Category: CNN Regional

By Andrea Nakano

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    OAKLAND, California (KPIX) — Hundreds gathered Friday night in Oakland for a tribute to coach John Beam and to celebrate his life. It was the first organized memorial for the coach since he was fatally shot on Nov. 13.

A moment of silence was held for Beam and each person who attended had their own story to tell.

“Coach saved my life,” said former player Kevin Parker. “Coach is my father. When I didn’t have a father. Coach, he’s my hero.”

Parker played for Beam and went to play college football at Oregon. The former running back was lured to Skyline High School by Beam.

“Coach was god sent,” he said. “God put him in Oakland for a reason. So, he knows exactly what every young man needed. Especially those that didn’t have a father in their household.”

Parker isn’t the only one with gratitude for Beam. Every former player talked about how playing under him had a direct impact on where they are today.

“What didn’t he do,” former player Derrick Gardner said. “When I first went to Skyline, he was just a coach who believed in me. He has a saying that I’ll believe in you until you believe in yourself.”

“What didn’t he do?” echoed former player Will Blackwell. “He was everything. Just truthful, he believed in us. He challenged us. He helped us and supported us. It was everything.”

“Coach was an instrumental figure in my life,” former player Damon Owens said. “In high school, I was literally on the brink of dropping out.”

Beam didn’t just transform his former players’ lives. At Skyline, he was also the physical education teacher, and students say one thing set him apart from everyone else.

“He cared,” said Skyline High alum Felicia Fee Carr. “He cared and he genuinely cared. He cared more than others. He cared when he didn’t have to care. He cared when nobody else cared and that’s what made him special. He was genuine. He was always genuine.”

While the Skyline family showed up in numbers, Beam’s wife was also there, overwhelmed by the community support.

“I just have so much gratitude,” Cindy Beam said. “My family and I are so touched and so appreciative for all that’s been done. The blessings from the community. “

While weeks have passed since his death, many say it hasn’t really sunk in that he’s gone. His former players have vowed to carry on the legacy that Beam built in Oakland and pass it along to other kids with big dreams.

“Coach, I love you,” said Parker. “You know you’re my father for life. So, I need you. Don’t leave me now. Keep taking to us and keep talking to your family.”

This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate partner and does not contain original CNN reporting.

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By Asal Rezaei, Elyssa Kaufman

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    CHICAGO (WBBM) — The annual arrival of the Christmas Tree Ship is underway in Chicago on Saturday.

A U.S. Coast Guard ship carrying 1,200 Christmas trees from Michigan made its way Navy Pier. The trees will be given to families across Chicago.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem joined the volunteers as the trees were loaded off the boat. A small group of protesters were reported nearby.

This is the 26th annual Christmas tree ship delivery.

The Christmas tree dedication ceremony at Navy Pier is set for Saturday at 10 a.m.

According to Krist Habermel, the voyage follows the route of the original Christmas Tree Ship, the Rouse Simmons, which sank in Lake Michigan in 1912 while carrying trees to Chicago.

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By Ellie Nakamoto-White

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    MILWAUKEE (WDJT) — Christmas came early in Milwaukee for kids and their families on Saturday morning as Penfield Children’s Center hosted its annual holiday party.

Attendees were able to participate in activities like arts and crafts, cookie decorating, face paint, music and more.

“I love this event, and I was counting down just to come so I was up early at like 7, we have to get rolling because we can’t miss this event!” said parent Lillin Lott, whose child attends the center. “They have wonderful resources, they have the kids, they are doing a wonderful job with these kids and I love it.”

The center partnered with Kohl’s, who dropped off gift-wrapped presents for each kid in attendance.

“That is awesome because a lot of parents, it’s hard, doing the holidays, it’s hard, knowing what we just experienced over the last portion of the summer, it’s hard so I think it’s a good thing they’re giving back to the children,” Lott said.

Polina Makievsky, the center’s president and CEO, said the holiday spirit is about “giving, caring, sharing and community.”

