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Why teachers in South Korea are scared of their pupils — and their parents | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 to connect with a trained counselor, or visit the 988 Lifeline website.

Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—

When fighting broke out in Kang Hyeon-joo’s elementary school classroom, her heart would beat so fast she could not breathe and her vision would blur.

“They were throwing punches and kicking faces, throwing chairs and tables around,” she recalled, adding she had been hurt trying to intervene.

For two years, Kang struggled to discipline her students – or cope with the parental backlash when she did. She claims her principal did nothing to help and would tell her simply to “just take a week off”.

The strain took a dangerous toll. Kang says she started feeling the urge to jump in front of a bus. “If I just jumped at least, I would feel some relief. If I just jumped off a tall building, that would at least give me some peace.”

Kang is currently on sick leave but is far from alone in her experiences.

Tens of thousands of teachers have been protesting in recent months, calling for more protection from students and parents. At one protest in Seoul last month, 200,000 gathered, according to organizers, forcing the government to take notice and action.

The unified stand by the country’s teaching staff comes after the suicide of a first-grade teacher, in her early 20s, in July. She was found dead in her classroom in Seoul. Police have mentioned a problematic student and parental pressure while discussing her case, but have not given a definitive reason for her suicide.

Several more teachers have taken their own lives since July and some of these cases have reportedly been linked to school stress, according to colleagues of the deceased and bereaved families.

Government data shows 100 public school teachers killed themselves from January 2018 to June 2023, 11 of them in the first six months of this year, but does not specify what factors contributed to their deaths.

Sung Youl-kwan, a professor of education at Kyung Hee University, says the speed and size of the protests took many by surprise. “I think there has been like a shared feeling that this can happen to me too,” he said.

Teachers point to a 2014 child abuse law, intended to protect children, as one of the main reasons they feel unable to discipline students. They say they are fearful of being sued by a small percentage of parents for causing emotional distress to their child and being dragged through the courts.

“School is the last barrier to let students know what is okay in society and what is not. But we couldn’t do anything, if we teach them, we could be accused,” said Ahn Ji-hye, an elementary school teacher who helped organize previous protests.

Ahn says parents have called her mobile phone some days from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m., wanting to talk about their child or complain.

Mourners lay flowers in front of a memorial altar for an elementary school teacher who died in an apparent suicide in July at an elementary school in Seoul on September 4, 2023.

South Korea’s education minister Lee Ju-ho initially warned teachers that a mass strike would be an illegal act. That position was swiftly reversed, and a set of legal revisions passed the National Assembly on September 21, a fast piece of legislation.

One of the key changes is providing teachers some protection from being sued for child abuse if their discipline is considered a legitimate educational activity. Also, the responsibility for handling school complaints and lawsuits brought by parents now rests with the principal.

“So far we have a culture where the school principal tended to pass those responsibilities to teachers,” said Professor Sung.

The new law will also protect teachers’ personal information, such as their mobile phone numbers, and require parents to contact the school with concerns or complaints rather than the teacher directly.

In the past, Ahn said, “If I could not give my personal phone number to them, sometimes some parents would come to the parking lot and watch and see and take a note of my phone number from my car, then they would text message me.” It is customary for Koreans to display their phone number in the bottom corner of their windscreen.

Ahn welcomes the legal changes as “meaningful,” but insists higher-level laws like the Child Welfare Act and Child Abuse Punishment Act also need to be revised. “It is still possible to report teachers based on suspicion alone according to these laws,” she said.

She says that, for now at least, the protests will continue.

One is planned for outside the National Assembly on October 28. Ahn says she would like to see penalties for parents who make unfounded accusations against teachers or practical measures put in place so that mandated changes can be adopted in classrooms, such as removing a disruptive student elsewhere to allow teaching to continue.

Professor Sung believes the revisions will help in the short term, but cautions that the law should be seen as a safety net not a solution.

South Korean teachers rally in front of the National Assembly in Seoul on September 4.

Critics say South Korean society places a disproportionate level of importance on academic success so it should not be surprising that parents put teachers – and the wider education system – under so much pressure.

It is the norm for students to attend a cram school, called hagwon, after their regular school hours, not as an extra but as a basic and expensive requirement to succeed.

On the day of the national college entrance exam, known as Suneung in Korean, airplanes are grounded, and commuting hours are adjusted to ensure that students taking the exams are not disturbed.

“We have a culture in which parents have usually one child and they are ready to pour every financial resource and opportunity into this child,” Sung said.

“This pressure or obsession with education, sometimes with a high score, high achievement (mindset), is not a good environment for teachers (because) they are taking the pressure from the parents.”

Mourners pass funeral wreaths in front of an elementary school in Seoul on September 4, following the apparent suicide of a teacher in July.

Sung says the days of a teacher being automatically respected are long gone, not just in South Korea but elsewhere in the world, and the teacher-parent dynamic is unrecognizable from just a decade or two ago.

“In educational policies, parents are regarded as like a consumer, with consumer sovereignty, and school and teachers are regarded as service providers”, he said, adding parents believe they “have the right to demand many things from schools.”

In a country where education is considered central to success, teacher satisfaction is low. A survey by the Federation of Teachers’ Labor Union in April found 26.5% of teachers polled said they had received counseling or treatment for psychological issues due to their job. Some 87% said they have considered moving job or quitting in the past year.

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October 27, 2023

A nonprofit is racing to get its portable baby incubators into Israel and Gaza as crisis deepens | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
—

Jane Chen is racing against the clock, again. She knows well how every minute that passes is crucial for a new life that emerges prematurely into the world in the most vulnerable of circumstances — in the midst of war, in the aftermath of a natural disaster or in a remote village far away from a medical center.

Acutely aware of the deepening crisis between Israel and Gaza, Chen is mobilizing her team at Embrace Global, a nonprofit she co-founded to help save babies’ lives, in a way that’s become second nature to her.

Embrace, based in San Francisco, California, makes low-cost portable baby incubators that don’t require a stable electricity supply.

The Embrace incubator resembles a sleeping bag, but for a baby. It’s a three-part system consisting of an infant sleeping bag, a removable and reusable pouch filled with a wax-like phase-change material which maintains a constant temperature of 98 degrees F for up to eight hours at a stretch when heated, and a heater to reheat the pouch when it cools.

Chen said the pouch requires just a 30-minute charge to be fully ready for reuse. “This is really ideal for settings that have intermittent access to electricity, which is a lot of places where we work in the world,” she said.

According to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), an estimated 50,000 pregnant women currently reside in Gaza, 5,500 of whom are due to give birth in the coming month.

The stats are startling to Chen, who is bracing for a swell of need there. She’s learned how access to incubators becomes critical in conflict areas through the organization’s efforts to donate 3,000 Embrace incubators with the help of UNICEF to doctors and hospitals in Ukraine where a war with Russia rages on. The nonprofit also sent the devices to Turkey and Syria after devastating earthquakes there earlier this year.

Medical experts point to elevated stress as a potentially serious factor that could trigger preterm deliveries in these situations.

“There’s been plenty of data that show stress not only causes preterm birth but also low-birth-weight,” said Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell, an obstetrician-gynecologist and associate professor with Ochsner Health in New Orleans, Louisiana

In general, babies born preterm or before 37 weeks, have difficulty maintaining their body temperature, said Bell. “Specifically, if we are speaking of disasters…. in my own experience of being here during [Hurricane] Katrina, in those very stressful situations, we have seen an uptick during those times in preterm birth and low birth weight,” she said.

Because preterm and low-birth-weight babies don’t have as much body fat, it’s harder for them to maintain their body temperature, which for a healthy baby is between 96.8 and 99.5 degrees F, she said. “The lower it is below that, the more oxygen and energy they need to stay warm. So they would have use even more energy.”

In both cases of preterm and low-birth-weight infants, quick and constant access to an incubator is vital.

In Ukraine, Chen said doctors have indicated that preterm births are on the rise across the country at the same time that intermittent power outages have made the use of conventional incubators very challenging. Several doctors and nurses, she said, also must consistently take babies and mothers to basement shelters as bombings continue.

Dr. Halyna Masiura, a general practitioner, is experiencing this first hand at the Berezivka Primary Healthcare Center in the Odesa region of Ukraine.

Embrace Global donated its incubators to hospitals in Ukraine through its partner Project HOPE, including to the Sumy Regional Perinatal center in Northeastern Ukraine in 2022. Seen here is a nurse at Sumy Perinatal center secures an infant into an Embrace incubator.

“Half of the babies being born in this area need more care,” Masiura told CNN. “They are being born early and with low birth weight. When air raids happen, we all have to go into shelters.” Masiura said her staff members have been relying on donated Embrace incubators for babies born with a birth weight of 2 kg (4 lbs) and up.

In the Palestinian exclave of Gaza, Israel has instructed more than half of the more than 2 million residents in the north to evacuate to the southern region ahead of an anticipated ground operation in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in response to Hamas’ deadly October 7 attack on Israel.

That attack killed more than 1,400 people.

