Category: CNN Regional

By Katie Houlis

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    NEW YORK, New York (WCBS) — New York City health officials have identified cooling towers potentially linked to a deadly Legionnaires’ disease cluster in the South Bronx.

As of Wednesday, 23 people have tested positive for Legionnaires’ disease in the Melrose and Morrisania sections. Two of those 22 patients have died, and three patients are currently hospitalized.

The city health department says 10 cooling towers within the impacted area in the 10451, 10455, 10456, or 10459 ZIP codes tested positive for Legionella bacteria, and seven of those 10 towers were found to have live Legionella bacteria, which causes the disease.

The health department says the locations of those seven towers are:

– 567 Melrose Ave. – 3339 Park Ave. – 820 Concourse Village West – 470 E. 161st St. – 890 Washington Ave. – 1160 Teller Ave. – 1265 Franklin Ave.

Health officials say all 10 of the cooling towers have already been cleaned and disinfected.

“We are moving decisively and deliberately to protect New Yorkers from this Legionnaires’ disease cluster in the South Bronx. We’ve taken an aggressive response,” Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin said in a statement. “We will continue to move with urgency and keep New Yorkers informed as this investigation unfolds.”

Officials have not yet determined which, if any, of those cooling towers is the source of the South Bronx cluster.

Cooling tower testing in the area is ongoing, and the health department says they will continue to release locations of towers that contain Legionella bacteria as those results become available.

Anyone who has recently spent time in the impacted area should seek medical attention if they develop flu-like symptoms. More information on the disease can be found on the health department’s website at nyc.gov/legionnaires.

This is the second Legionnaires’ disease cluster in the city this year. This summer, 11 people died and a total of 94 people were sickened in connection to an outbreak on the Upper East Side.

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 Madeline Bartos

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    ERIE COUNTY, Pennsylvania (KDKA) — A man has been charged with raping and murdering a 20-year-old Pennsylvania woman more than two decades ago, the attorney general announced on Tuesday.

Fifty-year-old David Heck of Brazil, Indiana, has been charged in the death of 20-year-old Sabrina Kahler in Erie County in 2002, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said, bringing some closure to her family, though her body has never been found.

24-year-old cold case solved According to prosecutors, Heck took Kahler swimming on June 24, 2002, before taking her to a wooded area near Lake Erie where he raped and killed her.

While Kahler’s death remained unsolved for 24 years, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said the recently formed Cold Case Section collaborated with local investigators and a grand jury, which recommended charges of murder, rape and kidnapping against Heck. He was arrested at his home in Indiana on Monday.

“A totality of evidence that included key grand jury testimony from previously-reluctant witnesses led to a single conclusion — that David Heck raped and murdered Sabrina Kahler 24 years ago,” Sunday said in a press release. “This is a historical development that brings some answers for Sabrina’s loved ones and the Erie community, but it is not a day of celebration as we have not yet brought Sabrina home.”

Testimony lays out timeline The attorney general’s office said the grand jury heard testimony from two of Heck’s acquaintances, providing a full picture of what happened to Kahler.

Prosecutors said Heck showed up unexpectedly at Kahler’s home on East Third Street on June 24, 2002, and asked if she wanted to go swimming. Kahler was home alone, but Heck was her boyfriend’s cousin, and they had all gone swimming before.

Kahler agreed and Heck drove them to Eagley Park, where he got into a fight with his ex-girlfriend and some of her friends, so the two went to an ice cream shop, Tasty Twist, the attorney general’s office said. Heck had been charged days earlier with assaulting his ex-girlfriend and was on probation, so he called police, who saw Heck and Kahler at Tasty Twist.

Heck then drove Kahler to Fairview Gravel Pits, which is a heavily wooded area with bodies of water, prosecutors said. That’s where Heck raped and killed Kahler, with a fisherman reporting he heard a woman’s “blood-curdling scream” before a man matching Heck’s photo from a TV news broadcast walked out of the woods alone, the attorney general’s office said.

After killing her, the attorney general’s office said Heck recruited Douglas Heim, who testified as a witness, to help move and bury Kahler’s body at Elk Creek Access. Another witness, Terry Kellerman, testified that Heck had made claims of killing a girl.

Years later, prosecutors said Heck told a cellmate he had raped and killed a girl at Fairview Gravel Pits and she had screamed.

A court declared Kahler dead in 2009. Elk Creek Access, where she was allegedly buried, is prone to flooding and has changed much in 24 years. Searches for her body at and around that location are ongoing, the attorney general’s office 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 Eva Andersen, Jim McHugh

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    PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (KYW) — When Mike Rafferty was 14 years old, a teacher at St. Gabriel School in South Philadelphia introduced a pen pal program and asked his class a question: What kind of pen pal would you like?