“We’ve welcomed all the families that we work with at Penfield to enjoy holiday activities for young children,” Makievsky said. “Just seeing the kids’ faces light up and the sense of wonder and magic, including children who come here every day for their early education program, it’s magic to them and that’s what we aim to do.”

In the future, officials said they hope to expand their services and resources so they can go from helping the near 2,000 kids and families they serve currently, to tens of thousands across Milwaukee and Waukesha counties.

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By Edie Kasten, Irika Sargent

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    CHICAGO (WBBM) — A look into the pain and the hope of treating rare neurological diseases in children; it’s a difficult, sometimes gut-wrenching process with no guarantees, but a Chicago doctor is determined to extend and save lives.

“When I went into child neurology, I actually went into it because there was so little known about it, and I thought there was just a huge black box of opportunity to treat conditions that we didn’t even understand what caused them,” said Dr. Elizabeth Berry-Kravis, a pediatric neurologist at Rush University Medical Center.

Berry-Kravis ventures deeply into that huge black box every day. Dr. EBK, as her colleagues call her, specializes in rare diseases.

One of her patients, Tessa Jarrin, has TUBB4A leukodystrophy. It’s an inherited disorder that affects her ability to eat, speak, and walk.

“It’s super rare. There’s less than 300 people in the world with this disease. With Tessa’s exact variant, there’s less than 13 people,” said Tessa’s mom, Ashley.

“It’s very lonely at times, because a lot of people can’t relate to what we’re going through,” said Tessa’s dad, Justin.

Ashley and Justin heard about a promising treatment for Tessa’s condition, but couldn’t find a doctor who would administer it.

Desperate, Ashley attended an event to learn more about the procedure.

“We ultimately put together business cards and pins with Tessa’s face on them, just pleading for a doctor to see us, to see my daughter, to help save her,” Ashley said. “There we found Dr. Berry-Kravis, and she’s like, ‘Could you come to Chicago?’ I said, ‘I will be there tomorrow.'”

The Jarrins brought Tessa to Rush University Medical Center in Chicago all the way from their home in Houston.

“Tessa is here to get an investigational; something called an antisense oligonucleotide, which is going to go in there into her brain, and block the damaging mutation,” Berry-Kravis said. “Hopefully that allows us to stop the progression, and maybe even allows Tessa to develop more normally.”

Her colleagues said Dr. EBK is big on hope, and big on not sitting still.

“EBK is amazing. She is just a spitfire, fantastic woman,” research assistant Rachel Stoub said. “She is nonstop. … She lives off of candy and diet sodas.”

A little unorthodox for a diehard marathon runner, who takes the train in from the suburbs, then bikes to Rush and back five days a week. How does she do it all?

“I think I sleep less than most people,” she said.

But she wakes up every day optimistic about the future.

“We’ve discovered more and more and more of the genetic causes of these diseases,” Berry-Kravis said. “We’re really at a cusp right now where these discoveries are happening very rapidly.”

She said, in Tessa’s case, doctors can perform gene therapy to replace disease-causing genes with healthy genes, and in the near future could even turn to gene editing.

“We’ve finally gotten to the point where we can do what I really went into the field to try to discover how to do,” she said. “It’s just very exciting. … We have the potential to change the courses of these diseases and thereby change the lives of these kids.”

Berry-Kravis also is known for uncovering molecular clues in fragile X syndrome, or Martin-Bell syndrome, another genetic disorder that leads to intellectual and developmental disabilities.

To learn more about her work and the challenge of fighting rare diseases, visit rush.edu.

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By Aaron Parseghian

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    BROOKLINE, Massachusetts (WBZ) — What started as a bored teenager’s online experiment during the pandemic has turned into a real-life change on MBTA bus routes in the Boston area.

Brendan Libby, now a senior at Brookline High School, said he often passed a small, unnamed road tucked behind a Chestnut Hill apartment complex. In 2021, while bored during the pandemic, the then-14-year-old discovered he could submit edits or suggest names through Google Maps.

“Without thinking, I went in, tried to change it to something,” he said.

