Author: CNN

WCBS

By Dave Carlin, Renee Anderson

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    NEW YORK CITY (WCBS, WLNY) — A newborn baby girl with her umbilical cord attached was found unattended at a New York City subway station during the morning rush in Manhattan, police said.

The NYPD said the child was discovered wrapped in a sheet at around 9:30 a.m. Monday on the steps leading down to the southbound 1, 2 and 3 trains at the 34th Street and 7th Avenue stop at Penn Station. Investigators closed off the stairwell to collect evidence.

The girl was conscious, alert and did not appear to have any injuries, police said. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.

“Miracle on 34th Street”

Investigators are trying to determine how long the baby was left on the stops before she was found, and locate the responsible party, or parties. Police said there was no sign of the baby’s mother. Investigators are now reviewing surveillance video from inside the station to determine who may have left the child.

Police said no evidence has been found indicating the baby being born in the station, and nothing indicates the birth was on a train.

MTA New York City Transit president Demetrius Crichlow praised police officers who took the newborn to the hospital themselves instead of waiting for paramedics to respond.

“Just grateful for the work of the NYPD in responding and caring for the baby,” Crichlow said. “I’m calling it the miracle on 34th Street.”

“I don’t know how someone could do that to a little baby, it’s really sad,” commuter Hibah Agha said. “It’s really unsanitary, it’s really unsafe to just leave the poor baby out here. I’m glad someone was able to do something about it.”

“I’m a new parent, my girl is 16 months. So I can’t imagine the desperation that they must’ve felt to do that,” commuter Susan Lee said.

“That’s insane, honestly, I’m so sorry to hear that,” commuter Louis Ospjna said.

It is a felony to abandon a child under the age of 14. New York State’s Abandoned Infant Protection Act allows a parent to abandon a newborn baby up to 30 days of age anonymously, if the child is left in a safe space, like a fire station, police station or hospital, and in a safe manner.

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KPIX

By Andrea Nakano

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    SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — A Bay Area woman has made it onto the USA national team to represent her country in the first World Cup of cricket in India.

She’s played sports all her life, but she hasn’t always been on a level playing field until now.

Asanda Pavlacka is a multi-sport athlete with a background in martial arts, running, swimming and gymnastics. While she has overcome many hurdles, her biggest challenge came about 28 years ago when she lost her sight.

“I had a degenerative eye condition when I was born, so I was able to see up through my teens,” Pavlacka said. “Then diminished a little by little. Then I ended up having nothing.”

Losing her vision hasn’t stopped Pavlacka from playing sports.

“That’s how I live my life,” she said. “I don’t let too many things stop me and if they do, I figure it out and find a different way.”

That’s what she did when a fellow blind athlete approached her about playing cricket.

“For blind cricket, we’re actually kneeling down to the ground and using the full length of the bat,” Pavlacka said.

After several training camps across the country, Pavlacka was selected to represent Team USA in India.

“In November, we’re going to the first-ever blind World Cup for cricket,” she said.

Pavlacka said that playing cricket is the easy part. The challenges have come off the pitch, from getting their visas to making sure expenses are covered while they are away. She started an online fundraiser to help her and four other teammates.

“There’s five of us on the team that’s kind of flying solo in a sense,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of at-home support.”

Pavlacka said that while the goal is to bring home the gold, it’s a big win to be invited to play a sport on the world stage. If anything, she hopes to use this as a learning experience to improve her skills and go back next year a better player.

“Knowing that I’m not the awesomest awesome person doing something like that is a little ego blow,” she said. “I mean, it’s all about sticking with it and getting better every day and not comparing yourself. Comparing yourself to me.”

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KPIX

By Kara St. Cyr

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    SAN BRUNO, California (KPIX) — Satsuki Ina’s earliest memories are of barbed wire and internment camps.

“We went from Tule Lake, my father went to Bismarck, North Dakota,” Ina said, thumbing through a photo album.

Her family, like 125,000 other Japanese Americans, was hauled off to camps across the United States during World War II. Ina was born while her parents were already incarcerated, but the family wouldn’t stay together for long.

After denouncing U.S. citizenship out of fear, her father was sent to several other camps around the country. The Inas would remain separated for more than four years.

“We were reunited in 1946. This is after the war. We’re still in prison and reunited in Crystal City, Texas,” Ina said.

Her family endured violence, isolation and hopelessness during internment, which she said she doesn’t believe they’ve ever recovered from. Now, nearly 80 years later, she said the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are forcing her to relive that history.

“It took a lifetime for me to figure out, put all these pieces together and look at what happened to my family and my community, to see that the trauma effect continues today,” Ina said.

In January, the Trump administration removed the sensitive locations policy that kept ICE agents from entering churches, schools and hospitals.

Ina said there’s a connection between WWII internments and ICE raids. That’s why she’s helped gather a community of Japanese Americans to demonstrate for No Kings Day, a nationwide protest, at the Tanforan Assembly Memorial in San Bruno, California.

