Category: CNN Regional

By Briauna Brown

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    DALLAS, Texas (KTVT) — A Dallas basketball team is close to making its dreams of traveling to London come true after a sizeable donation from Mark Cuban.

Cuban donated $30,000 toward the University of Dallas men’s basketball fundraising goal after the team’s trip was abruptly canceled by a travel company that went bankrupt. Their $60,000 deposit for the trip has yet to be refunded.

Last month, CBS News Texas spoke with UTD head basketball coach Matt Grahn, who said the London trip was two years in the making, with help from family and friends.

Grahn said they worked with the company GoPlay Sports. Two months before their travel date, the company notified Grahn via email that it was taking steps to file for bankruptcy and could no longer fulfill the team’s booking.

The trip was also especially significant for senior basketball player Michael Kennedy, who is from London and was excited to show his teammates where he grew up, visit there, and play in front of his parents.

“I was going to show them, like, where I live. I was 100% confident this trip was going to happen; nothing could have gone wrong, but it did. I just, it feels like betrayal a little bit, you know, two years of working with them, but for what?” Kennedy told CBS News Texas.

Federal bankruptcy court records do not show any filings from GoPlay Sports. CBS News Texas has also reached out to the company, but we have not yet heard back.

Following the cancellation, the team took to social media to see if it could raise enough funds to still go to London. Then came Cuban’s large donation.

The team took to social media on Wednesday to thank Cuban and shared that they are still about $17,000 away from fully recovering the amount they lost. Anyone who would like to donate can visit the team’s social media page and click on the link in their bio.

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 Claire Bacarella

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    DEWITT, Michigan (WSYM) — For many high school seniors, finding the right prom dress can feel like part of the perfect night.

“If you feel confident and you like your dress it makes your night so much better,” Bath High School senior Savana Harte said.

Harte says she wanted a dress that made her feel special.

“I felt like a princess,” Harte said.

But for many families, that moment can come with a big price tag.

“The dress she really wanted originally was like $600, and I told her no,” Harte’s mom Felicia Lutz said.

That’s where DeWitt neighbor Lauren Canfield stepped in. This prom season, she started a makeshift dress consignment shop out of her home to help students find secondhand dresses at a lower cost.

“People wanna be able to feel beautiful without having to break the bank. I’d love to be able to help families be able to have that moment,” Canfield said.

Harte found her prom dress through Canfield’s collection, and her family says shopping secondhand made a major difference.

“We saved about $400 compared to what we were gonna spend on a dress,” Lutz said.

Canfield hopes to continue and expand her consignment operation. For Harte’s family, the experience proved you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to make prom memorable.

“It was really nice to have somebody willing to help people and do a little cheaper so we can afford a nice senior prom. You only get one senior prom,” Lutz said.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. WSYM 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 John Shumway

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    PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (KDKA) — We all know that Sunday is Mother’s Day, but without looking it up – what is Saturday? It’s National Dog Mom Day!

It’s not just something I found on the internet; there are cards, and a lot more than meets the eye when you want to celebrate the dog mom in your life.

Not to mention, the dog-mom relationship is a special one. While dog dads can bond with their pups, there’s just something different about mom, and anyone who has looked into the eyes of their dog knows.

“There is an unspoken connection that goes between you and your animal,” said celebrity dog trainer and educator Chrissy Joy. “There’s an emotional bond that is created, there’s so much love that is put between you and your dog, that you can almost read their minds after a little while.”

Joy said the research is there that when you make eye-to-eye connection with your dog, there’s a neurochemical result.

“The oxytocin, which plays a major role in the love and care that women tend to give and nurture to other beings,” Joy said.

She also said that after a while, your dog will begin to read your mood. The behaviors between dog and dog mom are unspoken, but understanding how you’re feeling says a lot about the bond and connection.

Meanwhile, cats will give love and affection when they darn well please, Joy said that dogs are unwavering in their response, but it doesn’t come without effort.

“There are things that you can do to grow that bond, and it’s spending time together,” she said. “So, it’s doing the grooming and exercise and paying attention to their needs.”

There’s also the flipside…the hair. You’re going to have to be okay with a lot of dog hair and other disruptions.

