Category: CNN Regional

By Peyton Headlee

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    AIR OAKS, California (KCRA) — A Sacramento County family is sharing their heartbreak after they say their son, Shauvin Horsley, was hit by a car and dragged for almost a mile before he died on Monday night near Madison Avenue and Interstate 80.

Dalicha Johnson, Horsley’s mother, shared memories of her 26-year-old son, showing videos of him dancing and playing voicemails he left her saying, “I love you. Have a good rest of your evening.”

“My baby was a good person,” Johnson said. “To know him is to love him. And everybody that came across him, they loved him.”

Horsley was killed while trying to cross Madison Avenue on his bike. The California Highway Patrol reported that Horsley was not using a crosswalk when he was hit by the first car, followed by a second car that then dragged him for nearly a mile.

Horsley’s body fell from the car on Renick Way, just a few hundred feet from his family’s home, before the driver fled the scene.

“I picked up my baby’s shoe off of Madison,” she said. “Nobody deserved this. He definitely didn’t deserve it.”

Johnson said her son struggled with mental health and chose to live on the street, but he always had a family to come home to.

“We do need to be more aware of the unhoused population and see them. And just because they’re unhoused, it doesn’t make them any less of a person. They’re still people. They have family,” she said.

In the days following Horsley’s death, the California Highway Patrol announced an arrest in the case. KCRA 3 asked CHP for more details on the arrest and charges. We’re waiting to hear back.

Horsley’s family expressed gratitude for the justice the arrest brings as they begin to grieve his loss. They started a GoFundMe to help with funeral expenses.

“I just know I want to hold him. I just want to hold him,” Johnson said. “He had a good heart.”

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 Daniel Macht

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    ESPARTO, California (KCRA) — Top Yolo County officials were aware of illegal fireworks operations at the site of the deadly 2025 Esparto explosions for at least three years but “no code enforcement occurred” and the lack of oversight directly led to “death and destruction,” according to a civil grand jury report.

The Yolo County Civil Grand Jury released the damning 32-page report, titled “Esparto Fireworks Explosion: Officials Knew, None Acted, ” on Thursday.

“Inexplicably, no code enforcement occurred, even though all dangerous fireworks had been banned by ordinance throughout rural Yolo County since 2001,” the report said. “In the absence of official oversight and enforcement, unmitigated expansion of the fireworks businesses operating at the site in Esparto led directly to death and destruction from the Esparto Fireworks Explosion.”

The report said the goal of the investigation was to understand the failure of the county’s code enforcement process.

Multiple fireworks blasts on July 1, 2025, obliterated a facility that was storing a massive cache of fireworks, killing seven workers from Devastating Pyrotechnics and leaving only debris behind.

The Civil Grand Jury is an independent body of citizen volunteers who are appointed to provide oversight of local government operations.

“The Board of Supervisors respectfully disagrees with the report’s suggestion that the County does not take code enforcement seriously,” Yolo County said in a statement about the grand jury’s finding. “While funding levels have varied historically, the Board has consistently supported and funded the County’s code enforcement program in recent (compared to previous) years and continues to recognize the essential role it plays in protecting community health and safety. Consistent with this commitment, the County has initiated internal reviews of its processes, including code enforcement procedures, and continues to work closely with local fire agencies and regional partners to strengthen coordination and communication.”

Other investigations have also been underway. Cal Fire’s state fire marshal said in February that it found signs of criminal activity and turned its findings over to the DA’s office.

Since the explosions, the state marshal’s office revoked the pyrotechnics licenses for two companies that operated at the Esparto site, determining that they had violated state fireworks laws and regulations.

In December, CAL/OSHA issued more than $200,000 in fines through 15 citations, three of which were noted to have been serious regulatory violations that the agency said were directly related to the deadly explosions.

A closer look at findings from the grand jury’s report

The grandy jury report notes that the Esparto explosion site had once belonged to a farmer, Jerry Matsumura, who used to put on fireworks displays.

But activity at the property evolved after his 2015 death into a “substantial business” called Devastating Pyrotechnics that went on to provide fireworks for shows across the state.

The report notes that Matsumura’s two daughters, Rieko Matsumura and Tammy Machado, took over the property and worked at the sheriff’s office. Machado’s husband, Sam Machado, worked as a lieutenant at the office.

Over the years, the owner of Devastating Pyrotechnics, Kenneth Chee, expanded his business at the Machados’ property and brought on additional containers to hold explosives, the report said.

While Devastating Fireworks obtained federal and state permits, it did not have a local use permit or business license, the report notes. And ordinances prohibited fireworks businesses anywhere in the county.

The report found that as part of the businesses’ expansion, it represented during the permitting process that it planned to store almonds.

“The report is unusual in the respect that we could not pinpoint the very thing that happened,” said Richard Zeiger, foreperson of the Yolo County Civil Grand Jury. “There is a whole list of things that we think might have contributed to it. One is this sort of atmosphere that you should be tolerant of activities that are taking place on farmlands, not look at them too closely. Other aspects have to do with just procedures that are used by the code enforcement people and the adequacy of those, and the tracking problems that occur with them.”