“When we were being removed, we essentially disappeared, and there were no marches or petitions or advocates on our behalf. So it feels like we’re being called to respond,” Ina said.

To her, it’s an act of solidarity and defiance, but Nick Berg, the vice chair of communications for the San Francisco GOP, doesn’t see the protest this way.

“Nobody is advocating for a return to monarchy in this country, not even Trump. So I think that it’s really a false narrative,” Berg said. “We have Democratic mechanisms in this country. They are still intact.”

Berg said the No Kings protests misrepresent the Trump administration and that internment camps are an unfair comparison. He condemned the actions taken against Japanese Americans during the war but still said the ICE raids are different.

“I mean, California is still part of the United States. It’s subject to federal law,” Berg said. “And so, federal immigration activity needs to happen, and I don’t know why states, including California, think that they can pass special laws to exempt themselves from enforcement of federal law.”

But Ina is worried that what happened to her family may happen again if the connection between the two events is not made.

“Want to educate people, and this is not an exception in our American history,” she said.

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KCBS

By Michele Gile

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    HUNTINGTON BEACH, California (KCAL, KCBS) — A youth-restricted area containing books Huntington Beach city leaders deemed too obscene for children remains at its Central Library despite a judicial order to eliminate the section.

In 2023, the City Council ordered librarians to move materials with “sexual content” from the children’s section to the youth-restricted area on the fourth floor of the library. The action met stiff resistance, leading the American Civil Liberties Union to join a lawsuit filed by residents, including former librarian Erin Spivey, who left her job following the order.

“The instructions we expect the city to follow are returning the books to the children’s section, taking down the signs about restricted books, establishing the teen section and making sure that employees are protected from any pushback from the City Council,” Spivey said.

Spivey’s lawsuit accused city leaders of a censorship scheme that violates California’s Freedom to Read Act, which prohibits removing public library books from shelves solely because of their content. The judge ruled in her favor in September. The city filed an objection to the judge’s order to move the books.

Huntington Beach’s Susie and Tom Davidson consider themselves to be conservative and are against kids having access to sexual material, yet they want the city to comply with the judge’s order.

“I just think they kinda jumped the gun on all the restrictions,” Susie Davison said. “Now, they’re finding out that it’s not working, but they should be listening to the government and let’s get it back in there.”

The city said it will discuss the issue during a closed session meeting, but couldn’t comment further.

In June, voters rejected Huntington Beach’s library review board and approved a measure to eliminate the panel.

In the weeks leading up to the special election, Councilman Chad Williams’ political action committee paid for “Protect Our Kids from Porn” signs to be placed across Huntington Beach, sparking outrage from some parents.

Williams claimed the city’s libraries contained pornographic content. It’s a similar allegation made by the former mayor, which led the council to approve an appointed committee to oversee which books are allowed in the children’s section.

“Children should not have access to these books,” said former Mayor Gracey Van der Mark. “If you’re an adult go for it; you can read whatever you want. But, it is our job and our responsibility to protect children from material that could be harmful for them and if they’re not mentally mature enough to read these books we shouldn’t be exposing them and only the parents can decide that. The government should not be deciding if this is appropriate for their children.”

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KDKA

By Ricky Sayer

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    PERRYOPOLIS, Pennsylvania (KDKA) — The owner of a gym in Perryopolis says the smell from a neighboring smoke shop has made its way into the place where kids learn about gymnastics and cheer.

Parents say they smell marijuana inside ROCKNROLLS, which sits directly next to Tobacco Land.

“It smells like a skunk,” said one parent

“The only thing that separates us is about 3 inches of drywall,” said Jordan Adams, a coach and the gym’s co-owner. “A lot of the kids come up to me and say, ‘Coach, it stinks here in the gym, my head hurts a little bit, I don’t like it.'”

He describes the smell inside the cheer gym as that of “cigarettes, vape or marijuana.” On Wednesday, a KDKA crew went to the gym and could smell something inside it that smelled similar to the inside of the smoke shop, but not marijuana specifically.

Both parents and Adam said it was far more potent on Monday, with the smell dissipating since then

“We’ve had people take their kids home because they’re like, I don’t want my kid in this environment. And it’s terrible for business,” Adams said. “It’s terrible for us.”

“I think it’s completely inappropriate, not only for the little ones who really don’t understand it, but we have teenage girls in here. They know exactly what that is, and it’s not OK,” parent Amanda Cargill said.

Adams said he believes the owners and customers at the shop are smoking marijuana inside the store.

“Nobody’s smoking inside my facility,” Tobacco Land co-owner Sam Said told KDKA in a phone interview on Wednesday. “We don’t have delta-8 or delta-CBD. … You can search the store from the bottom to the top.”

Adams said he’s tried calling the police multiple times, but they haven’t been able to do anything.

“I literally feel trapped,” Adams said. “I feel terrorized in our own gym. We cannot do anything whatsoever.”