A history and baseball buff, Libby decided to give that unnamed street a name, Maranville Street, after Walter “Rabbit” Maranville, the Springfield-born Baseball Hall of Famer who helped the Boston Braves win the 1914 World Series.

“He was kind of an unknown local celebrity for the Boston Braves, and I thought his name was kind of cool. So that’s pretty much why I chose it,” he explained.

To his surprise a few days later, Google approved the street name.

At that point, it was nothing more than just an inside family joke, for those that knew if they were on the app. That was until Libby was riding the Route 51 bus to a physical therapy appointment one day, when he heard the onboard announcement.

The bus speaker announced “at Maranville Street” as it approached the nearby stop.

“The AI thing pronounced it, and I kind of got jump-scared,” Libby laughed. “The bus name had actually been changed.”

The MBTA told WBZ-TV, “Our Service and Planning team does occasionally consult Google Maps to update bus stop names, so this appears to be plausible. This particular stop and the one across the street had their names updated to include the Maranville Street moniker during the summer 2022 service changes.”

“I was pretty shocked,” Libby said.

Maranville Street sign He kept the story mostly to himself until posting about it on Reddit, where it quickly took off and drew praise.

“I wasn’t intending to get famous by this at any point. I just thought it would be a cool story to share,” he said. “But now that people took it kind of seriously, I’ve kind of been leaning into that.”

With an online community now cheering him on, Libby’s next goal is convincing the city of Boston to install an actual Maranville Street sign.

“If we could get one address changed to Maranville Street, that’s the goal,” he said.

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By Daniel Wilkerson

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    ATLANTA (WUPA) — Three Atlanta high school seniors got the surprise of a lifetime when they went to school on Friday.

They were accepted on the spot into the Georgia Institute of Technology.

It’s a moment that, for one family, was decades in the making, and CBS News Atlanta was there to capture all the excitement.

At Mays High School, Justin Allen, Ralph Long IV, and Bethany Momon got the news that they had been accepted early into Georgia Tech.

“I was totally surprised,” Momon said. “I saw my parents walk in and said, ‘Oh, this one’s going to be big for me.’ I don’t think I’m fully there. I’m kind of out of my mind.”

“This is amazing. Georgia Tech has been my number one for so long,” Allen said. “The rigor, the honor of saying I got accepted — it’s unmatched. All the effort I’ve put in it paid off. I got accepted into Georgia Tech.”

“It feels good. It was shocking. I was really nervous about being accepted,” Long said. “I want to pursue cybersecurity, and I can’t think of any other school bigger in cybersecurity or computer engineering than Georgia Tech.”

For Long, the moment runs deeper than the acceptance. His grandfather was one of the first Black engineers in the Southeast, and graduated from the university.

“It’s like he paved the path for me, so now I can walk easier, along his footsteps, and pick up along the road he set for me,” Long said.

“This is a great moment in our family history, having my grandson admitted to Georgia Tech and following in the footsteps of his grandparents,” grandfather Ralph Long Jr. said. “I applied in 1960, so this is a great opportunity for him.”

All three students’ parents helped them celebrate the big announcement.

“Oh, I’m so overjoyed right now. I’m fighting back tears as I speak to you, because this moment is huge for us. It’s huge for Bethany,” mom Tiffany Momon said. “Whe’s challenged herself in ways I could never imagine.”

For these high school seniors, there are generations of sacrifice and years of hard work culminating when they walk onto Georgia Tech’s campus next year.

The Georgia Tech admissions team surprised students at eight high schools across Georgia, including Mays.

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By Molly McCrea, Anne Makovec, Carlos E. Castañeda

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    SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — In a recent survey, the vast majority of surfers feel a personal responsibility for the health of the ocean. Now, a Santa Cruz company hopes to provide them with one way to surf in a more eco-friendly manner.

Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz is one of the most iconic California surf spots. It has consistent, powerful waves as well as incredible scenic coastal views, drawing surfing aficionados from around the world.

“The ocean is so powerful. It holds such a good place in my heart,” said surfer Tyler James. “When you’re out there, it’s just you and the ocean, and there’s something so special about it.”