One of Rafferty’s friends had an answer.

“He said, ‘I want a 14-year-old girl from California,'” Rafferty said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, me too.'”

He got his wish.

What Rafferty could not have known was that the classroom assignment would begin a friendship spanning 42 years — or that the girl who became his longtime pen pal wasn’t actually the girl he was originally assigned.

This week, Rafferty and Christie Leonard finally met face-to-face for the first time. Their story began just down the block from where Rafferty lives today.

He grew up one street from his current South Philadelphia home, both near St. Gabriel, where the pen pal program began in 1984.

Rafferty still has a letter dated June 1 of that year from his original pen pal, a 14-year-old California girl named Regena Jauregui.

“I like to play tennis and go swimming,” Rafferty read aloud from the letter. “This is very short because I do not know anything about you, except that your name is Mike Rafferty.”

But Regena had a cousin named Christie Leonard.

After hearing about the program, Leonard wanted to write to Rafferty, too.

Rafferty remembers the letter arriving with Leonard’s picture and her name written in bubble letters.

“She kind of stole me away from Regena,” he said.

Soon, Rafferty and Leonard were exchanging letters and photos between South Philadelphia and Orangevale, California, writing about school, their lives and even their favorite football teams.

As the years passed, their lives moved in different directions.

Rafferty became a professional boxer, then a Philadelphia police officer. He married his wife, Razel, and started a family with four children. He and Leonard stayed in touch over the years, sometimes losing contact before reconnecting again.

But they had never met.

That changed Monday, when — after Leonard told Rafferty she’d be visiting Philadelphia with her fiancé — they arranged to meet at Dean’s Bar, a corner pub at 29th and Tasker streets in South Philadelphia.

“Forty-two years ago we started writing each other,” Rafferty said as the two embraced.

“Can you believe that?” Leonard said.

Inside, Leonard got a full South Philadelphia welcome as Rafferty introduced her to family and friends — including his mother, who still remembers St. Gabriel’s pen pal program that started it all.

Over beers, the two reminisced about the letters they exchanged as teenagers.

“I remember you had very nice penmanship,” Leonard told him.

They even remembered the one phone call they shared as teenagers, an event Rafferty said attracted plenty of attention from his family.

“My whole family is hanging over me like you’re from planet Mars,” Rafferty said. “‘Michael’s talking to somebody from California.'”

Leonard remembered taking the call from her bedroom on her “Princess phone.”

They remembered discussing the different football teams they each favored.

“He was an Eagles fan, of course, and I was a Denver Broncos fan, even though I never lived in Denver,” Leonard said.

But there is one thing the former pen pals certainly agree on, in the world of social media and text messages:

“There’s nothing like getting a letter in the mail,” Rafferty said. “Everybody knows that.”

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 Mike Sullivan

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    BOSTON, Massachusetts (WBZ) — A UMass Boston student says students at nearby Boston College High School berated her and her mother with racial slurs as they were trying to drive home. Now BC High is launching an internal investigation into the matter

Carly Nguyen had just finished a three-hour lecture at UMass Boston and was traveling home with her mother. They were getting onto Morrissey Boulevard when teenagers in two cars began harassing them.

“They pulled right next to us and just unprovoked, just started yelling all these slurs at me and my mom,” said Nguyen.

She quickly pulled up her phone and began recording their actions. She says they hurled numerous slurs at them while also giving lewd hand gestures. Nguyen believes the students may attend BC High because fans were leaving a football game there at the same time.

“After they realized that I was recording, the driver actually put on his sunglasses, his baseball cap and began covering his face,” said Nguyen.

When she got home, her Vietnamese mother asked her to translate what they said.

“She’s like, ‘Carly, what were they saying about us? What were they doing?’ It was really tough for me to explain that to her because who can?” said Nguyen.

She posted the videos to social media, and they have since been seen by BC High. The school says they have now launched an internal investigation into the matter. Nguyen noted that the school did reach out to her that night and has been in contact since.

“In my opinion, they are not being helpful whatsoever. They are honestly keeping me in the dark about everything,” said Nguyen.

In a statement, the school called the alleged behavior unacceptable and said racism in any form will not be tolerated at BC High. They will take appropriate disciplinary action to align with their policies.

“I want these boys to be held accountable, and to the highest standard. They should be expelled,” said Nguyen.

Since the incident, she says current students and alumni have reached out to her saying this isn’t the first instance of racism at the school, nor has the harassment ended for Nguyen.

“To this day, they are still harassing me in my comments just making fun of the situation, taunting me, generating AI images of them on wanted posters. Yes, it’s ridiculous,” said Nguyen.

WBZ-TV brought this latest development to the school, but they referred us to their original comments.