In Gaza, where half of the overall population are children, access to medical aid, food, water, fuel, electricity and other normal daily necessities of life have evaporated in recent days amid sustained Israeli bombardment.

Over the weekend, after days of a complete siege of the exclave by Israel, the first trucks reported to be carrying medicine and medical supplies, food and water entered Gaza on Saturday.

Palestinians search under the rubble of a building destroyed by Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023.

For Chen, the most pressing problem is to figure out how to get the incubators to where they are most needed on the ground there. “As we did for Ukraine, we’re looking for partnerships with organizations that can get into the region effectively and also for funding,” she said. As a nonprofit, Chen said donations are sought through GoFundMe and a mix of individual donors, foundations and corporate donations.

Her team is working on a partnership with a humanitarian relief organization to respond in Gaza. “We’re also reaching out to organizations in Israel to assess the need for our incubators there,” she added.

A couple of hundred incubators are ready to immediately be sent to Israel and Gaza. Said Chen, “Depending on the need, we would go into production for more. But the big question is, can we get into those areas? We don’t want to ship products and then have them sit there.”

Linus Liang, along with Chen, was among the original team of graduate students at Stanford University who, as part of a class assignment in 2007, were given a challenge to develop a low-cost infant incubator for use in developing countries.

Liang, a software engineer who had already created and sold two gaming companies by then, was intrigued. “This class deliberately brought together people from different disciplines – law, business, medical school, engineers – to collaborate to solve world problems,” he said.

“Our challenge was that about 20 million premature and low-birth-weight babies are born globally every year,” he said. “Many of them don’t survive, or if they do, they live with terrible health conditions.”

Embrace Global founder Jane Chen at SVYM hospital in Karnataka, India, in 2013.

The reasons why came down to factors such as a shortage of expensive conventional incubators or families living far away from medical centers to access quickly for their newborns.

The team formed their company in 2008 and then took a few years to engineer and produce the solution, with Liang and Chen both moving to India for a few years to get it off the ground and market test it there. Chen said the incubators, made in India, underwent rigorous testing and are CE certified, a regulatory standard that a device must meet to be approved for use in the European market and in Asia and Africa.

“We chose that route instead of seeking FDA approval because the need really is outside of the US,” said Liang. The cost per incubator is about $500, including cost of the product, training, distribution, shipping, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, said Chen. That compares to as much as $30,000 or more per conventional incubators, she said.

Chen estimates some 15,000 babies benefited from Embrace incubators in 2022.

Dr. Leah Seaman has been using Embrace incubators for three years in Zambia. Seaman is a doctor working in pediatrics for the last 12 years, including six years focusing on neonatal care at the Kapiri Mposhi District Hospital in the Central Province of Zambia.

Seaman has also been busy setting up a new specialized neonatal ward in the rural district hospital. “When I first came to Zambia, we had one old incubator that would draw a lot of power,” she said. “We often struggle with power cuts here, so even the voltage can be too low for the incubator to function well. Having enough space to set up conventional incubator was an issue as well.”

So she reached out to Chen in late 2020 after researching solutions that would work for the specific conditions in Zambia.

Ambulance midwives after being trained in how to use the Embrace incubators at the Kapiri Mposhi District Hospital in Zambia in 2022.

“In Zambia, 13% of births are premature, and that’s not even including low-birth-weight babies born at term,” she said. “We needed an effective solution.”

Embrace Global donated 15 incubators to the hospital. The new neonatal ward, set to open this month, is built around the Embrace incubator stations with Kangaroo mother care, or skin to skin contact between mother and baby.

“Last year we had 800 babies through the ward and maybe half of them used the Embrace incubator,” said Seaman. “This year we’ve had over 800 already. We haven’t asked for any conventional incubators because from 1 kg (2.2 lbs) and above, the Embrace incubator does the work.”

Because of their heavy use, Seaman said the main challenge with the incubators is making sure that the heating pad is kept warm and reheated in a timely manner. “We’ve built a mattress station where we will be teaching the new mothers how to do that,” she said.

“Why do we keep babies warm? It’s not just a nice thing. It literally does save lives,” Seaman said.

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October 27, 2023

GM self-driving car subsidiary withheld video of a crash, California DMV says | CNN Business

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CNN
—

The California Department of Motor Vehicles Tuesday revoked Cruise’s permits to test and operate fully driverless vehicles on the state’s roads. The California DMV said, in part, it was because Cruise, which is GM’s self-driving vehicle technology subsidiary, withheld video and information about a crash involving a pedestrian.

The suspension applies only to vehicles with no “safety driver,” meaning there is no one in the driver’s seat ready to take over the controls if needed.

The agency also indicated that Cruise had “misrepresented… information related to safety of the autonomous technology of its vehicles.”

For those reasons, the California DMV wrote, it was necessary to revoke the company’s permits. The DMV notice did not specify exactly what incidents or communications from Cruise led to the suspensions.

About three weeks ago, a Cruise vehicle hit a pedestrian in downtown San Francisco who had first been hit by another vehicle then and was propelled by this collision into the path of the Cruise driverless car. After striking the pedestrian a second time, the Cruise vehicle, attempting to pull off the road and out of the way of traffic, dragged the pedestrian along the road for 20 feet at a speed at about seven miles an hour, according to the DMV’s report.

“Our thoughts continue to be with the victim as we hope for a rapid and complete recovery,” Cruise wrote in an emailed statement. A San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson said at the time that victim had multiple serious injuries.

Cruise claims that it proactively reached out both state and federal safety regulators following that incident. Regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the safety of Cruise autonomous vehicles around pedestrians.

The DMV alleges that Cruise did not tell regulators that the car dragged the pedestrian across the roadway while attempting to pull over following the impact. Also, the DMV’s order of suspensions indicates that the video Cruise provided of the incident, taken by the self-driving car’s on-board cameras, stopped shortly after the car hit the pedestrian and did not show the dragging. Cruise did not provide a longer video showing the entire incident until 10 days later, after DMV had learned of the pedestrian being dragged “from another government agency.”

A video of the incident shown to a CNN reporter shortly after it occurred also did not show the pedestrian being dragged.

In a statement shared with CNN on Wednesday, Cruise denied that it had withheld any video from the DMV and said that it shared a full video with the agency when the incident was first reported.

“The DMV has provided Cruise with the steps needed to apply to reinstate its suspended permits, which the DMV will not approve until the company has fulfilled the requirements to the department’s satisfaction,” the agency sad in the notice posted to its web site.

This summer, Cruise and Waymo, the driverless car arm of Google-parent Alphabet received permission from San Francisco regulators to begin regular paid driverless taxi services in that city.

Cruise will continue operations of its driverless fleets in Phoenix, Arizona and Austin, Texas.

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October 27, 2023

Britney Spears Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
—

Here is a look at the life of Britney Spears, pop singer and Grammy Award winner.

Birth date: December 2, 1981

Birth place: McComb, Mississippi

Birth name: Britney Jean Spears

Father: Jamie Spears, former building contractor and chef

Mother: Lynne (Bridges) Spears

Marriages: Sam Asghari (June 9, 2022 – present); Kevin Federline (September 18, 2004-July 30, 2007, divorced); Jason Alexander (January 3, 2004-January 5, 2004, annulled after 55 hours)

Children: with Kevin Federline: Jayden James, September 2006 and Sean Preston, September 2005

Number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart include: “Baby, One More Time” in 1999, “Womanizer” in 2008, “3” in 2009 (debut), and “Hold It Against Me” in 2011 (debut).

Six albums have reached #1 on the Billboard 200 chart: “Baby One More Time” (1999), “Oops!…. I Did It Again” (2000), “Britney” (2001), “In the Zone” (2003), “Circus” (2008), and “Femme Fatale” (2011).

Has won one Grammy and has been nominated for eight.

1993-1994 – Cast member on “The Mickey Mouse Club.”

1997 – Signs a contract with Jive Records at age 15.

January 12, 1999 – Releases her debut album “…Baby One More Time.”

May 16, 2000 – Releases her second album “Oops!…I Did It Again.”

2002 – Is named Hollywood’s Most Powerful Celebrity by Forbes magazine.

November 17, 2003 – Receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

February 13, 2005 – Wins a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording for “Toxic.”

February 16, 2007 – Shaves her head at a beauty parlor in Tarzana, California.

October 1, 2007 – Temporarily loses physical custody of her children after failing to attend court hearings.

January 3, 2008 – Spears is hospitalized over issues involving the custody of her children. Kevin Federline, her ex-husband, is awarded sole custody on January 4, 2008.

February 1, 2008 – A Los Angeles court grants temporary conservatorship to Spears’ father, Jamie Spears, after Spears is taken to a hospital and deemed unable to take care of herself.

July 18, 2008 – In a custody agreement, Spears gives Federline sole custody of the children, but retains visitation rights.

August 2008 – Becoming Britney, a musical based on her life, debuts at the New York International Fringe Festival.

October 28, 2008 – Jamie Spears is granted permanent conservatorship of his daughter’s affairs.

