Category: CNN Regional

By Emma Hamilton

Click here for updates on this story

    RICHMOND HILL, Georgia (WJCL) — For five years, the familiar scent of French fries had been the backdrop to Zach Martin’s life. Every shift, he put on his uniform and greeted customers at the Richmond Hill McDonald’s, a steady, reliable presence. His manager, McDonald’s Second Generation Director, Justin Stanberry, attested to his dedication. “Zach was a great employee,” he said. “He was great on the customer service side. Everybody loved to see him. He just made everybody feel good on a daily basis.”

But last Friday, with a box of celebratory donuts in hand, Martin walked through the restaurant’s doors as an employee for the final time. He’s taking a leap of faith, trading his steady job for a brand-new adventure—one that has already taken the internet by storm.

Martin is 26-years-old and on the autism spectrum. He has always had a dream of doing art for a living. He’s making that dream a reality. “I wanted a dream job,” he simply stated when asked why he opened the shop. He’s creating woodland-themed ornaments and cards and selling them through his own TikTok shop.

With the help of his mom, Erika, Zach launched his online store. The small, handmade items—like a beautiful Christmas tree card featuring a design Zach had personally drawn—has quickly captured the hearts of the internet. The response was immediate and overwhelming. In just six weeks, Zach’s shop generated $23,000 in sales.

The sudden boom shocked both Zach and Erika. “Completely overwhelmed. It took us by surprise. We weren’t prepared,” Erika admitted. She had been hesitant at first, unsure if people would trust a new shop on TikTok. But the community support was massive, and now, their home has become a bustling workshop as they work hard to fulfill hundreds of orders. Every single ornament and card is carefully handmade by the mother-son duo.

For Erika, there is no greater joy than seeing her son’s art appreciated by so many. She hopes their story sends a powerful message about ability and opportunity to others. “A lot of people don’t think that people on the spectrum have these capabilities or these possibilities, and they really do,” she said. “We just have to learn to make the world accessible to them and help them do it.”

Now, Zach is fully focused on his booming TikTok shop. When asked if he was ready to take on the shop full-time, his answer was a resounding “Yeah.” He’s already thinking of new creations, like turning some of his other paintings into new card designs.

Zach is having his own art show on Friday, November 7, from 6-8 p.m. at the Richmond Hill City Center in JF Gregory Park. Not on TikTok? You can also purchase Zach’s work on his website.

Please note: 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 Kennedy Camarena

Click here for updates on this story

    SALT LAKE CITY (KSL, KSL TV) — Search and rescue crews traveled through a snowstorm in Little Cottonwood Canyon on Saturday to find a lost hypothermic hiker, and get them back home to safety.

The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team said the four hour rescue mission began on Saturday at 7 p.m. when a hiker called for help on the south ridge of Mt. Superior.

“The hiker had set out earlier in the day, attempting to summit the mountain, and went off-trail when a snowstorm rolled in,” the search and rescue said.

Temperatures quickly dropped to around 20 degrees Fahrenheit and snow began blowing around the hiker, leading to limited visibility.

Once the hiker called for help, the search and rescue said teams met at the base of Alta Ski Resort to travel up the mountain and start looking for the hiker.

“The rescuers broke trail through several inches of snow on a technical, steep ascent for about 1.5 hours before making contact with the hiker,” reported search and rescue. “As rescue teams assessed a cliff-edge traverse through a waterfall to the subject, a break in the storm occurred.”

A Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter then took the hiker via “hoist rescue” to an ambulance, which then took the hiker to a nearby hospital for treatment.

According to the search and rescue, the hiker was hypothermic but in stable condition when brought to the hospital.

Please note: 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 Lisa Crane

Click here for updates on this story

    HAYDEN, Alabama (WVTM) — Parts of Alabama are experiencing extreme drought conditions right now. The Forestry Commission has put the entire state under a fire danger advisory. And the lack of rain is impacting many crops that could affect our fall and winter holidays.

At The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, they grow some of their pumpkins; many of the small pie pumpkins came from their own fields. But because of a lack of rain, most are from farms in other states.

For a day at the pumpkin patch, this dry, warm weather is perfect, but it’s not so great for the pumpkin growing season.