It was even more special recently when James tried something new: a high-performance surfboard that was custom-made for him. While most surfboards are carved out of blocks of petroleum-based foam, Tyler’s board is 3D printed, using a biodegradable plant-based plastic.

“This is the future, I think, of surfing,” James said, as he examined his new board.

By one estimate, 40% of foam cut away from a board is thrown into a landfill. But the boards like the one held in Tyler’s hands are foam-free. They’re created at Swellcycle with just enough bioplastic filament called polylactic acid.

“Which is compostable under very specific conditions, said Swellcycle sustainability and operations manager Dr Liesbeth Van Hassel. “Basically, made mostly from corn or sugar cane. Anything that can be turned into sugar.”

The material is industrially compostable with controlled temperatures, humidity, oxygen, and microorganisms.

“In our process we keep all the waste that we generate, which is pretty low, but we keep them, and this material is completely recyclable,” added Van Hassel.

The startup works with board shapers, including Spina, Iconoclast, and Tigre Bona. Swellcycle told CBS News Bay Area that more shapers are on the way.

The shapers provide design files to Swellcycle, which brings the board to life using a 3D printer and the renewable thermoplastics. The company can also scan a physical board and create the digital files.

After the boards are printed, Swellcycle laminates them, which makes them not only waterproof but stronger. Van Hassel explained how their cores hardly ever get pressure dings, while the epoxy resin used by Swellcycle is 30% biobased.

In addition, the 3D printers and Swellcycle’s entire Santa Cruz headquarters are powered by solar energy.

“We’re developing tools to make manufacturing more sustainable,” said co-founder and CEO Patricio Guerrero. “We’re looking at different processes and seeing how we can take advantage of waste reduction opportunities thru 3d printing and additive manufacturing, where you’re actually laying down the material you need rather than subtracting it from a big block of foam.”

Swellcycle hosts demo days when surfers can try out the boards. Recently, a handful of surfers tried out some of the boards at Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz.

“They’re really fast, they’re really fun,” said surfer Keaton Mayo, who tested a Tigre Bona-shaped board. “They’re not your traditional board. It was a blast.”

“I thought it was sensational,” said surfer Sam Bartosik-Velez, who tried a Spina.

The surfboard industry is not very sustainable. Most of the tens of millions of boards made each year are not environmentally friendly. But Swellcycle hopes to make a difference.

“They feel like a regular surfboard, and they’re sustainable,” said Bartoski-Velez.

“If the surf culture doesn’t kind of make changes towards sustainable surfboards, it’s going to be a problem,” added Mayo.

James is now an ambassador for Swellcycle.

“It’s so important for surfers to understand that if we want to keep surfing, that we got to care about our oceans, we got to care about the process that’s making our boards,” he said.

The next two demo days will be scheduled soon for December. Van Hassel recommends keeping an eye on their website or Instagram.

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By Aaron Hegarty

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    OMAHA, Nebraska (KETV) — An anonymous witness told KETV NewsWatch 7 that her brief encounter with a gunman helped police identify and confront the man who then went on to shoot multiple officers.

The officers shot Wednesday near 32nd and L are recovering Thursday night.

The gunman has been identified as 28-year-old Juan Melgar-Ayala. Officers shot and killed him inside the QuikTrip.

The witness said she was in her car at the Phil’s Cash Saver when she heard five gunshots, then five more.

After hearing shots, a witness who does not want to be identified said she saw a man in a ski mask drive away quickly.

“He got his keys and started the car. And as he was taking off, he seen me looking at him cause we had eye contact, and I started ducking. I felt in my gut that he had to be the gunman,” she said. “It was too many shots. So I knew in my heart somebody had been shot.”

She said she found the victim, identified as 61-year-old Michael Kasper, struck several times. He asked that witness to call his wife. And she did.

The search for the suspect led officers to the QuikTrip — across the street is Donahue’s Pub.

Pub owner Mike Donahue was in his apartment above the pub when he heard a loud noise. He didn’t think much of it at first.

“When you live right on L Street, it’s not that unusual to hear noise,” Donahue said.