February 3, 2009 – Sam Lutfi, Spears’ former manager, sues Spears and her parents for defamation and breach of contract in Los Angeles Superior Court. A judge dismisses the lawsuit on November 1, 2012.

September 8, 2010 – Is accused of sexual harassment and sued by her former bodyguard, Fernando Flores. The lawsuit is settled in March 2012.

January 11, 2011 – Her single, “Hold It Against Me,” is released and debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

March 30, 2011 – A $10 million lawsuit is filed by Brand Sense Partners against Spears and her father for breach of contract relating to a perfume deal between Spears and the Elizabeth Arden company. The lawsuit is settled in February 2012.

May 15, 2012 – “The X Factor USA” announces that Spears, along with Demi Lovato, will join Simon Cowell and L.A. Reid on “The X Factor” judging panel. On January 11, 2013, Spears announces that she will not be returning as a judge.

September 17, 2013 – Spears announces that she will do a two-year residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas with a show titled “Britney: Piece of Me.” The show begins its run December 27.

September 2014 – Releases her own lingerie line, “Intimate Britney Spears.”

November 5, 2014 – Clark County, Nevada, proclaims November 5th as “Britney Day” on the Las Vegas Strip.

September 9, 2015 – Spears announces that she has extended her residency at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas for two more years.

August 26, 2016 – Spears’ ninth studio album, Glory, is released.

April 12, 2018 – Spears is honored at the GLAAD Media Awards as the recipient of the Vanguard Award, an award that goes to a performer for making a difference in promoting and supporting equality.

January 4, 2019 – Announces that she is going on an indefinite work hiatus in order to focus on her family due to her father’s health issues.

April 3, 2019 – Spears announces that she is taking “me time” after it is reported that she has checked into a mental health facility to cope with her father’s health issues. On April 25, Spears checks out of the mental health treatment facility after undertaking an “all-encompassing wellness treatment.”

June 13, 2019 – Spears and her family are granted a five-year restraining order against Lutfi.

April 29, 2020 – Spears announces that she accidentally burned down her home gym with candles.

November 10, 2020 – Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny declines Spears’ application to remove her father as her conservator, but says she would consider petitions “down the road” to remove her father as the head of her estate. The move comes amid the #FreeBritney social media movement, driven by some fans who believe she is a prisoner in her own home because of the court-ordered conservatorship.

June 23, 2021 – Spears appears remotely in court to request her court-ordered conservatorship be lifted, calling it “abusive.” During the hearing, she speaks for more than 20 minutes, saying she felt she had been forced to perform, was given no privacy and was made to use birth control, take medication and attend therapy sessions against her will.

July 6, 2021 – Spears’ longtime manager Larry Rudolph resigns, citing the singer’s desire to retire. On the same day, Samuel D. Ingham, a court-appointed attorney who has represented Spears for the entirety of her almost 13-year conservatorship, submits a petition to resign from his position, according to a court filing obtained by CNN.

July 14, 2021 – Judge Penny accepts Ingham’s resignation, along with the resignation of Bessemer Trust, a wealth management firm that had been appointed co-conservator of the singer’s estate. Spears is granted permission to hire her own attorney. During a hearing, Spears calls for her father to be charged with conservatorship abuse.

August 12, 2021 – Jamie Spears signals in a legal response that he intends to step down as conservator of the singer’s estate, according to a prepared copy of the response obtained by CNN.

September 1, 2021 – The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office says in a press release they decline to file charges against Spears. Last month Spears’ housekeeper alleged that the singer struck a cell phone out of her hand during an argument over the veterinary care of her dog.

September 7, 2021 – Spears’ father files a petition to terminate the 13-year court-ordered conservatorship. On September 29, a Los Angeles judge suspends Jamie Spears as conservator of his daughter’s estate, and designates a temporary replacement selected by the singer and her attorney to oversee her finances. On November 12, a Los Angeles judge terminates Spears’ 13-year conservatorship.

September 12, 2021 – Spears announces her engagement to boyfriend Sam Asghari in an Instagram post.

January 18, 2022 – Spears’ lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, sends a legal cease-and-desist letter to the singer’s younger sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, regarding her new memoir, “Things I Should Have Said.” In Rosengart’s letter, he calls the book “ill-timed” and that it makes “misleading or outrageous claims about her.”

January 19, 2022 – Judge Penny rules against a request from Spears’ father to set aside money from her $60 million estate in a reserve to potentially cover legal fees, which would include her father’s.

February 21, 2022 – It is revealed that Spears has signed a contract with Simon & Schuster to write a book about her life. The deal is valued at more than $15 million.

April 11, 2022 – Spears announces that she and Asghari are expecting a baby. The following month, the pair announce the loss of the pregnancy.

August 26, 2022 – Spears and Elton John release “Hold Me Closer,” an EDM reimagining of John’s 1971 hit “Tiny Dancer.” The song marks Spears’ first new release since her 13-year conservatorship ended.

August 16, 2023 – Asghari files for divorce.

October 24, 2023 – Spears’ memoir, “The Woman In Me,” is released.

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October 26, 2023

David Petraeus Fast Facts | CNN

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Here is a look at the life of David Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Birth date: November 7, 1952

Birth place: Cornwall, New York

Birth name: David Howell Petraeus

Father: Sixtus Petraeus, Danish-born sea captain

Mother: Miriam (Howell) Petraeus

Marriage: Hollister “Holly” Knowlton (July 6, 1974-present)

Children: Anne and Stephen

Education: US Military Academy – West Point, B.S., 1974; Princeton University, M.P.A., International Relations, 1985; Princeton University, Ph.D., International Relations, 1987

Military: US Army, 1974-2011, four-star general

Growing up in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, friends nicknamed Petraeus “Peaches.”

1974 – Is commissioned as an infantry officer in the US Army upon graduation from West Point.

1975-1979 – Platoon leader, adjutant, 1st Battalion, 509th Airborne Battalion Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy.

1979-1982 – Commander, then aide de camp, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

1985-1987 – Instructor, then Assistant Professor of Social Sciences, US Military Academy at West Point.

1987-1988 – Military Assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO, Brussels, Belgium.

1989 – Serves as aide to the Army’s chief of staff.

1991 – Is shot in the chest during a training exercise at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

1991-1993 – Commander, 3rd Battalion of the 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

1995-1997 – Commander, 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division.

2000 – Breaks his pelvis during a parachute jump.

2000-2001 – Chief of staff, XVIII Airborne Corps., US Army, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

2000 – Is promoted to brigadier (one star) general.

2001-2002 – Serves in Bosnia as the assistant chief of staff for military operations of the NATO Stabilization Force.

2002-2004 – Commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division US Army, Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

March 2003 – Leads troops into battle as commander of the 101st Airborne Division during the US-led invasion of Iraq.

June 2004-September 2005 – Commander of the Multinational Security Transition Command in Iraq.

October 2005-2007 – Commanding general of the Combined Arms Center, US Army, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

February 2007-September 2008 – Commander of all coalition forces in Iraq.

October 31, 2008-July 4, 2010 – Commander in Chief of Central Command.

October 6, 2009 – Announces that he was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and underwent two months of radiation treatment.

June 15, 2010 – Becomes “a little lightheaded” and faints while testifying at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

July 4, 2010-July 18, 2011 – Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

April 28, 2011 – Nominated by President Barack Obama to replace Leon Panetta as CIA director.

June 30, 2011 – Unanimously confirmed by the US Senate as the next director of the CIA.

July 18, 2011 – Petraeus turns over command of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan to Gen. John R. Allen.

August 31, 2011 – Retires from the Army.

September 6, 2011 – Petraeus is sworn in as the new director of the CIA.

November 9, 2012 – Petraeus submits his resignation to President Obama, citing personal reasons and admits he had an extramarital affair.

March 27, 2013 – Publicly apologizes for his extramarital affair during a speech at the University of Southern California.

May 30, 2013 – It is announced that Petraeus has joined private equity firm KKR as the chairman of a new global institute.

July 1, 2013 – Joins the University of Southern California faculty as a Judge Widney Professor, “a title reserved for eminent individuals from the arts, sciences, professions, business, and community and national leadership.”

January 9, 2015 – A federal law enforcement official tells CNN that Justice Department prosecutors are recommending charges be filed against Petraeus for disclosure of classified information to his former lover Paula Broadwell who was working on a book with Petraeus at the time.

March 3, 2015 – Pleads guilty to one federal charge of removing and retaining classified information as part of a plea deal. According to court documents, Petraeus admitted removing several so-called black books – notebooks in which he kept classified and non-classified information from his tenure as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan – and giving them to Broadwell.

March 16, 2015 – White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirms that the National Security Council and the Obama administration have consulted with Petraeus on matters related to Iraq and ISIS.

April 23, 2015 – Petraeus is sentenced to serve two years probation and fined $100,000 for sharing classified information with his biographer and lover, Broadwell. Prosecutors agree to not send him to jail because the classified information was never released to the public or published in the biography.