“You’re going to have to be okay with adjusting your vacations,” Joy said. “You’re going to have to be okay with random vet visits in the middle of the night, because it can happen, and it is expensive.”

Joy herself has a nine-year-old daughter, a husband, and five dogs.

“They’re not equal to a human, in my opinion, there are very, very big differences, but the love that I can bring out can be the same.”

While she did acknowledge that dog dads can have a strong connection, it’s not the same as moms.

So, if you’re looking to enhance that connection, it can be done through more than just treats, feeding, and walks. Find their favorite scratch spot, and if they wear a collar, it’s under the collar or just about their tail on their lower back. Of course, there’s always the classic spot, right behind the ears.

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 Ellie Nakamoto-White

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    MILWAUKEE (WDJT) — A legal fight is cooking up over Milwaukee’s newly approved food truck ordinance that will go into effect Saturday, May 9.

On Thursday, May 7, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed a lawsuit on behalf of a local food truck owner, calling the new rules “unconstitutional.” The lawsuit is seeking an emergency stay of the law to stop it from going into effect.

The ordinance, which was approved unanimously by the Milwaukee Common Council last month, requires food trucks operating downtown to shut down earlier under rules aimed at curbing late-night violence.

But the lawsuit says food trucks shouldn’t be the ones blamed for that violence, and the ordinance interferes with the food trucks owners’ rights to earn a living. It also claims that the ordinance singles out food trucks specifically while allowing brick and mortar restaurants in the same areas to stay open.

We are expecting to hear from officials who filed the lawsuit as well as from the food truck owner they are representing.

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 Charles Perez

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    ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) — Part of the American story is shaped by those who’ve arrived from distant lands seeking opportunities they could not have found in their home countries.

For this Amazing America 250 feature, we talk with Asheville’s Sophie Steinberg, who, at 104 years old, is a living testament to that immigrant journey.

Born in 1922, in what is now Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), Steinberg arrived in America as an infant aboard the RMS Aquitania. She traveled with her mother and two brothers, fleeing the violent anti-Jewish attacks of the time, known as pogroms. It was part of a broader wave of persecution that forced millions of Jews to leave Eastern Europe.

For Steinberg, it was a journey away from the life she might have had if her family remained in what became part of the Soviet Union.

The family settled in Baltimore, and Steinberg grew up during the Great Depression. During World War II, her brothers and cousins served overseas, and her younger brother was killed in Italy in the Battle of Anzio.

At the age of 28, Steinberg became an American. It was a milestone she describes as deeply meaningful.

“I really felt good about that,” she said, recalling the pride of officially becoming an American.

Over the decades, she witnessed defining moments in U.S. history, from the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 to the triumph of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing.

Over the years, she built a career at a law firm, where she finally retired at the age of 93. Today. With four grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, she remains ever forward-looking, hoping their generations will chart a course to a hopeful future.

“Let’s get back to caring for each other,” she said. “Thinking about each other— what’s good for us.”

By “us,” she emphasizes, she means everyone, including those who have come looking for a better life.

“Most everybody is an immigrant in some way,” she said.

Her personal philosophy is simple: She never focused on her age, only on doing what needed to be done.

At 104, Steinberg’s life tells a distinctly American story — one of perseverance, opportunity, and the enduring hope that the future can be better than the past.

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 Mya Constantino

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    SALT LAKE CITY (KSTU) — Inside Pho Hao in West Valley City, a steaming bowl of Pho arrived at the table, its slow-simmered broth rich with spice, thin slices of meat tucked between noodles, and fresh herbs floating on top.

“There’s just something nourishing and comforting about a bowl of pho,” Brandon Luong said at the table.

Online, Luong is known as the “Pho King.” He has reviewed more than 50 pho restaurants across Utah. He says his personal Pho quest started with a simple spreadsheet back in 2021.

“I just went from restaurant to restaurant and made a spreadsheet for myself,” he said. “Some of my friends were like, ‘Hey, can I get that spreadsheet from you?’ Then they were like, ‘You should put it on Reddit.’ I’m like, ‘What do I call it?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, I’ll make a joke — I’m the King of Pho. I’m the Pho King.’”

The name stuck.

Luong, who grew up in South Jordan, has since eaten his way through Salt Lake, Summit, and Utah counties, even creating a basketball-inspired graph to rank each bowl. He said he borrowed the idea from a player stat chart he found; he plots restaurants along an X and Y axis, complete with images.

