Author: CNN Newsource

By Tony Geftos

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    DETROIT (WXYZ) — Ed Sheeran surprised a small crowd at a Detroit sushi bar Wednesday night, stepping up to the karaoke mic and performing a duet with a fan just minutes before closing time.

Kevin Reddy, a karaoke night regular at Sakazuki in Detroit’s Book Tower, spotted Sheeran at Hiroki-San, the restaurant downstairs, and struck up a conversation.

“And so then towards the end of that conversation, I was like hey, you know, I did queue up ‘Thinking Out Loud,’ and he’s like, ‘let’s do it.’ And so he immediately was game and we walked up here and it was, I mean, probably only like six or seven people left because it was like 10:50 and they close at 11,” Reddy said.

Naomi Scott, general manager of both Sakazuki and Hiroki-San, said her staff could hardly believe what was unfolding.

“They just were talking about what if he came up and he did his song for karaoke, and then little did they know, you know, he did,” Scott said.

Scott said her team was elated as Sheeran performed for the handful of people still in the bar.

“It’s just a once-in-a-lifetime experience for everyone, for the team, for all the guests, for all of our regulars that come every karaoke, every Wednesday,” Scott said.

Tyler Hedley was in the bar and captured the moment on video. The clip has since racked up tens of thousands of likes on TikTok.

“I am the biggest fan. Like he’s my all-time favorite. I stood right there and he was singing right there,” Hedley said.

Hedley said he had hoped to get a little more out of the night.

“Maybe, I’ll get to sing with him this time. That was what I really wanted,” Hedley said.

Reddy said the impromptu performance was made even more memorable by how down-to-earth Sheeran was throughout the night.

“And just the fact that he was just so willing to get to know us and talk to us, just icing on the cake for sure,” Reddy said.

Reddy said the two genuinely connected.

“I feel like at any point, he could have been like, you know, good to see you, have a good night, but he, I think it was just we built that rapport. I made him laugh, which is like crazy to say and then we had just a blast. I mean, you could see with the video, it was just an amazing, amazing time,” Reddy said.

With Sheeran set to return to Detroit next Saturday for a concert at Ford Field, the staff at Sakazuki is hoping he stops by again — maybe even for an encore.

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 James Groh

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    ST. FRANCIS, Wisconsin (WTMJ) — You’ve probably never seen a 15-foot-tall metal origami crane. Well, one is sitting in a St. Francis parking lot. It was made by a group of Milwaukee-area artists, and it’s going to the iconic festival, Burning Man.

“We can make stuff here in this space, and people can appreciate it, but there’s something magic that happens when you’re just kind of standing around doing a thing, changing a battery, and you hear somebody go, ‘That is so cool.’ I love that,” Sarah Davitt, a member of Steel Tiger Lillies, the group that made the sculpture, said.

Steel Tiger Lillies is an inclusive art organization originally formed to teach women trades like welding and heavy fabrication. Now, it’s open to everyone.

“Allowed people to feel comfortable building stuff that they normally would say, ‘You should let your husband do that,'” Davitt said.

The origami crane has a kaleidoscopic and mosaic rainbow aesthetic. Burners, people who attend Burning Man, will be able to enter it and follow instructions to make their own smaller origami cranes.

“That we will actually hang in the piece, so that you will have origami cranes kind of taking and changing the environment every day. And later, those will be burned in one of the many fires that are available at Burning Man,” Davitt said.

The design was inspired by the novel ‘Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes’, which is about a girl diagnosed with leukemia from atomic bomb radiation after World War II.

“It is a really big wish for peace,” Davitt said.

It’s also a really big moment for the artists who spent the last year creating this 15-by-27-foot sculpture. It has the potential to be seen by tens of thousands of people at Burning Man.

“It’s just larger than life, and that is what Burning Man is, making dreams come true,” Sarah Spottswoods, another member of the Steel Tiger Lillies, said.

The group has been building the sculpture since Nov. 2025. They were putting on the final pieces on Aug. 21, the day before they began transporting it to Nevada.