September 22, 2015 – Petraeus speaks before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the US’s Middle East policy. He begins this, his first public hearing since his resignation, with a formal apology for the indiscretions that led to his resignation.

June 10, 2016 – Along with retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, announces that they are launching Veterans Coalition for Common Sense to encourage elected leaders to “do more to prevent gun tragedies.”

June 12, 2019 – The University of Birmingham announces that Petraeus has accepted an honorary professorship in the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security. The three-year position begins immediately.

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October 26, 2023

Here’s what we know about the suspect in the Maine mass shooting | CNN

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CNN
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The suspect in the Maine mass shooting started making statements about hearing voices and wanting to hurt fellow soldiers while serving at a military base this summer, and spent a few weeks in a hospital, law enforcement officials told CNN.

But a relative of the suspect and two former colleagues in the Army Reserve told CNN they weren’t aware of him having any longstanding history of mental health issues – although one former colleague remembered him as a skilled marksman and outdoorsman who was among the best shooters in his unit.

Robert R. Card II, who police are searching for in connection with the fatal shooting of at least 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, made his troubling statements while he was at the Camp Smith training facility in New York, the law enforcement officials said. His command referred him to a military hospital, and he spent a few weeks under evaluation, they said.

In July, Army Reserve officials reported Card for “behaving erratically,” and he was transported to the nearby Keller Army Community Hospital at the United States Military Academy for “medical evaluation,” a National Guard spokesman told CNN.

“Out of concern for his safety, the unit requested that law enforcement be contacted,” said the spokesperson, Col. Richard Goldenberg. New York State Police responded and transported Card to the hospital, he said.

Card then spent a few weeks under evaluation at the hospital, the law enforcement officials said.

The 40-year-old Card also threatened to shoot up a National Guard base in Maine, law enforcement officials previously told CNN.

Card’s sister-in-law, Katie O’Neill, said in a brief conversation with CNN Thursday that Card does not have a long history of mental health struggles.

“This is something that was an acute episode. This is not who he is,” O’Neill said. “He is not someone who has had mental health issues for his lifetime or anything like that.”

Except for an arrest in 2007 for an alleged driving under the influence charge, the suspect is not known to ATF or in FBI holdings, according to law enforcement sources. He legally possesses multiple weapons and owns a home on hundreds of acres of land in Maine, the sources said.

Card is a petroleum supply specialist in the Army Reserve and first enlisted in 2002, according to records provided by the Army on Thursday. He has no combat deployments, according to the records. 

Clifford Steeves of Massachusetts told CNN he knew Card when they served in the Army Reserve together, starting in the early 2000s until about a decade ago. He said he never witnessed any concerning behavior from Card.

“He was a very nice guy – very quiet. He never overused his authority or was mean or rude to other soldiers,” Steeves said. “It’s really upsetting.”

Steeves said the two served together around the country at different points, including in Wisconsin, Georgia and New York. He said he felt as though he “grew up” with Card because they entered the Army as young men and trained together. 

Steeves said that while “aggressive leadership was very prominent” in the Army, Card stuck out for being a “rational, understanding person” who “led through respect rather than fear.”

 Steeves said Card never saw combat but had extensive training, including firearms training and land navigation, “so he would be very comfortable in the woods.” He described Card as an “outdoors type of guy” and a skilled marksman who was one of the best shooters in his unit.

Another former Army Reserve member who served with Card also described him as a “nice guy” who “never had an issue with anybody.” The servicemember, who asked to speak anonymously due to the sensitivity of the situation, did not recall Card showing any kind of violent behavior.

Card studied engineering technology at the University of Maine between 2001 and 2004 but did not graduate, Eric Gordon, a university spokesperson, told CNN. 

Public records show addresses for Card in Bowdoin, Maine, a town near Lewiston. Card appears to have been a member of a local horseshoe-throwing club in the nearby town of Lisbon, Maine, according to a local news story and a Facebook photo that showed him wearing a t-shirt with the club’s logo.  

An account on the social media platform X with Card’s name and a photo that appears to be him, which has been taken offline, had a history of liking right-wing and Republican political content. 

When WNBA player Brittney Griner was released from Russian detention after a prisoner exchange for a convicted arms dealer, the account posted what appeared to be its only tweet. Responding to a CNBC story about the topic, the account wrote: “Mass murderer for a wnba player great job keep up the good work,” in an apparent jab at President Joe Biden.

The account liked a tweet earlier this year from right-wing author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza arguing against an assault weapons ban, as well as other tweets from political figures like Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson.  

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October 26, 2023

Jonathan Majors’ accuser arrested in New York, won’t be prosecuted | CNN

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CNN
—

The woman who accused actor Jonathan Majors of assaulting her during a dispute in March was arrested Wednesday night on suspicion of assault and criminal mischief related to the same incident, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

Grace Jabbari, Majors’ former girlfriend, voluntarily surrendered to police in New York City and was given a desk appearance ticket to appear in court at a later date, the source said. The charges are both misdemeanors.

Jabbari and her attorney have not publicly commented on the case, which will not be prosecuted. CNN has been unable to reach Jabbari.

“The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has officially declined to prosecute the case against Grace Jabbari because it lacks prosecutorial merit. The matter is now closed and sealed,” Doug Cohen, a spokesman for the Manhattan DA, told CNN in a statement on Thursday.

In a Sept. 21 court filing in the case against Majors, the DA’s office said it did not plan to prosecute Jabbari.

Majors is charged with assault and aggravated harassment related to the dispute with Jabbari on March 25. Through his attorney, Majors has denied the allegations against him, which, according to the complaint, include striking her “about the face with an open hand, causing substantial pain and a laceration behind her ear.”

Majors filed a counter-complaint against Jabbari in June, claiming he was assaulted by her in the same March dispute, according to court filings obtained by CNN.

A New York judge on Wednesday denied a motion to dismiss the case against Majors.

His trial is set to start on Nov. 29.

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October 26, 2023

The New York Times walks back flawed Gaza hospital coverage, but other media outlets remain silent | CNN Business

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Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

CNN
—

Most news organizations seem eager to sweep last week’s negligent coverage of the Gaza hospital explosion under the rug, moving on from the low moment covering the Israel-Hamas war without admitting any mistakes.

While The New York Times and BBC — both of which faced enormous scrutiny for their coverage of the blast — have in recent days issued mea culpas, the rest of the press has remained mum, declining to explain to their audiences how they initially got an important story of such great magnitude so wrong.

On Monday, I contacted the major news organizations that amplified Hamas’ claims, which immediately assigned blame to Israel for the blast that it said had left hundreds dead. Those organizations included CNN, the Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and The Wall Street Journal.

Did these outlets stand by their initial reporting? Was there any regret repeating claims from the terrorist group? Since the explosion, one week ago Tuesday, Israel and the U.S. have assessed that the rocket originated in Gaza, not Israel. Additional analysis from independent forensic experts, including those contacted by CNN, have indicated that the available evidence from the blast was inconsistent with the damage one would expect to see from an Israeli strike.

But if there was even a morsel of contrition from news organizations that breathed considerable life into Hamas’ very different version of events, it hasn’t been shown. A spokesperson for The WSJ declined comment. Meanwhile, spokespeople for the AP and Al Jazeera ignored my inquiries.

Reuters, which initially reported that Israel had struck the hospital, citing a “civil defense official,” stood by how it covered the unfolding story, conceding no blunders in the process. A spokesperson told me that “it is standard practice for Reuters to publish statements and claims made by sources about news in the public interest, while simultaneously working to verify and seek information from every side.”

“We make it clear to our readers that these are ‘claims’ made by a source, rather than facts reported by Reuters,” the spokesperson for the wire service told me. “In the specific instance of the fast-breaking news about the attack on the hospital in Gaza, we added precise details and attribution to our stories as quickly as we could.”

CNN went even further. Not only did the outlet amplify Hamas’ claims on its platforms at the outset of the story, but its initial rolling online article definitively stated — with no attribution to any party — that Israel was responsible for the lethal explosion. The story was later edited, but the error was never acknowledged in a correction or editors’ note. While it is common for news outlets to update online stories as new information becomes available, when errors are made, standard practice is to acknowledge them in formal corrections. A CNN spokesperson declined to comment specifically on the online story when reached Monday.

In response to my larger inquiry on the network’s broader coverage, the CNN spokesperson pointed me to the forensic analysis it published over the weekend indicating the explosion was inconsistent with an Israeli strike. Like Reuters, CNN admitted no fault in its coverage of the blast.

Which makes what the BBC and The Times have done in recent days stand out. While the rest of the press has sought to move on from the journalistic fiasco, the British broadcaster and Gray Lady have charted a different course.

The BBC said in a statement posted online last week, “We accept that even in this fast-moving situation it was wrong to speculate in this way about the possible causes and we apologise for this, although he did not at any point report that it was an Israeli strike.”

And The Times published a lengthy editors’ note on Monday, confessing its early coverage “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified.”

“The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was,” The Times added.

