8-year-old Catahoula mix, and Meaty, a 7- to 8-year-old Border Collie mix, involved in what appeared to be a fight before Santiago intervened.

Rather than separating the dogs, detectives allege Santiago reportedly grabbed Tobey by the tail while he was on the ground and repeatedly punched him. The arrest report states Santiago then was accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting the dog while restraining him, kicked him in the head multiple times and stomped on his head before the video ended.

The sheriff’s office says Tobey could be seen whining, wincing, trying to pull away and showing visible signs of pain, fear and distress throughout the incident.

Animal Cruelty investigators later examined Tobey and observed an abrasion on the right side of his face. Deputies said both Tobey and Meaty were taken to Lee County Domestic Animal Services for veterinary evaluations.

“They’re like my kids, you know? They’re my little ones,” the owner said.

According to the arrest report, detectives attempted to interview Santiago, but she was uncooperative before being transported to the hospital after complaining of chest pains. After she was medically cleared, she was booked into the Lee County Jail.

Neighbors told Gulf Coast News they’ve had repeated issues at the home over the years, while the dog’s owner said he hopes Santiago is held accountable.

“I hope justice is served and she does time and is not able to come back,” he said.

This is not Santiago’s first arrest. She has a lengthy criminal history, including a 2022 arrest for misusing 911, during which she reportedly threatened to kill puppies.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office has not yet released the Ring camera video. Gulf Coast News has requested a copy.

Count on Gulf Coast News for any updates to this investigation.

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.