Steel Tiger Lillies has a fundraiser to help support travel and transportation costs.

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 Caitlin Hunt

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    LORAIN COUNTY, Ohio (WEWS) — The Ohio State Highway Patrol is using an airplane to catch speeders on Northeast Ohio interstates, keeping troopers out of dangerous high-speed situations.

Pilot Milan Milosevic has been with the Ohio State Highway Patrol for 25 years. For 15 of those years, he has piloted one of several highway patrol airplanes, assisting fellow troopers with operations such as pursuits, missing-person cases, and speeding enforcement.

“It’s a lot safer. It’s like you have big brother up there watching to make sure, ‘Hey! Slow down. Be careful. I can watch what they’re doing,'” Milosevic said.

Milosevic said OSHP planes are mostly used for speed operations.

“The bread and butter of the airplane is to catch violators for speeding,” he said.

The Ohio Department of Transportation helped establish one-mile air zones along Northeast Ohio interstates. From the air, pilots like Milosevic use white lines painted on the roadway as a timing tool to calculate vehicle speeds.

“If the vehicle is traveling and the front bumper hits that line, I start a watch,” he said. “I maintain visual on the vehicle that is going through the zone, and when the front bumper hits the next line, I lap my watch. On my watch, it tells me how fast the vehicle is going and how long it took that vehicle to go from point A to point B.”

Once a speeding vehicle is identified, Milosevic relays information to troopers stationed at entrance ramps below. His role does not end when a trooper makes a stop.

“I hover over the violator and the officer to make sure that the violator doesn’t take off or they get out of their car and run into the woods,” Milosevic said.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol says the program is producing results. On Aug. 18, the patrol used the aircraft in a speeding enforcement operation in the construction zone along Interstate 90 in Lorain County. According to the agency, 28 citations were issued to drivers traveling 21 miles per hour over the posted speed limit.

Milosevic flies up to five hours each day when weather permits. He says every part of the job has been fulfilling — from supporting fellow troopers to helping the public.

“It’s safety from above that these officers can count on,” he said. “When you can help other people… the missing kids that we find… then the thanks is more than enough pay than what we receive.”

The Ohio State Highway Patrol is currently recruiting pilots and state troopers.

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 Jack Watson

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    CATONSVILLE, Maryland (WMAR) — Tom Pless spent more than 40 years teaching in Baltimore County. Now, he runs a metal radio station from his basement, which he says reaches a quarter million listeners worldwide.

Pless has a man cave most can only dream of; basement jam sessions are next-level. For thousands of followers across several platforms, he runs 97 Underground.

Pless taught at Dundalk High School for 42 years, where the origin story of 97 Underground begins: broadcasting on FM radio waves.

“My students, because I taught there for many years, decided we wanted to go and put up a radio station in-house,” Pless recalled.

Around the rise of grunge in the 1990s, the Underground left traditional airwaves. It found a new home on the internet, and it’s still rocking today from his home.

“I’m excited about it. It just continues to go. The legacy goes with it. I could write a book if I had time to put all the ideas together, but it’s been really fun,” Pless said.

DJs, many of whom worked for the old station, send in their work. The station does play old school metal, but also gives a boost to newer artists; playing at local venues makes for quite the community-builder in Music City Maryland.

“I just think [Catonsville is] a nice little place to involve yourself in. We have a lot of local bands in the area that play the kind of genre we have, and I’m here to support and interview them and try to give them some credence to what they do,” Pless said.

You can find O’s gear and movie posters in thousands of Maryland basements, but you won’t find the subterranean community Pless has built.

“I’m not a young man anymore, and I’ll go as long as it takes for me to continue to enjoy it. When it stops being fun, then it’s over,” he concluded.

“But I don’t think that’s ever going to stop being fun,” he laughed.

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 Nick Sloan

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    KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KMBC) — Kansas City has played a starring role in the return of “Ted Lasso,” but one local landmark featured in the show is already seeing the impact beyond the screen.