Bill Grueskin, a renowned professor at Columbia Journalism School, told me Monday that he believes that each outlet that gave credence to Hamas’ version of events should put out similar notes explaining to their audiences precisely how things went awry behind the scenes. (I should note that Grueskin didn’t believe that The Times’ note went far enough, questioning, among other things, why it took almost a week to issue its mea culpa.)

“The notes should be signed; they should provide a more detailed understanding of how their newsroom managed to not just get it wrong at the first moment but why it took so long to scale back; and they should be more explicit about what they got wrong since most readers can’t be expected to recall all the details,” Grueskin said.

Indeed, one of the crucial differences between newsrooms and less reputable, unreliable sources of information is that newsrooms issue corrections and accept fault when it occurs. When news organizations err, it is expected that they own up to their mistakes.

Grueskin pointed out, however, that “newsrooms often find it easier to correct a misspelled middle name than a collapse in verification standards on a major, breaking-news story.”

“It’s easier to address a simple, common mistake than one that goes to the heart of how a news organization is built to handle breaking news in a contested environment,” Grueskin added.

That might be true. But it doesn’t mean that it should be acceptable.

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October 26, 2023

This middle-schooler ‘knew how to be a best friend to everybody.’ Then gunfire erupted while she was out to buy milk | CNN

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Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series profiling American youth killed this year by guns, a leading cause of death of children in the US. Read more about the project here.

CNN
—

It’s been almost nine months since Brexi Torres-Ortiz and her mom sang together – hitting every note, feeling every emotion with every word of a gospel tune that happened to be the 11-year-old’s favorite song.

Take me to the King. I don’t have much to bring.

My heart is torn in pieces; it’s my offering.

Take me to the King.

“You will cry just listening to her sing it,” said Brexi’s mom, Brenlee “Bre” Ortiz. “It’s like, she was so young, how did she know what this song was saying?”

Back then, even Ortiz didn’t realize the depth of those lyrics, she said.

Sometimes she wishes she still didn’t.

The hymn’s power, though, has become clear, Ortiz said, since Brexi – short for Brexialee – was fatally shot while grabbing a gallon of milk from a corner store in Syracuse, New York – one of more than 1,300 youth killed by a gun this year in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive, as firearms surpassed motor vehicles in 2020 as the nation’s No. 1 killer of children and teens.

January 16 was supposed to have been a cozy night at home for Brexi, with a movie on the projector and blankets covering the floor after her favorite dinner of macaroni and cheese made from scratch by her grandmother. Brexi’s two sisters and their mom, after she got home from work, would have been with them.

Instead, Brexi spent her last hours in a hospital bed on life support while Ortiz tried to make sense of how her middle daughter – while she was out to buy milk for the meal – got caught in what police described as a storm of bullets no more than 40 feet from her home.

Three suspects – then ages 16, 18 and 20 – were arrested within 10 days of the shooting, an Onondaga County senior assistant district attorney told CNN, and indicted by a grand jury on second-degree murder and other charges, a court record shows. Two have pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and the third is due to go to trial early next year, according to prosecutor Anthony Mangovski and court filings.

4 things you can do today about the US gun violence epidemic

As the justice system’s response to Brexi’s killing unfolds, Ortiz attends every hearing.

But still, she struggles.

Every day.

And every hopeless night.

“As soon as I open my eyes, it’s her on my mind,” Ortiz said. “And as soon as I’m finally able to close my eyes, I don’t fall asleep but my body turns off and she’s in my mind and I can see her in my dreams.

“But they’re not dreams; they’re nightmares.”

She was everybody’s ‘best friend’

The warmth of her smile, the way she made you feel after a hug and her ability to empathize with both her peers and adults are on the never-ending list of what made Brexi special, Ortiz said.

“You never get to know a person, even if it’s your own kid, until stuff like this happens,” she said. “I didn’t want to find out like this.”

At Brexi’s funeral, Ortiz received condolences from so many children, she said. “She was my best friend,” her mom heard more times than she could count.

Brexi's image, stuffed animals and other decorations adorn her grave.

Brexi “knew how to be a best friend to everybody and give each one of them what they needed,” Ortiz said. “She will be a way with you that she wouldn’t be with me because we don’t have the same needs.”

The middle schooler also was student council president of her sixth-grade class, a “shining star” on the after-school dance team and “always encouraged others to make the right choice,” educators from her school said.

Brexi’s death stole all that – while it also drove home her generation’s gun-violence reality, said her school’s psychologist, who discovered a broader horror as she went classroom-to-classroom to help the kids confront the killing.

Brenlee Ortiz, left, prepares ice cream for students at her late daughter's school on

“It was that every single child already knew what to do,” Kayla Gallagher said. “They had T-shirts, lanyards, hats, all sorts of clothing with her name and image. They created a shrine at her locker. They went to the vigils.”

More about Brexialee Torres-Ortiz

82-year-old Korean man has heart attack after choking on ‘live octopus’ dish | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
—

An 82-year-old man in South Korea had a heart attack after choking on a piece of “live octopus,” or san-nakji, a local delicacy comprised of freshly severed – and still wriggling – tentacles.

Fire station authorities in Gwangju, a city near the country’s southern tip, received a report on Monday morning that a piece of san-nakji had become stuck in a man’s throat, according to a fire station official.

When first responders arrived on site, the man had a cardiac arrest, and they conducted CPR, the official said.

The official did not say whether the man survived.

San-nakji refers to a small octopus that is sliced and served raw, often eaten in South Korea’s coastal areas or seafood markets.

Though the dish’s name translates to “live octopus,” this is slightly misleading – the octopus is killed before serving, with its tentacles cut into portions.

However, it is served immediately after slicing, and is so fresh that the tentacles’ nerves are still active – causing the octopus to appear “live” as it continues moving on the plate.

San-nakji is often served with sesame oil, sesame seeds, and sometimes ginger, and has a chewy texture.

It made an appearance on a 2015 episode of Anthony Bourdain’s CNN series “Parts Unknown,” when the famed chef and television host traveled to South Korea to sample everything from soju to Korean fried chicken – and san-nakji, with Bourdain using his chopsticks to peel a sticky tentacle off the plate.

The dish has also previously made headlines, with local media reporting multiple cases over the years of diners dying after choking or asphyxiating on “live octopus.”

In perhaps the best-known case, dubbed the “octopus murder,” a South Korean man was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012 for allegedly killing his girlfriend and claiming it was a san-nakji accident – before he was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2013 for insufficient evidence.

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October 24, 2023

California man sentenced to 1-year in federal prison for cyberstalking, harassing parent of Parkland school shooting victim | CNN

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CNN
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A California man who sent hundreds of harrowing messages to an activist against gun violence whose daughter was killed in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting has been sentenced to 1 year in federal prison, according to prosecutors and court documents.

James Catalano, 62, of Fresno, California, pled guilty to cyberstalking on March 28, according to the court documents. CNN has reached out to his attorney.

In December 2021, a parent of one of the students killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “began receiving a slew of harassing messages” with references to “his daughter, the manner of her death, her pain and suffering as she was murdered and his advocacy against gun violence.” The parent is identified only with the initials “F.G.” in court documents.

According to a complaint, on June 21, 2022, “F.G.” tweeted, “Three weeks after the Parkland shooting, & on the day that gun safety legislation was passed in Florida, I stood with @marcorubio & asked him to support what was about to happen in Florida. He refused. He was a waste then and he is a waste now. Florida will elect @valdemings.”

CNN has found that the tweet and others mentioned in the complaint were sent by Fred Guttenberg – who has dedicated his life to “fighting for gun safety in America” after his 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was among the 17 people killed at Parkland, his Twitter profile reads.

Catalano replied to Guttenberg’s tweets and continued to send harassing messages through July 2022 via multiple online platforms. Catalano sent “hundreds of disparaging messages, which graphically described the victim’s daughter’s death, and focused on the debate surrounding gun control and the victim’s activism against gun violence,” according to a news release Monday from the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida.

Federal authorities were informed of the messages and traced two IP addresses to Catalano’s workplace and home in Fresno, according to court documents.

On July 20, 2022, Catalano met with law enforcement after waiving his Miranda rights, according to a complaint. He admitted to sending the messages.

Guttenberg tweeted following the sentencing Friday, saying it “sends a message to those who cyberstalk the families of shooting victims that they will be caught and punished.”

CNN has reached out to Guttenberg for comment.

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October 24, 2023

What we know about the off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot accused of trying to shut off a plane’s engines mid-flight | CNN

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CNN
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An off-duty pilot who was riding in the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines flight en route to San Francisco on Sunday is facing dozens of attempted murder charges after he tried to shut down the plane’s engines mid-flight, authorities say.

The suspect, identified as Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph D. Emerson, 44, attempted to cut off fuel to the engines but the quick action of the aircraft’s captain and first officer kept the engines from failing completely, the airline said, adding Emerson was subdued by the flight crew.

The flight was forced to divert to Portland, Oregon, where the suspect was taken into custody by the Port of Portland police, the port said in a statement.

Emerson has been charged in Oregon with 83 felony counts of attempted murder, 83 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of endangering an aircraft, booking records show.