“If you want my honest opinion, these predominantly White institutions don’t hold these boys accountable for their actions,” said Nguyen. “They have never run into the wrong person, and unfortunately, well fortunately, they ran into the wrong one that night.”

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By Ashley Paul

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    HARTFORD COUNTY, Maryland (WJZ) — Health officials in Harford County are warning residents after another animal tested positive for rabies Wednesday, pushing the county’s total number of cases this year past the number reported in all of 2025.

“It’s a little spooky, I guess. Definitely unexpected. We play outside all the time, so hearing about rabies is always scary, especially when there’s kids involved,” said Chris McIntosh of Forest Hill.

Neighbors in a Forest Hill community said they are concerned after a rabid groundhog was found in their neighborhood this week.

That case was one of four rabies-positive animals reported in the county this week. A rabid groundhog and raccoon were reported from Aberdeen on Tuesday.

“Surprising, I mean we’ve seen some foxes and some other stuff wandering around but having a rabid animal is always concerning,” said Christian Taylor of Forest Hill.

A fox that tested positive Wednesday marked the 28th rabies case reported in Harford County this year.

Why the uptick in rabies cases Ronya Nassar with the Harford County Health Department said the increase could be partly due to greater awareness and more people reporting suspected cases.

“Just the awareness in general has really gotten individuals to learn more about rabies. We’re really providing the education, and I think that’s kind of why we’ve been seeing more of those cases,” Nassar said.

Oral Rabies Vaccination Program The latest cases come just weeks after the county announced its Oral Rabies Vaccination Program.

So far, officials have distributed more than 1,000 bait packets throughout the county in an effort to vaccinate wild animals that consume them.

“We might not see this change overnight with the cases. But we are really hopeful that this program is going to work,” Nassar said.

Safety reminder for Harford County residents Nassar is reminding residents to make sure their pets are vaccinated and to teach children not to interact with wild animals.

Neighbors said they plan to be more cautious after the recent rabies cases.

“We always try to keep our distance with animals anyway, let them do their own thing. But yeah, I think I definitely will be more cautious seeing animals, especially if they’re behaving strangely,” McIntosh said.

“We’ll definitely look in the backyard a little closer before letting him out at night and make sure we keep an eye on him when he’s out there for sure, because that’s ugly,” Taylor said.

Anyone who thinks they may have been exposed to an animal with rabies in Harford County should contact the Harford County Health Department immediately at 410-877-2300.

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By Drew Aunkst

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    BALTIMORE, Maryland (WJZ) — The family of a 3-year-old girl who was struck and killed by a 14-year-old driving a stolen car in Baltimore voiced frustration Wednesday after the teenager was sentenced in Juvenile Court.

Details of the sentence were not released because of the teenager’s age.

Jordan Bright was struck in June on West Pratt Street near South Monroe Street, according to police. The teenager was charged with auto theft and vehicular manslaughter and prosecuted in the juvenile justice system.

Jordan’s mother, Nyjada Billy, spoke out about her frustration but said she could not discuss details of Wednesday’s proceedings.

“This is so important and for me not to be able to talk about it is frustrating,” Billy said. “Because he’s a juvenile, I can’t even speak the truth about what just happened.”

Billy said she believes the juvenile justice system has failed her daughter and has given the teenager opportunities that Jordan will never have.

“Jordan will never get a chance at life, but throughout this process we have watched the juvenile justice system give chance after chance to the person that took her,” Billy said.

Because the defendant is a juvenile, officials did not release information about the sentence handed down Wednesday. Billy also said she was asked not to disclose details about what happened inside the juvenile justice center.

The Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office said in an email that juveniles can be committed to the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services until they turn 21 in certain cases.

Probation can range from six months of supervision to three or four years, depending on whether the offense is a misdemeanor or felony. Commitment is only available for felony cases, according to the office.

Baltimore attorney Warren Brown said sentences in juvenile cases can include placement in a juvenile facility followed by home detention and continued supervision, including counseling and other services.

For Jordan’s family, however, the prospect of rehabilitation for the teenager does not change the loss of their daughter.

Billy said her family must continue living without Jordan, whom she remembered for her big smile and her passion for skating.

She is now calling on Maryland lawmakers and local leaders to examine Jordan’s case and consider whether the juvenile justice system provides the level of accountability families expect after a child is killed.

Maryland’s juvenile justice laws are also undergoing significant changes. The Youth Charging Reform Act is scheduled to take effect next month.

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By Dan Raby

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    JACKSON COUNTY, Georgia (WUPA) — Officers have arrested two men in connection with a deadly shooting of a 23-year-old at an East Georgia Subway.

Authorities say the shots rang out at the Subway on U.S. Highway 129 in Jefferson shortly before 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday.