The Season 4 premiere took viewers across the Kansas City metro, highlighting familiar locations including the Country Club Plaza, CPKC Stadium and spots in Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit.

But the episode also spent time inside the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, using the Kansas City institution to introduce viewers around the world to the history of the Negro Leagues and one of baseball’s most legendary pitchers, Leroy “Satchel” Paige.

Nearly two weeks after the episode debuted, museum President Bob Kendrick said the response has been noticeable.

“We have just been flooded with folks, local folks who are fans of Lasso, who saw the museum featured in the show, and that prompted them to come and visit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum,” Kendrick told KMBC photojournalist Eddy Lozano.

The interest isn’t limited to people walking through the museum’s doors.

Google Search trends indicate searches related to Paige and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum have increased by more than 5,000% compared with the same period last year.

For Kendrick, it demonstrates both the enormous reach of “Ted Lasso” and what can happen when Kansas City’s history is introduced to an audience that may have never encountered it before.

“Whatever it takes,” Kendrick said of bringing new visitors to the museum. “But it also speaks to how big that show is.”

Kendrick credited “Ted Lasso” star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis, a Kansas City-area native, with giving the museum and its history special attention in the episode.

Kendrick was there when the scenes were filmed nearly a year ago, but he said seeing the finished product still caught him by surprise.

“When I saw it in the show, it was a little emotional for me as well,” Kendrick said.

Kendrick credited the episode for capturing the feeling the museum represents while introducing a new generation and audience to Paige.

Paige was one of the most celebrated players in the Negro League’s history and lived in Kansas City.

“The thought, the care, the concern that he gave this piece of history. I thought it came out beautifully,” Kendrick said.

Kendrick believes another wave of fans could come through following the Kansas City metro fans who stopped by after watching the show.

“I think not only will we see more local folks come, we will see people from internationally who will now plan a visit because they saw the museum in Ted Lasso,” Kendrick 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 Kurt Knue

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    MASON, Ohio (WLWT) — Even at the Cincinnati Open, dogs have managed to find a way into our hearts.

No matter where you looked on the Lindner Family Tennis Center grounds over the past two weeks, there were no lack of puppies, hounds, and pooches to be seen out and about.

Penelope, a volunteer service dog recruited to assist this year at the Open, was among the many who had been a fixture on the tournament grounds over the past two weeks. In the process, she would unexpectedly end up meeting many of tennis’s biggest stars.

This includes Penelope getting belly rubs from Jessica Pegula, playing fetch with Coco Gauff, and posing for pictures with Madeira native Caty McNally.

Penelope’s owner, Timothy Finke, says that he’s glad to see the smiles that Penelope brings to the players and tennis fans who have come to Cincinnati from all around the world.

“She’s played fetch with Leylah Fernandez, Coco Gauff, Caty McNally, all kinds of players,” said Finke. “Sascha Zverev, the first day that we were here, was practicing and came over and loved on her for about 20 minutes and gave her six tennis balls. So we have a collection of about, probably 40 tennis balls.”

Penelope has even met some of the players’ famous dogs of their own: As she beat Serena and Venus Williams in doubles tennis this week, Marta Kostyuk was among those who met Penelope with her own dog, Mander, by her side.

Meanwhile, Kostyuk’s doubles teammate, Mason native Peyton Stearns, also drew notice for frequently having her own dog, Pebbles, by her side throughout the tournament, while also giving interviews with her in her lap.

Elsewhere, Xinyu Wang’s dog, Beita, was spotted on the Lindner Family Tennis Center grounds as she practiced for her matches, with China’s top-ranked professional tennis player also eventually getting to be among the many to meet Penelope for herself.

While the Cincinnati Open may be coming to an end on Sunday as the annual tennis season moves onto its next leg, the numerous dogs like Penelope who served as a fixture on its ground undoubtedly will live on as simple source of joy in the hearts and minds of players when they think back on the memories that were made at this year’s tournament by simply doing what they do best: being man’s best friend.

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.