Authorities do not believe the incident was an act of terrorism or ideologically motivated violence, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN’s Josh Campbell. The source noted the suspect may face additional federal charges.

Here’s what we know.

After taking off from Everett, Washington, on Sunday, Alaska Airlines Flight 2059 – operated by regional carrier Horizon Air – reported a “security threat related to an off-duty Alaskan Airlines pilot, identified as Captain Joseph Emerson, who was traveling in the flight deck jump seat,” the airline said in a statement.

Pilots will sometimes ride in a cockpit “jump seat” when traveling in their official capacity or commuting between airports.

While in the cockpit, Emerson had tried to shut down both of the Embraer 175’s engines by pulling its fire extinguisher handles, the airline said.

“The fire suppression system consists of a T-handle for each engine; when pulled, a valve in the wing closes to shut off fuel to the engine,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement to CNN. “After they are pulled, some residual fuel remains in the line.”

The airline said the quick reaction of the crew to reset both handles helped restore the flow of fuel and prevent the engines from cutting out.

“Our crew responded without hesitation to a difficult and highly unusual situation, and we are incredibly proud and grateful for their skillful actions,” the airline said in a statement.

The plane was at cruise altitude when the incident occurred, Capt. Mike Karn, senior manager of flight security for American Airlines, said in a memo circulated at his airline.

The flight crew detained the suspect and the plane was diverted to Portland International Airport, the Port of Portland said in a statement.

“I think he’s subdued,” one of the plane’s pilots can be heard saying in air traffic control audio recorded by LiveATC.net. “Other than that, we want law enforcement as soon as we get on the ground and are parked.”

Once the flight landed in Portland around 6:30 p.m., the suspect was taken into custody by Port of Portland police officers, the port said.

No injuries were reported on the flight, the FBI said.

All passengers were later able to fly to San Francisco with a new crew and aircraft, the airline said, noting it is “reaching out to each of them individually to discuss their experience and check-in on their well-being.”

Emerson has been detained at the Multnomah County Detention Center as both the FBI and the Port of Portland police investigate the incident, authorities said.

The FBI’s Portland field office confirmed its investigation in a statement Monday and assured travelers there is “no continuing threat related to this incident.”

The Federal Aviation Administration also said it is supporting local law enforcement in the investigation.

The FAA said it has briefed other airlines on preliminary details of the incident and informed carriers the incident is not related to “current world events” – apparently referring to the war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas.

Passengers describe their emergency landing

Two passengers on the flight told CNN that the airline crew maintained a calm environment on the plane as the incident played out.

Aubrey Gavello, one of the passengers, said she didn’t realize something was wrong until a flight attendant announced over the loudspeaker that the plane needed to land immediately.

“We didn’t know where we were landing and we didn’t know what was wrong. But (the flight attendant) assured us we were safe,” Gavello said on “Laura Coates Live” Monday night.

Later, the pilot informed passengers through the loudspeaker that there had been a “disturbance in the cockpit,” said Alex Wood, who was seated at the front of the plane. Wood said he was wearing headphones and slept through the incident.

“I was right by the cockpit, but nothing woke me up. Nothing was loud enough, nothing was rambunctious enough to wake me up,” Wood said.

After the plane landed, about five police officers boarded the plane and escorted the suspect off the aircraft, Gavello recalled. She noted the suspect was calm and cooperative and had his hands secured by zip ties.

“Props to the Alaska crew for keeping everyone calm,” Gavello said.

“It was all handled super well,” said Wood.

The pair said they didn’t realize the gravity of the situation Monday, when they woke to news headlines about the suspect trying to shut down the plane engines.

“I’m honestly grateful that we didn’t know anything when they rebooked us and got us on a second plane,” Gavello said. “I don’t know if I would have felt comfortable doing that if we had all the information.”

Emerson’s neighbor, Ed Yee, told CNN it was “very shocking” to hear of the suspect’s alleged actions.

“He seems like a really nice guy. Nothing abnormal about him,” Yee said.

Emerson has worked in aviation for at least two decades, according to information shared by Alaskan Airlines.

He first joined the Alaska Air Group in 2001 as a first officer with Horizon. In 2012, Emerson left Horizon and joined Virgin America as a pilot.

After Alaska Airlines acquired Virgin America in 2016, Emerson became a first officer with Alaska and worked about three more years to become a pilot for the airline, according to the airline statement.

“Throughout his career, Emerson completed his mandated FAA medical certifications in accordance with regulatory requirements, and at no point were his certifications denied, suspended or revoked,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement.

FAA records show Emerson held an Airline Transport Pilot certification with ratings to fly the Airbus A320, Boeing 737, Canadair Regional Jet, and De Havilland Dash 8. He did not hold a certification to fly the ERJ 175, those records indicate, the type of airplane in use during Sunday’s incident.

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October 23, 2023

7 people killed after more than 150 vehicles crashed along Louisiana’s I-55 amid dense fog, officials say | CNN

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CNN
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At least seven people were killed Monday in a slew of crashes along Interstate 55 in Louisiana’s St. John the Baptist Parish that involved at least 158 vehicles, state police say.

More than 25 people were taken to hospitals with injuries ranging from minor to critical, Louisiana State Police said in an evening news release. And many victims sought medical help on their own, authorities said.

Meteorologists earlier said “super fog” had heavily impacted the area, just west of New Orleans, around the time of the pileups. Super fog is a thick fog that develops in damp, smoky conditions and can send visibilities plummeting to less than 10 feet, according to the National Weather Service.

Some of the vehicles caught on fire after the initial crash, authorities said. One of the vehicles involved in the wrecks was a tanker truck carrying “hazardous liquid,” police said without elaborating on the substance.

Police were working Monday evening to move the truck due to a “compromised tank/trailer.”

“Once the tanker is removed, first responders will be able to better assess the vehicles in that immediate area. It is possible that additional fatalities could be located,” state police added.

Authorities have asked the public to reach out if they have a missing family member who was traveling through the area Monday morning.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said he was praying for those killed and wounded in the crashes.

“The combination of wildfire smoke and dense fog is dangerous, and I want to encourage all Louisianans in affected areas to take extreme caution while traveling,” Edwards said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“I also want to thank the first responders and medical personnel who have worked so diligently to save lives and render aid,” the governor added. “The best way you can help them, besides exercising caution on the road, is to donate blood at your local blood donation center. It will help replenish supplies that are being drained today to care for the wounded.”

Earlier, St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff Mike Tregre told CNN affiliate WVUE about three 18-wheel trucks collided in the northbound lanes and were fully engulfed in flames. In the southbound lanes, there were two reported multi-car pileups, one of which was also producing flames.

According to Tregre, all first responders had to be on foot because the crashes left the area “completely gridlocked.”

“The situation is pretty bad,” he added.

First responders had to navigate the area on foot because the dozens of wreckes left the area gridlocked, officials said.

Visibility levels were below a quarter mile at a nearby weather station from just after 4 a.m. CDT until just before 10 a.m. CDT. Visibility likely neared zero at times throughout the morning when the fog was at its densest.

The incredibly dense fog, known as “super fog,” was caused by fog combining with smoke from nearby fires.

Louisiana has battled unprecedented wildfires, extreme heat and relentless drought since the summer. Exceptional drought, the highest category tracked by the US Drought Monitor, is in place across 62% of the state.

In a statement Monday, the city of New Orleans said it is monitoring an active fire burning underground in forested wetlands between Bayou Sauvage National Urban Wildlife Refuge and the Michoud Canal.

The lack of rain combined with the summer’s extreme heat dried out wetlands and reduced the water table’s depth, the city said. The blaze being monitored has been burning at and below surface level, it added.

A repeat of Monday’s super fog is unlikely for Tuesday morning as “winds should be much stronger,” the National Weather Service in New Orleans said Monday on X, previously known as Twitter. Winds need to be calm or very light in order for dense fog to form.

Patchy areas of dense fog may be possible but will not be as widespread as Monday, the city said, citing the weather service.

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October 23, 2023

Reports: Trump told Mar-a-Lago member about calls with foreign leaders | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
—

Mar-a-Lago member and Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt said then-President Donald Trump told him about his private calls with the leaders of Ukraine and Iraq, according to reports published Sunday about private recordings of Pratt, a key prosecution witness in Trump’s classified documents case.

The reports from The New York Times and “60 Minutes Australia” revealed previously unknown recordings of Pratt candidly recalling his conversations with Trump – and build on existing allegations that Trump overshared sensitive government material.

In the tapes, Pratt says Trump shared insider details about his phone calls with world leaders during his presidency. Pratt also offers searing critiques of Trump’s personal ethics.

CNN previously reported that Pratt gave an interview to special counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump with mishandling national security materials by hoarding dozens of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. (Trump pleaded not guilty.) Pratt is also on Smith’s witness list for the trial, which is scheduled for May.