Around the same time in 2021, a Devastating Pyrotechnics employee who lived on the Machado property, Craig Cutright, also contacted planning division workers to see if he could establish a new fireworks business nearby.

Cutright, a volunteer firefighter for the Esparto Fire District, later started his own business Blackstar Fireworks on the Machado property.

Email says inspection will ‘tread lightly’

The report says that on June 2, 2022, a tipster told a County Building Services department official that the Machados’ property was being used by two pyrotechnics businesses.

County Building Services staff said in emails about an inspection that they would “tread lightly” because the property was owned by sheriff’s deputies “including deputies that we work with.”

KCRA 3 Investigates previously reported that Yolo County officials were aware of the red flags after we obtained the emails from a public records request.

The report says that building officials confirmed there were pyrotechnic businesses operating at the site but that Esparto fire officials said they were approved by the ATF and the site was storing “safe and sane” and dangerous fireworks. The staff were also told the new building would be used for agricultural purposes.

“Following the site visit, the County Community Services Department took steps toward a possible enforcement action against the property,” the report says. “But within days, this conversation about the site – at least in email records provided by the County – abruptly ceased. The department failed to take any action, and the fireworks business continued to quietly operate and even expand.”

The grand jury said it could not determine why planning and code enforcement staff never pursued the matter.

“There were times they’d been out on the property, they talked to property owners, and they knew something was happening there, and they just failed to do this, but this was a long time before the actual explosion. At the time they looked, the operations were smaller, and there was sort of a long history of the owner of that farm as a kind of super hobby of setting off fireworks,” Zeiger told KCRA.

The report explains several possible reasons why no one took action.

They included:

Officials may not have realized the operations they saw while inspecting a new building, given long-standing use of the property for a small-scale pyrotechnics business. Miscommunication over whether an enforcement letter had been sent with some workers thinking it had been. County officials thinking that state and federal officials were responsible for monitoring the businesses. (The grand jury did not find a record that Cal Fire inspected the property or whether the county had checked with the agencies.) The county’s building and code enforcement divisions were understaffed with a backlog and had no process of what actions to prioritize. The grand jury heard that code enforcement had been a low priority by the Board of Supervisors. It was possible that many in the community thought the business was an asset by providing employment and donating fireworks to fundraising shows for the local fire district.

“Whatever the cause – and the lack of subsequent documentation remains a significant concern to the Grand Jury – in the years after the new structure was completed in 2023, it appears that the pyrotechnic business activities continued at the site and, with the new building in place, greatly increased,” the report says.

The grand jury also found that since the explosions the county hasn’t “engaged in any sort of thorough or systematic review of its own processes or procedures.”

In all, the grand jury report found that nearly a dozen county employees over the years knew about the pyrotechnics operations but failed to take “any remedial action.”

“We think people failed and the system failed. There were a lot of people that knew about this. If one of them had stood up and said, ‘Wait, you can’t do this, there’s a danger,’ I think that might have stopped. No one did,” Zeiger said.

Board of Supervisors faulted

The report also faults the Board of Supervisors after hearing testimony that it “fostered a culture of tolerance for code violations.”

“Combined with the fact that the property was owned by officials who worked for the Sheriff’s Office, this approach seems to have contributed toward employees turning a blind eye toward a violation that eventually allowed an illegal business to expand and ultimately resulted in the death of seven people, destruction of the residential and commercial buildings on site, a 78-acre fire and damage to residences, buildings, and agricultural acreage on surrounding properties,” the report says.

Meanwhile, families of the victims have said they would sue government entities and individuals. A press release alleged that state and county employees “turned a blind eye due to a culture where friends are not subjected to the same oversight as the rest of us.”

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 Jason Burger

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    OKLAHOMA CITY (KOCO) — The Oklahoma Senate has passed a bill that aims to help families of cold case victims by creating a formal case file review process, allowing them to request further investigation.

Maggie Zingman, a trauma psychologist and the mother of Brittany Phillips, who was murdered in Tulsa in September 2004, expressed her support for the bill.

“Trying to help other people not go through what I’ve gone through, especially in the last eight years of our 21-year cold case,” Zingman said.

She has been seeking answers for her daughter’s murder for over two decades without success.

“In the last eight years, my requests for cold case assistance have been turned down, so that was part of my impetus for this,” she said.

The bill, known as SB 1636, would provide families with a new avenue to request further investigation into cold cases.

“It gives families a voice to request a review, then it sets up parameters how soon a response must be made,” Zingman said.

Once a formal request is made, law enforcement would have 30 days to confirm receipt, and investigators would have six months to determine if further investigation is warranted. The case file review would include all information, evidence, records, and testimonies related to the case.

Zingman recalled the challenges faced when Brittany’s case was first declared cold.

“Two things, one, the DNA analysis was just coming into the picture, but genetic genealogy was still very tentative, you couldn’t even use it in court yet,” she said.

Advocates for other cold cases, such as the State Fair murders involving Cheryl Genzer and Lisa Pennington, have also supported the bill.

“The Fairgrounds murders, that’s what, 40 years old? Mine is 21,” Zingman said.

Rocky Pennington, father of Lisa Pennington, emphasized the importance of keeping these cases open.