“I saw this graph that plotted out basketball players,” he said. “It just had a picture and a cutout of their faces.”

When it comes to judging pho, Luong says the broth makes up about 80 percent of the score. “For me, the perfect bowl tastes like a hug,” he said. “It’s reinvigorating. It feels almost healing in a way.”

Some say pho restaurants with numbers in their names often stand out as signs they may be authentic, family-owned spots — and that the food will likely be good. Fox 13 News asked whether he thinks that still holds true.

“That’s generally a good sign,” Luong said with a laugh. “The number is never actually random. It’s usually a number that means something to the restaurant owner or their family — maybe the year their grandma was born, the year they opened.”

Luong said after moving out of his family’s home, he stopped eating the dish for a time. When he eventually returned to it, he found something deeper. “It’s definitely the tastiest way for me to discover parts of my culture that I didn’t know existed,” he explained.

Despite tasting dozens of bowls across Utah, Luong says his favorite is the Pho he grew up eating at home. “I always say the secret ingredient to Pho is time,” he said. “But the secret ingredient to all food is nostalgia. That’s just a taste you can’t replicate.”

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 Pepper Purpura

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    DES MOINES, Iowa (KCCI) — After years of planning, fundraising and advocacy, Iowa’s first centralized care center for sexual assault survivors is entering its final phase before opening this fall.

The Sexual Assault Forensic Exam Center, or SAFE Center, is expected to open in October inside Des Moines University’s clinic tower on Grande Avenue after lawmakers unanimously approved $1.5 million in state funding this legislative session.

Organizers say the project is still about $700,000 short of its fundraising goal, but they believe the center is now closer than ever to becoming a reality.

The SAFE Center is designed to bring together medical care, forensic exams and support services for survivors of sexual assault under one roof.

“It will change the landscape of the way victims are cared for,” founder Shannon Knudsen said.

Right now, many survivors in Iowa receive care through emergency rooms or hospital systems that may not always have trained forensic nurses available.

Knudsen, a longtime Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, or SANE nurse, said survivors can face long waits or may have to travel between facilities trying to find help.

“Right now, people are waiting eight hours, sometimes 12 hours in the emergency room, and they leave without being seen and getting care,” Knudsen said.

The SAFE Center aims to eliminate many of those barriers by creating a dedicated, standalone facility focused specifically on survivor care.

Once open, the center plans to provide:

24-hour access to care Sexual assault forensic exams Medical treatment Mental health support Victim advocacy services Follow-up care Space for law enforcement interviews and reporting if a survivor pursues it

Knudsen emphasized survivors will not be required to report assaults to police in order to receive services.

“If they want to make their police report, they can make their police report there,” Knudsen said. “They can meet with their victim advocates or their prosecutors or whoever they need to.”

The center is designed to operate independently from hospitals and law enforcement agencies while still coordinating with community partners across Iowa.

Organizers say the goal is to create a trauma-informed environment where survivors know exactly where to go for help.

“It’s to provide that comprehensive care from beginning to end and whatever they may need,” Knudsen said.

Research has shown survivors are more likely to seek help and participate in investigations when care is coordinated, accessible and trauma-informed.

Currently, Iowa’s system can be fragmented, particularly in rural communities where trained forensic nurses may not always be available.

Knudsen said that inconsistency can discourage survivors from continuing the process.

“Sometimes they give up, and that’s a tragedy, because that means that a criminal is going through and no one is going to be prosecuted,” Roxanne Conlin, an advocate for the SAFE Center, said.

Organizers say the Des Moines facility is intended to become the first in a broader statewide network.

The SAFE Center plans to eventually open satellite locations across Iowa to help connect survivors in rural and underserved regions with care closer to home.

Those satellite locations would still coordinate with the Des Moines center while expanding access to forensic exams, advocacy and follow-up services statewide.

Knudsen said demand for services is already significant.

“We see about 300 victims a year right now,” she said. “So that’s been my biggest fear, bursting at our seams on day one of opening the doors.”

The organization says services at the SAFE Center will be free and confidential for survivors.

The bill funding the project is now awaiting the governor’s signature. Independent donations can be made here.

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.