According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, officers responded to the Subway after getting a 911 call and found 23-year-old Aaron Winston Johnson shot multiple times.

Medics took Johnson to a regional hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

Investigators believe that the suspects in the case, identified as 21-year-old Terrance Singleton and 23-year-old Brian Taylor, had gone to a home in Commerce to talk with Johnson earlier that day, but Johnson never left the home.

Officers found Singleton and Taylor in DeKalb County on Wednesday. Both men are currently being held in the Jackson County Jail charged with murder.

The investigation remains ongoing. Officials are asking anyone with information about the shooting to call the GBI Regional Investigative Office in Athens at 706-552-2309 or the agency’s tip line at 1-800-597-8477.

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By Nikiya Carrero

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    MIAMI, Florida (WFOR) — The fourth and final dog involved in a brutal attack that left a woman seriously injured in northwest Miami-Dade has been captured, giving the victim a moment of relief six days after she says she nearly died.

Miami-Dade Animal Services confirmed Wednesday that the fourth dog is off the streets. The news came the same day Ashley Perez spoke publicly about the Sept. 17 attack and the trauma she continues to experience.

“Yes?! Oh, thank God!” Perez said after learning the final dog had been captured.

For the first time in six days, Perez smiled as she received the news.

“That’s great,” she said with a sigh.

Perez said she was walking down the street when she heard aggressive barking and noticed an open gate at a nearby home.

“By the time I noticed the gate was completely open to this house, it was too late,” Perez said. “These animals acted as pack hunters. They began to make concentric circles and boxed me in against the fence.”

Perez said the four dogs attacked her, leaving open wounds across her body. She described the attack as a near-death experience and said neighbors rushed to help her.

“I was very concerned as I was laying in the grass dying,” Perez said. “I heard men and women screaming in complete anger, ‘I told her, I told that woman, I’ve been telling her for months, take care of those dogs. This is going to happen to somebody.'”

Attorney says dog owner could be held liable Perez’s attorney, Michael Goldfarb, said Florida law generally holds dog owners responsible when their animals bite or attack someone, with limited exceptions.

“If the owner of a dog attacks someone, bites someone, that owner is responsible with very few exceptions,” Goldfarb said. “And this case is very clear about what happened. The gate was open, and the four dogs saw Perez and ran and attacked her.”

The woman who lives at the home where the dogs were being kept has said the animals do not belong to her. She claims her ex-husband left the dogs at the property.

CBS News Miami went to the home Wednesday, but no one answered the door.

With all four dogs now off the streets, Perez said she has some relief, but she continues to recover from the physical and emotional effects of the attack.

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By Chris Davis

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    NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WTVF) — A Davidson County judge has granted a temporary restraining order against Bryan Seaver, Dolly Parton’s nephew and former head of security, after the company responsible for managing Parton’s business interests alleged he threatened employees, business partners and the country music icon’s brand.

In an order filed Wednesday, Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles found that She’s Alive LLC had demonstrated that “immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage” could occur before Bryan Seaver and his company, Squadron Augmented Protection Services (SAPS), could respond in court. The court granted the temporary restraining order and scheduled a hearing on a possible temporary injunction for Oct. 7.

In granting the restraining order, the court wrote that the record reflected “an escalating and repeated course of conduct” and pointed to allegations involving threats directed at identifiable people and business interests, statements about access to weapons, alleged demands tied to threatened commercial harm, and evidence that company personnel had altered their conduct due to safety concerns. The order notes allegations that some personnel stopped reporting to work and that additional security measures had been implemented.

Under the judge’s order, Seaver and SAPS are temporarily prohibited from, among other things, interfering with She’s Alive LLC’s business relationships, threatening or intimidating personnel connected to the organization, coming within 1,000 feet of people or entities with business relationships with the company, monitoring their locations and publishing statements intended to interfere with the company’s business relationships.

The lawsuit She’s Alive LLC, a Tennessee entity that court filings say was established under Parton’s estate plan to manage her professional property and business interests, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Davidson County Chancery Court against Seaver and SAPS.

According to the lawsuit, Seaver served as Parton’s head of security for approximately two decades and continued providing security services through SAPS until the company terminated those services earlier this month.

Seaver is also Parton’s nephew and was the family representative who appeared in a video posted to her social media accounts announcing her death.

The lawsuit alleges his conduct became “threatening, destabilizing, and incompatible with any safe working environment.”

The lawsuit alleges Seaver threatened to damage business relationships connected to Parton’s entertainment empire, including Dollywood and various brand partnerships. Among the exhibits attached to the lawsuit is a text message in which Seaver allegedly wrote: “I’m going to destroy the entire brand if you don’t get these out of our bit.”

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