Concerns about Trump’s freewheeling approach to state secrets are at the center of that case. Past reports from ABC News said Trump discussed potentially sensitive information with Pratt about US nuclear submarines. The new reports Sunday expand what is known about Pratt’s recounting of their conversations to include foreign policy matters.

“It hadn’t even been on the news yet, and he said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today,’” Pratt said in one recording that was made public Sunday, recalling a conversation with Trump.

Pratt then recalled Trump’s description of his December 2019 call with Iraqi President Barham Salih. According to Pratt, Trump said, “The president of Iraq called me up and said, ‘You just leveled my city. … I said to him, ‘OK, what are you going to do about it?’”

The recordings also indicate that Trump spoke with Pratt about his now-infamous September 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump pressured Zelensky to help him win the 2020 election by publicly launching unfounded corruption probes into Joe Biden. That phone call formed the basis of Trump’s first impeachment.

“That was nothing compared to what I usually do,” Trump told Pratt about the Zelensky call, according to the tape. “That’s nothing compared to what we usually talk about.”

In statements to The New York Times, Trump pointed out that Pratt is “from a friendly country in Australia, one of our great allies,” though he didn’t deny the conversations described in the tapes. A Trump spokesperson said the tapes “lack proper context.”

CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign and Pratt’s company, Visy, for comment.

These latest disclosures could be used by Smith’s prosecutors as evidence that Trump had a pattern of sharing sensitive government information with unauthorized people, including political donors and well-connected businessmen in his orbit. It’s unclear whether prosecutors already had possession of the tapes that were made public on Sunday.

The new recordings also shed light on Pratt’s candid, private thoughts about Trump’s behavior. It’s unclear who Pratt was speaking to, but Pratt said in one tape that Trump “says outrageous things nonstop,” and compared his business practices to “the mafia.”

“He knows exactly what to say — and what not to say — so that he avoids jail. But gets so close to it that it looks to everyone like he’s breaking the law,” Pratt said in one tape.

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October 23, 2023

Holocaust survivor visiting Israel safely escapes as war breaks out | CNN

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Los Angeles
CNN
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“It went from wonderful to horrible in an instant,” Charlotte Hauptman said of that fateful Saturday morning. “Not only did we hear the bombs, but we also found out there was an invasion of Hamas coming into the country. And we didn’t know where or what or who they were.”

Her instinct was to run. She’s an elfin 84-year-old with bright, engaging eyes. She wears her hair tied back and speaks with a similar no-nonsense style. “In those hours, it was just constant panic,” she told CNN after leaving Jerusalem and landing safely back home in Southern California. “I’m not afraid of death, but of what can come before.”

Hauptman is a Holocaust survivor. So, this was the second time she’d fled a group targeting Jews. She fled Hamas in Israel in 2023 by plane as an old lady. She fled the Nazis in Italy in 1944 on foot as a small child.

“It definitely shapes one’s essence,” she says of the Holocaust. “You’re familiar with the possibility of horror.” Hauptman still remembers the final fearful moments of her escape.

“Two Nazi officers were walking towards us,” she recalls. The family was just a few miles from safety, from the chunk of Italy occupied by the Allies. “They said, ‘Heil Hitler!’ and we raised our hands. They kept walking, and we kept walking. Just a few feet past, there was a Madonna. We dropped to the ground and prayed in case they would turn around and take a look.”

The Holocaust was the largest loss of Jewish life in their long history of persecution and pogroms. October 7, 2023, is now the deadliest day for Jews since then.

“Let’s get any airline that goes anywhere!” was the conversation Hauptman had with her own daughter that morning. “And when we got on that plane it already felt like, ‘All right let’s go!’ And then they started selling seats, upgrades! And we thought, ‘Just go, just go!’”

Charlotte Hauptman was in Israel this fall on a side-trip. The main event of her travels was a wedding in Italy. The bride, Myriam Lanternari, is the great-granddaughter of an Italian couple, Virgilio and Daria Virgili, who Hauptman credits with saving her life and the lives of her parents more than 80 years ago, sheltering them from the Nazis in a little village called Secchiano.

“He took us into his home. They gave us food. They gave us shelter,” Hauptman said. “I knew not to talk to any German. And they came in the village.” The Nazis had a garrison nearby.

“I remember leaflets being dropped from airplanes, German airplanes, warning the people if you help Jews or Partisans that’s the end of you,” Hauptman said. “No one ever outed us. They stayed protecting us.”

The villagers concocted a story just in case any Germans started asking questions, Hauptman recalls. Her parents, Wolf and Esther, would be deaf mutes working in the field. And Charlotte would just lose herself in the clique of kids playing in the street.

“I knew that our lives were in danger,” she says. “But then when things lightened up, I was able to be a child. And the Italian people were helpful in letting me have that. I always felt loved. My parents. The villagers. It was always a very warm feeling.”

There was another Jewish family living in nearby Cagli, close to a German garrison. The two families would meet up from time to time.

“I know that at some point we couldn’t visit them anymore,” says Hauptman. “Because they were taken and killed.”

After allied British troops landed in Italy, the Germans became even more skittish and suspicious.

“The village became more dangerous, if that’s even possible,” says Hauptman. “Virgilio Virgili decided to take us to the occupied zone where the Allies already were.”

Virgilio and his young daughter Mercedes walked Charlotte and her family to safety. The Italian father and daughter were with the fleeing Jewish family when they all fell to their knees in front of that Madonna, just miles from safety, pretending to be nothing more than a gaggle of good Italian Catholics. It worked.

But when Virgilio and Mercedes returned to the village, he was arrested. “Virgilio was nabbed by the Nazis, held for days, and tortured,” Hauptman said. And Mercedes was with her father when the Nazis arrived. “They came and grabbed him and threw him in a Jeep and she was crying and holding on as the Jeep was leaving and they kept hitting her on her hands to let go.” He never confessed and was eventually released.

Charlotte Hauptman and Mercedes Virgili remained lifelong friends. Their children are friends. Their grandchildren are friends.

A photo of Mercedes Virgili, left, and Charlotte Hauptman is seen on Hauptman's phone. The framed photo is on display in the Virgili family home in Secchiano, Italy.

“I was born November 25, 1938, right in the middle of it,” says Hauptman, matter-of-factly.

The future looked so bleak that her mother, Esther Fullenbaum, thought she should abort her baby. She didn’t. And would soon credit Charlotte with saving her life. By making her faint at just the right time.

The story became part of family lore. The Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s secret police, were rounding up Jews in Hanover where the family lived. Esther, heavily pregnant, was at her sister’s apartment when officers knocked at the door. Esther fainted, so the Gestapo left her behind. But she would never see her sister or brother-in-law again. They were murdered in the camps.

Esther fled to Milan, where her husband Wolf was working at the time. “I was born 10 days after she arrived,” adds Hauptman.

The family lived there until Italy’s Jews were rounded up and taken to concentration camps. The Fullenbaums were taken to one in Calabria, in southern Italy. When that camp became too crowded, they were sent to live with a family near Venice.

They had to check in with the police once a week. They were under curfew. And fear rose in Charlotte. “I remember being under the table one night crying,” she says. “My mother asked why I was crying, and I said, ‘Because you will both die and I will be alone.’”

Italian police officers soon came with a warning. “They said tomorrow you’re due to be picked up and sent to Auschwitz. So, you better leave now, before curfew and disappear.”

Years later, the family found the telegram, sent the next day by the Italian police to their German overlords, which ends: “THEY WERE NOT THERE. DESTINATION UNKNOWN.”

From that point on, Charlotte – little more than a toddler – was on the run with her parents, protected by the Partisans, who eventually took her family to Secchiano and the Virgilis.

Charlotte Hauptman shows off her mother's ring, which was returned to her years after her family traded it for food in Italy.

“This story is not just my story, it’s their story,” says Hauptman. Her parents spent what little money they had buying food, usually from the village miller’s wife. Until they ran out of money. But the miller’s wife had a solution. In exchange for the wedding band on Esther’s finger, the family could have all the food they would ever need. “She was saving my mother’s honor,” says Hauptman. “So, she could feel comfortable getting the food.”

Years later, while living in Los Angeles, Hauptman got a call from an Italian American couple from San Francisco. They had just spent their honeymoon in Secchiano and had met the miller’s son. He’d given them the ring and asked them to find its rightful owner in America. Hauptman wore the ring as she spoke to CNN.

“I don’t know how they found us in LA, but they did… that’s the Italians!”

After the Virgili family wedding in Italy, Hauptman and her daughter, Michele Goldman, flew straight to Israel.

“She and I had talked about it years ago. We should do this mother and daughter trip,” Hauptman said. “We thought it would be a good bonding experience.” And it was, until the terror began, and she once again had to flee for her life.

Hamas terrorists crossed the border from Gaza into Israel, where they slaughtered 1,400 Israelis and took between 100 and 200 people back to Gaza as hostages. The IDF is now hitting Hamas hard in Gaza, and more than 4,000 Palestinians have now also been killed.

“We were sitting having breakfast in the hotel. We had made reservations for a tour to Bethlehem and Jerusalem,” said Hauptman. “Suddenly the alarms went off and I just looked at the faces of the locals and I read their faces. Panic.”