Pumpkin Patch owner Julie Swann said, “We have not had rain, probably for us it’s been since August. And then prior to that, it was probably the good rains that we had, you know, April, maybe some of June.”

The Great Pumpkin Patch is parched, and the drought does have an impact on the gourds they grow there.

“It doesn’t necessarily affect the size simply because pumpkins take so long to produce. But it does the quantity, it affects that, you don’t have as many, you know, to produce as far as vines won’t produce as much without the rain,” Swann said.

So the owners have to reach out to farmers in Tennessee and Michigan and buy their pumpkins to sell in Hayden. And Halloween may not be the only holiday impacted by the drought. Paul Beavers at Beavers Christmas Tree Farm in Trafford said the lack of rain is particularly hard on his youngest, smallest trees.

“If it continues all the way through winter, it might kill some of my smaller trees. Hopefully, it’ll stop sometime in the next month or two,” Beavers said.

A lack of rain means the trees will just stop growing, so the drought could impact the size of your Christmas tree. But the trees tagged for sale are five years old or more, so problems might not be realized till Christmas of 2030.

“We’re still going to have over 3000 trees ready to sell this year,” Beavers said.

When the owners of the pumpkin patch have to buy more pumpkins from out-of-state farms, their costs increase, but they say this year, they are not raising prices for customers.

They’ll have to re-evaluate that next fall.

Please note: 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 Megan Matthews

Click here for updates on this story

    LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (WLKY) — The University of Louisville is inviting all Swifties to a new course, “Swiftonomics,” which uses Taylor Swift’s career to highlight core economic concepts like supply and demand and opportunity cost.

“We certainly have a lot of Swifties and a lot of people who are just interested in Taylor Swift. As you know, she’s had a huge economic impact. She’s an incredible business person. And so we thought, well, let’s try this at UofL,” said Beth Munnich, an associate professor of economics who helped develop the class.

The course is divided into three sections — each named after a Taylor Swift song — and asks students to apply economic thinking to real-world questions fans already debate.

“How do we decide how much we’re going to pay to go to an Eras Tour concert? It depends not only on how much I value something, but how much everybody else wants to go and how much they’re willing to pay,” Munnich said.

Swift’s lyrics also serve as case studies for trade-offs and scarcity.

“We don’t have infinite amounts of time. ‘August, time is slipping away,’ and we make decisions, knowing that we’re making trade-offs about how we spend our time and how we spend our money,” Munnich said.

Open to any enrolled student, the class aims to meet people where their interests already are.

“People are coming in because they have some interest and varying levels of knowledge about Taylor Swift, but they can relate to the ideas and they know the lyrics—but maybe they’ve never thought about that lyric from the song ‘August’ as opportunity cost,” Munnich said.

After a strong first day on Monday, Munnich hopes to expand Swiftonomics into a full-time course offering in the future.

Please note: 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 Stephanie Moore

Click here for updates on this story

    UNION COUNTY, South Carolina (WYFF) — Two woman in Union County, South Carolina, are accused of pouring gas on a dog and setting it on fire.

A report from the Union County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were called to a home on Linersville Road Friday night.

Arrest warrants for Cassidie Hyatt and Jada Rogers said they caused unnecessary pain and suffering for a dog when they poured gasoline on the animal and set it on fire while it was still alive.

Both were charged with ill treatment of animals and booked into the Union County Detention Center.

We have reached out to the sheriff’s office for an update on the dog and its condition.

Please note: 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 Arielle Mitropoulos

Click here for updates on this story

    MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (WMUR) — More than a month after a fire tore through their Manchester apartment building, the couple who survived by jumping from a third-story window has been discharged from the hospital and is working to find a new sense of normalcy.

Renee Shinn and her fiancé, Randy McGibbon, told News 9 in an exclusive interview Monday that they were forced to jump from their third-floor apartment on Sullivan Street after waking up to smoke on Sept. 12.

“We opened the front door. The flames were already coming up the front stairs, and they were already at the back door when I woke up,” said McGibbon.

Both were flown to a Boston-area hospital with serious injuries. McGibbon was put into a coma, where he remained incapacitated for several days.