Donahue looked out the window when he heard the sirens.

“Just saw the chaos that was ensuing,” Donahue said.

His security camera captured what appears to be officers sprinting out of a car with guns drawn.

The pub owner then saw an injured officer being carried out in an upright position.

“The amount of cars that rolled in was impressive. And they all seemed to know what they were doing. Everybody looked like they had a place to go, and they knew that’s where they were supposed to be. A certain number of them went straight in, and other ones kind of took control of the outside,” Donahue said.

The witness at Phil’s Cash Saver said she and others described what they saw to police.

“It’s just sad all the way around. And that’s why I say I’m not a hero. God just had me in the right place at the right time to come comfort that man as he was getting ready to die or not, and make sure that the word got to his wife like he wanted,” she said.

The witness of the shooting said she got the victim’s phone for him, who then dialed his wife.

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By Todd Magel

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    WAPELLO COUNTY, Iowa (KCCI) — Doug Doug, a two-year-old collie, was rescued from an icy pond at his rural Ottumwa home earlier this week after falling through the ice covering a 20-foot deep pond.

Deputy Sheriff Marty Wonderlin described the scene, saying, “It’s just hard to see it struggle, and stay up on the ice.”

Wapello County Volunteer Fire Chief Loren McIntosh, along with Wonderlin, sprang into action to save the dog on Tuesday afternoon. Doug Doug’s owners provided a rope and a kayak, while Wonderlin gave McIntosh his life preserver. McIntosh then carefully moved out onto the ice.

“I just went for it and thought if I flip the kayak, it won’t be the first time I get in the water, but it’s going to be cold,” McIntosh said.

Doug Doug was freezing and growing weaker, and even the seasoned sheriff’s deputy was concerned about the outcome.

“As an animal lover, it’s hard to see when you get there, the center of the pond was broken and open and the dog has its front paws up on the ice but the body, shoulders are down under water, submerged,” Wonderlin said.

McIntosh recounted the critical moment of the rescue: “I grabbed him and his head went down below the water and I said you’re not going down again and I pulled him up.”

Minutes later, Doug Doug was safely on shore, shivering and in shock but alive. His rescuers were relieved to have saved a life.

“He’s lucky, he could have drowned. Just like a person, it don’t take long for hypothermia to set in, especially with the cold weather we have right now,” McIntosh said.

Reflecting on the rescue, Wonderlin added, “You don’t get the opportunity to have those feel-good endings where you really have helped someone or something deserving and get that warm fuzzy feeling in this job as much as you might think, so that made it good.”

Doug Doug’s owner reported that his health is great despite the accident, but noted that he is now avoiding the pond.

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By Brooklyn Joyner

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    VICKSBURG, Alabama (WVTM) — A Vicksburg family is calling their 5-year-old boy a hero after he alerted them to a dangerous house fire that destroyed their home just two days after Thanksgiving.

Ranajai Hill may be shy — often hiding behind his hair and speaking softly to strangers — but when it mattered most, he acted with extraordinary bravery.

Ranajai was sitting on the couch watching TV early Saturday morning while most of his family slept. That’s when he noticed heat coming from nearby flames.

“He said he just saw the fire come up, and he went and got his grandmother,” said Jennifer Smith, his Gigi.

In the home at the time were Ranajai’s grandmother, his little sister, two uncles, and Ranajai himself. Thanks to his quick warning, all five escaped safely, wearing only the clothes they had on.

The Vicksburg Fire Department says the fire started from a gas space heater and declared the home a total loss.

“To me, it was very devastating losing everything that you have, that you’ve worked hard for,” Smith said.

But through the devastation, Smith says she’s overwhelmingly grateful — especially when she considers how differently the morning could have ended.

“I’m so proud of him,” she said. “Without him being the brave hero he was, it could have been worse. I don’t even want to explain.”

Although Ranajai is a boy of few words, his Gigi says his compassion for others is what makes him shine — and what helped save his family.

Ranajai’s family has created a GoFundMe to help replace essentials and clothing lost in the fire as they work to rebuild.

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