“I want to let everybody know, hey, this case is open. The murderers are still out there,” he said.

The bill specifies that case reviews cannot be conducted by the original investigators, and in some instances, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation would assist.

“For a lot of these small towns that don’t have big departments, and they want to do reviews, these reviews are going to go to OSBI — right now, OSBI can’t come in to our case, unless TPD asks for it,” Zingman said.

If investigators do not find any new information, the bill states that the case cannot be reviewed again for five years.

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 Jason Burger

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    OKLAHOMA CITY (KOCO) — As spring arrives, ant colonies are increasingly invading homes in search of food, prompting pest control experts to offer advice on prevention.

Zach Dillard from Blaze Pest Control explained their behavior this time of the year.

“They’re trying to find food, and trying to repopulate,” Dillard said.

Dillard advised homeowners to be vigilant about cleaning, as ants are attracted to certain foods left on floors or pantry shelves.

“Sugars, proteins — proteins are what help them repopulate and produce more of their eggs and stuff,” he said.

Ants tend to follow the same paths, which pest control experts use to track their movements and locate their mounds.

“They’ll follow the same path, so that’s what we’ll do, and we’ll watch them, and let’s say they’re in a kitchen or in a house somewhere, we’ll watch them and see where they’re coming in and out, to see where their mound is at,” Dillard said.

Ants can even invade cereal boxes, storing food from the pantry and bringing it back to their mounds.

“They were storing food from the pantry, they were going right into the kitchen through their windows — and they were getting sugary cereal, and bringing it back to their mounds,” Dillard said.

Widespread or severe ant infestations may require professional pest control experts.

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 Emily Pofahl

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    MILWAUKEE (WISN) — Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius announced cuts to 201 “non-classroom” positions earlier this month as a means to address the district’s $46 million budget deficit.

On Thursday, the union representing MPS educators said the cuts go deeper than that. Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association President Ingrid Walker-Henry called Cassellius’s promise “lies.”

“It’s infuriating because we know how important all of the positions who work with our students are,” Walker-Henry told reporters.

This week, more than 200 employees received letters called “excess notices,” explaining that the district is eliminating their jobs.

“Your position for the 2026-2027 school year has been eliminated, as a result, your last day of employment in your current assignment will be June 30th, 2026,” the letter read.

Cassellius had previously signaled in January that cuts were forthcoming, promising they would be “non-classroom” positions. The 201 cut includes 70 staff from the central office, 62 “implementers” or support and floater teachers, and 59 assistant principals.

Some assistant principals have been working for the district for decades.

The teachers’ union claims that the cuts have impacted essential roles within the schools. Walker-Henry said some of her members, including music and art teachers and paraprofessionals, have also received letters or had their hours reduced. The union did not have an exact number or estimate of their members with classroom roles who are impacted, but Walker-Henry said a music teacher at Vincent High School was among them.

“The most disturbing thing about the superintendent’s lies are the countless paraprofessionals and children’s health assistants that have been told this week that they have either been cut from their school’s budget or their hours have been reduced,” Walker-Henry said.

Cassellius said some of the hourly reductions and cuts to music or art positions are part of adjustments that come every year, and are not part of the 201 cuts the district expects to save $30 million from.

“Typically every year, we see adjustments that are made throughout the district and reductions made throughout the district based on enrollment or based on choice that students are making,” Cassellius said.

Cassellius also confirmed that some educators in the “implementers” category who have teaching licenses and work in classrooms are losing their jobs.

“Change is just hard,” she said. “This is an incredibly challenging place for the district to be in right now with a $46 million deficit.”

The district is in the middle of an audit to ensure compliance with special education support requirements, and anticipates adjusting paraprofessional staffing after the results are released.

Walker-Henry called for the school board’s Office of Accountability and Efficiency to intervene.

“The school board and the office of accountability must step in; they must ensure that this level of dysfunction stops,” she said.

Despite the job eliminations, the district plans to hire for more positions later this spring, allowing laid-off employees to apply internally before public postings. Cassellius said she anticipates adding more than 200 teaching jobs next year as part of the district’s effort to lower class sizes, but emphasized that she’s waiting on more information about needs from school principals before sharing the exact number of positions available.

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 Mallory Anderson

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    MILWAUKEE (WISN) — Students at Marquette University are dedicating their time to making sure children affected by their parents’ cancer are getting the love and support they need.

Kesem at Marquette University puts on two week-long summer camp sessions for southeast Wisconsin children whose parents have or have had cancer. Camp is free for families, with the college students raising money throughout the school year to fund the experience. Kesem is not a grief camp, but rather an opportunity to provide kids time to have fun and connect with children going through similar situations at home.

Kesem at Marquette co-directors Bobby DiSandro and Natalie McHone joined 12 News at 11 Thursday to talk about their mission, and their biggest fundraiser, “Make The Magic,” coming up on April 11 at Discovery World in Milwaukee. You can watch their interview in the video clip above.

Kesem is a nationwide non-profit with chapters at over 115 universities in 41 states. To find a chapter near you, visit Kesem.org.

For more information on Kesem at Marquette, visit their Facebook page.

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.