“We got med flighted, both of us. I was in a coma for five days in the ICU,” McGibbon said. “My lungs were filled up with black tar.”

Shinn suffered severe burns to her legs, arms and face.

“I got second- and third-degree burns all over my arms, and I got them on my face too,” she said, showing the severity of her injuries. “My skin was just dripping off of me.”

She was also put into a coma after getting sick with pneumonia.

“I don’t remember much until I woke up from my coma,” Shinn said.

Their apartment building was destroyed in the fire, leaving only rubble and debris behind.

“I haven’t stopped shaking since then,” said McGibbon. “I really almost didn’t make it out … it was too late.”

“Five more minutes and we would’ve died,” Shinn said.

Investigators determined the fire was caused by the improper disposal of smoking materials on the second-floor porch in the rear of the building.

The couple lost everything in the fire, including irreplaceable items, like Shinn’s daughter’s urn.

A GoFundMe has been set up for those who want to help.

Please note: 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.

KPIX

By Da Lin, Jose Fabian

Click here for updates on this story

    SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — A school in San Francisco is changing how students learn by making artificial intelligence central to their education.

For 13-year-old June Rockefeller, her school experience will be different starting this year.

“I love school so much now. I think it’s just really fun,” she said.

Rockefeller is part of the inaugural class at Alpha, a new school in San Francisco that’s using AI and removing bells, grades and even teachers. AI handles the lessons, and adults are called guides and coaches, who are there to help with “motivational and emotional support.”

Students spend just two hours on core subjects, all taught by AI-powered apps, which, according to the school, do not have chat functionality. Instead, the AI uses a “vision model to watch the screen and coach … on how to learn more effectively.”

The rest of the day is used for hands-on life skills and passion projects, the school said. Ethan Wong, 14, was using AI to design an app for molecular gastronomy. On this day, he learned how to pitch his startup to investors.

“I really enjoy spending less time doing academics and spending more time doing things I love,” Wong said.

His dad, James Wong, admits he wasn’t sure about the experiment until he saw it in action.

“I had not seen that smile when he exited school in a very long time,” James said.

Carson Lehmann, Alpha’s lead guide, said education has been slow to change.

“I want them to see that they can create something, they don’t need any other skills, they don’t need a crazy degree in computer science, they are able to create a functioning app,” he said.

“What needs to be made really clear is that some of the consequences of unregulated and currently unstudied AI in education settings could have potentially really impactful and negative effects on our students,” said Cassondra Curiel, president of United Educators of San Francisco.

And then there’s the price, $75,000 a year, more than many Ivy League schools. Alpha claims students at its other campuses score in the top one to two percent nationally across all grade levels.

The school started with just 15 students, but next fall it aims to enroll 75, with scholarships open to some families. And for Rockefeller, there’s no going back.

“It’s high standards, but it doesn’t stress me out,” she said.

Please note: 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.

WBZ

By Logan Hall

Click here for updates on this story

    QUINCY, Massachusetts (WBZ) — Baseball players gathered for a game in Quincy, Massachusetts Sunday, where they attempted to play 100 innings, all to raise money for ALS research.

The group made it to 53 innings, spread out over two days, before it was called due to the impending nor’easter. The home team defeated the visiting team, 66 to 53.

The game is benefiting the Angel Fund, which was founded by Rich Kennedy. His life has been hit hard by ALS; he was diagnosed in 2016 and his father and brother both died of the disease. Nearly a decade into his diagnosis, he said he’s still fighting.

“I’d get into fights all the time but this is the toughest fight I’ve ever been in,” said Kennedy. “Events like this are unbelievable, it keeps me optimistic.”

Over their 22 years of hosting the special baseball game, they’ve raised nearly $1 million.

“Yesterday, we got a $5,000 check, so many of these people know ALS very well, so it’s unbelievable, tremendous camaraderie, it’s fabulous,” said Kennedy.

The donations are meaningful but often the biggest sense of accomplishment comes for the players on the baseball diamond.

“I’ve learned when you get into a tough fight, lot of friends at your back, you can win,” said Kennedy.

In addition to 100 innings of baseball, the Angel Fund also hosts a golf tournament in Haverhill and a walk in Wakefield. They also participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in Wilmington.

Please note: 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.