He’s now hoping local rules are changed with the intention of preventing businesses like the smoke shop from opening next to places like his gym, which is full of kids.

The building is at least partially owned by the smoke shop owners, they said, complicating things for the gym.

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WCBS

By Lisa Rozner

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    NEW YORK (WCBS) — The Bronx has one of the highest maternal mortality rates, and now, expecting moms in need of resources are getting access to outreach on wheels.

The “Womb Bus” is a mobile wellness clinic that brings the services of the Birthing Place Foundation to under-represented communities in the Bronx. It is not a birth center, but a place to connect the community with doulas.

Myla Flores is a doula, and founder of the Birthing Place and co-founder of the Womb Bus and the Maryam Reproductive Health and Wellness Clinic.

“It’s very well known that the Bronx is a maternal health care desert,” Flores said. “In New York, we have just a couple birth centers, and zero are midwifery- or BIPOC-led.”

New York City’s Health Department cites studies that show, compared to white and non-Hispanic women, Black women are four times more likely to die of pregnancy complications and six times more likely to die of a pregnancy-related cause, like postpartum suicide or overdose.

“One of the things that we know is that cultural congruent care helps make an impact on the outcomes,” Flores said.

Flores said she’s seen maternal health care inequities firsthand.

“It has been very much a part of our regular engagement, is with families who’ve experienced some type of hardship, be it actual loss,” she said.

The Womb Bus offers an opportunity for new and expecting moms to form a special bond.

Mom Rajhean Patterson found the support she was looking for thanks to the outreach.

“It’s my first time exclusively breastfeeding,” she said. “Definitely challenges as far as feeling like I’m not doing it good enough, and just having that affirmation that I am doing it good enough.”

Expecting mom Courtney Harris Burnett also stopped by the Womb Bus. She met Flores back in 2020 through virtual classes she held on how to prepare for giving birth.

“I feel fortunate enough to kind of break that generational cycle of traumatic births,” Harris Burnett said.

Flores said the Womb Bus is one of several innovative ways they’re trying to reach the community, but the goal is to have a birth center to reach even more people.

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WBZ

By Chris Tanaka

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    BOSTON (WBZ) — A retired attorney has found a new passion forging superheated iron as a blacksmith in Boston.

Andy Good is one of the many artists working at the Humphreys Street Studios in Dorchester.

“There are two stone carvers, there are lots of painters and then there’s a whole lot of people who, in one way or another, are making clothing,” Good said.

He’s been pounding out masterful creations for 15 years after falling into it by accident.

“The truth is my wife, when I was lawyering, said, ‘All you do is work and work out. You’re a bore, find something else to do,” he said.

Good attended an adult education class in Framingham and fell in love with the craft.

“The idea of hitting something hard with a hammer when you’re defending criminal cases, that’s therapeutic,” the 79-year-old retired attorney told WBZ-TV.

He’s made all sorts of steel sculptures, from tools to intricate flower petals.

While the steelwork is born of fire, the passion was born of curiosity and having the studio space to make it flourish.

“The whole point is to do the mental and physical challenges that are completely and utterly different,” he said.

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WBZ

By Logan Hall

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    PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (WBZ) — Some very rare baseball cards are now up for auction after they were found in an unlikely place.

For antique collector Tom Conrad, a good find usually means an old advertising sign, oil can or soda bottles. But when he stumbled upon a box of baseball cards from the early 1900’s on Facebook Marketplace, he knew he’d found something special.

“I hate to say once in a lifetime find, but it really is right up there,” Conrad said.

Conrad bought the collection for just $75 from someone who had originally picked it up at an estate sale in Providence, Rhode Island. Inside a wooden chest, he discovered 122 baseball cards dating from 1909 to 1911 featuring legends such as Cy Young, Christy Mathewson and John McGraw.

The cards were glued to the inside of the chest, a preservation choice that may have helped keep them intact for more than a century. Many of the cards remain stuck to the chest but are removable.

Conrad has since listed the collection on his antique Facebook page, where the top bid has climbed to $6,700.

Among the highlights is a 1909 Cy Young card, which experts say could be worth thousands.

“In poor condition it’s still a couple grand,” said Matt Sharps, a trading card specialist at Card Vault, a card shop co-owned by Tom Brady. “I saw a couple years ago there was a sale and a graded 8, which is near mint, sold for over $100,000.”

Sharps said the discovery is the kind collectors dream about.

“These cards used to come in boxes of cigarettes back in the day, you get a little card with your pack of cigarettes,” Sharps said. “A lot of them got destroyed, and people thought they were going to be worthless, so finding them still intact all this time later is unreal.”

For Conrad, the cards represent more than money. They’re art.

“It’s a true piece of history for baseball itself, but for Americana in general,” he said. “Just thinking that someone thought to put these in the trunk lid to conserve them like that.”

For more information, head to Conrad’s Facebook page, Smalls to the Walls Auctions.

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