Her daughter, Hauptman would later find out, was panicking on the inside. “She lost her husband five years ago when her boys were still young and she told me later that all she kept thinking was, ‘Please don’t let my boys lose another parent.’”

Even now, and even here, in tranquil Southern California, Hauptman says she never feels totally safe. “Antisemitism is always there. It goes undercover for a while and then the opportunity arises. It’s a cyclical thing,” she says. “Don’t fool yourself. We’re sitting here now. In an hour, it can be different.”

“Never Again,” is a slogan about the Holocaust that Hauptman says gets a lot of lip service. “It’s just a dream,” says Hauptman. And she is not hopeful of an imminent peace in the Middle East. “As long as there are people who want Israel annihilated and the Jews to disappear,” she says. “I can’t imagine it.”

Hauptman also can’t imagine returning to Israel. Not yet. “But I do want to get over this enough,” she says. “Enough to go back.”

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October 22, 2023

China and Philippines accuse each other over collisions in disputed South China Sea | CNN

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China and the Philippines on Sunday accused each other of causing collisions in a disputed area of the South China Sea, the latest in a string of maritime confrontations between the two countries that have heightened regional tensions.

In a statement, Philippine authorities said a Chinese Coast Guard ship carried out “dangerous blocking maneuvers” that caused it to collide with a Philippine vessel carrying supplies to troops stationed in Ayungin Shoal, also known as Second Thomas Shoal, in the Spratly Islands chain.

China’s move was “provocative, irresponsible and illegal” and “imperiled the safety of the crew” of the Philippine boats, the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said.

In a second incident Sunday, the Philippine task force said a Chinese maritime militia vessel collided with a Philippine coast guard ship, which was on the same mission to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre. Manila grounded the navy transport ship on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 and has manned it with Filipino marines to enforce its claims to the area.

In a statement Sunday, the Chinese Coast Guard accused the Philippines of violating international marine law and threatening the navigation safety of Chinese ships.

It accused the first Philippine ship of trespassing into the waters of what it calls the Nansha islands and Renai Reef, prompting the Chinese Coast Guard ship to intercept “in accordance with the law,” and resulting in a “minor collision.”

In the second incident, the Chinese Coast Guard said the Philippine Coast Guard vessel “purposely provoked trouble and reversed course,” causing a collision with a Chinese fishing boat.

Beijing claims “indisputable sovereignty” over almost all of the 1.3 million square miles of the South China Sea, as well as most of the islands and sandbars within it, including many features that are hundreds of miles away from China’s mainland.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark maritime dispute, which concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.

Beijing has ignored the ruling.

No injuries were reported in either collision Sunday, which marks the latest in a series of recent flashpoints between Beijing and Manila in the disputed waterway.

In September, the Philippine Coast Guard released video of a Filipino diver cutting a Chinese-installed floating barrier in a disputed area of the waterway that had prevented Filipino boats from entering.

It came just days after after the Philippine Coast Guard accused China’s maritime militia of turning vast patches of coral near the Palawan island chain into a bleached and broken wasteland.

China’s foreign ministry dismissed those allegations as “false and groundless.”

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October 22, 2023

Israel warns Gaza airstrikes will intensify and hits West Bank ahead of war’s ‘next stage’ | CNN

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Israel’s military vowed to increase airstrikes on Gaza and struck Hamas targets in the occupied West Bank as it signaled it was readying for a new phase of war against the Palestinian militant group, including a potential ground incursion.

All eyes are now on the next move of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which has amassed huge numbers of troops outside Gaza and pounded the densely populated enclave with near-constant airstrikes in its attempt to eradicate Hamas following its deadly October 7 attacks on Israel.

“We will increase our strikes, minimize the risk to our troops in the next stages of the war, and we will intensify the strikes, starting from today,” IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Saturday, adding that a ground operation in Gaza would be launched when conditions are optimal.

“We continue to destroy terror targets ahead of the next stage of the war, and are focusing on our readiness to the next stage,” he said.

Meanwhile, on Sunday the IDF launched an airstrike on the Al-Ansar mosque in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, which it said was being used by militants to plan for “an imminent terror attack.”

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN it had new intelligence that “suggested there was an imminent attack coming from a joint Hamas and Islamic Jihad squad,” that was making preparations from an underground command center beneath the mosque.

Three people were killed in the Israeli strike, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement on Sunday.

Violence has flared in the West Bank since the Gaza conflict erupted two weeks ago.

Separately, two people were killed following clashes in Toubas and Nablus, bringing the death toll in the West Bank to at least 90 since October 7, the ministry said Sunday.

In pictures: The deadly clashes in Israel and Gaza

In Gaza City, the IDF dropped leaflets written in Arabic that warned residents to evacuate to the south or face the possibility of being considered “a partner for the terrorist organization,” according to a CNN translation.

In a statement, the IDF confirmed it had dropped the flyers, but said there was “no intention to consider those who have not evacuated from the affected area of fighting as a member of the terrorist group.”

The IDF “treats civilians as such, and does not target them,” the statement added.

As of Saturday, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 4,300 people in Gaza, including hundreds of women and children, according to the Hamas-run government media office in Gaza.

Israel has previously told the more than 1 million residents in northern Gaza to leave their homes and move to the south.

Israel has offered no timeline for the possible ground offensive on Gaza, but military officials have repeatedly told troops an incursion is imminent.

The Israeli Military Chief of Staff, Herzl Halevi, told IDF commanders Saturday that the military will initiate an operation to “destroy” Hamas.

“We’ll enter the Gaza Strip. We’ll embark on an operational and professional task to destroy Hamas operatives and infrastructures,” the chief said in comments to the Golani Brigade of the IDF.

Halevi said that when the IDF enters Gaza, they will “keep in mind” the images that occurred during Hamas’ deadly rampage in Israel.

He acknowledged that Gaza is complicated and crowded, but said the IDF is preparing for the enemy.

The United States and its allies have urged Israel to be strategic and clear about its goals during any ground invasion of Gaza, warning against a prolonged occupation and placing a particular emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties.

During his visit to Israel last week, US President Joe Biden “asked some hard questions” about Israel’s ground invasion strategy, a senior US official told CNN, adding: “we’re not directing the Israelis, the timeline is theirs – their thinking, their planning.”

Meanwhile, the US military is sending more missile defense systems to the Middle East and placing additional US troops on prepare-to-deploy orders in response to escalations throughout the region in recent days.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Saturday he had “activated the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery as well as additional Patriot battalions to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for US forces.”

The order for troops to prepare for deployment is meant “to increase their readiness and ability to quickly respond as required,” he said.

Both the THAAD and Patriots systems are air defense systems designed to shoot down short, medium and intermediate ballistic missiles.

Conditions in Gaza have become increasingly dire following two weeks of bombardment and a complete siege by Israel, which was unleashed in response to a rampage by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel.

Hamas fighters have also abducted about 210 people into Gaza as hostages, according to an estimate released Saturday by the IDF. Two American hostages, a mother and her 17-year-old daughter, were released Friday.

On Saturday, the first convoy of 20 trucks carrying food, water, medicine and medical supplies entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing after intense diplomatic efforts to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

But aid workers and international leaders have warned that much more is needed to combat the “catastrophic” humanitarian situation in the enclave that is home to more than 2 million people.

Citing an acute shortage of food, water, power, and medical supplies that is pushing civilian lives in Gaza “to the edge of catastrophe,” the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said it urgently requires $74 million to sustain its emergency response in Gaza for the next 90 days.

The appeal came in a Palestinian Territories situation report Saturday that said the coastal enclave’s stores have food reserves of less than a week and that the ability to replenish these stocks is “compromised by damaged roads, safety concerns, and fuel shortages.”

Three WFP trucks were part of the convoy of that moved through the Rafah crossing into Gaza on Saturday. Another 40 WFP trucks are waiting at Al-Arish, Egypt, to enter Gaza, the report said.

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October 22, 2023

Tag: brand safety-nsf sensitive

Judges Targeted Fast Facts | CNN

Israel’s history suggests the clock is ticking for Netanyahu after Hamas attack failures | CNN

Three generations of women under one roof raised an outgoing, curious boy. They’ll never see him graduate from high school | CNN

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82-year-old Korean man has heart attack after choking on ‘live octopus’ dish | CNN

California man sentenced to 1-year in federal prison for cyberstalking, harassing parent of Parkland school shooting victim | CNN

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Passengers describe their emergency landing

7 people killed after more than 150 vehicles crashed along Louisiana’s I-55 amid dense fog, officials say | CNN

Reports: Trump told Mar-a-Lago member about calls with foreign leaders | CNN Politics

Holocaust survivor visiting Israel safely escapes as war breaks out | CNN

China and Philippines accuse each other over collisions in disputed South China Sea | CNN

Israel warns Gaza airstrikes will intensify and hits West Bank ahead of war’s ‘next stage’ | CNN

In pictures: The deadly clashes in Israel and Gaza