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US School Violence Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
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Here is a list of incidents of elementary, middle and high school violence with at least one fatality, from 1927 to the present. Suicides, gang-related incidents and deaths resulting from domestic conflicts are not included. If a perpetrator was killed or died by suicide during the incident, their death is not included in the fatality totals.

Because there is no central database tracking school violence incidents, this list is based primarily on media reports and is not complete or representative of all incidents.

READ MORE: Ten years of school shootings

January 4, 2024 – Perry High School – Perry, Iowa. Dylan Butler, 17, fatally shoots a sixth grade student and wounds five other people. The wounded include four students and the school’s principal. Butler dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

March 27, 2023 – Covenant School – Nashville, Tennessee. Three children and three adults are killed in a shooting. The shooter is fatally shot by responding officers.

November 8, 2022 – Ingraham High School – Seattle, Washington. A 17-year-old student is fatally shot, and two teens are arrested in connection with the shooting.

October 24, 2022 – Central Visual and Performing Arts High School – St. Louis, Missouri. A teen and an adult are killed in a shooting. The gunman dies after an exchange of gunfire with police.

May 24, 2022 – Robb Elementary School – Uvalde, Texas. Salvador Ramos, 18, fatally shoots 19 students and two teachers. Responding officers fatally shoot Ramos.

March 31, 2022 – Tanglewood Middle School – Greenville, South Carolina. 12-year-old student Jamari Cortez Bonaparte Jackson is fatally shot. The suspected shooter, also 12, is arrested and charged with murder and other firearm charges.

January 29, 2022 – Beloit Memorial High School – Beloit, Wisconsin. Jion Broomfield, 19, is fatally shot after a basketball game. Amaree Goodall, 19, is arrested in connection with the shooting.

January 19, 2022 – Oliver Citywide Academy – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 15-year-old freshman Marquis Campbell is shot on school grounds. Campbell is taken to the hospital in critical condition and dies from gun injuries. In January 2024, Eugene Watson, 19, is sentenced to 20-40 years in prison.

November 30, 2021 – Oxford High School – Oxford, Michigan. Ethan Crumbley, 15, opens fire, killing four students and injuring seven others. Crumbley later pleads guilty to one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first-degree murder and 19 other charges. In 2023, Crumbley is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

September 1, 2021 – Mount Tabor High School – Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A student is fatally shot, and a suspect is taken into custody.

March 1, 2021 – Watson Chapel Junior High – Pine Bluff, Arkansas. A student is fatally shot, and a 15-year-old male suspect is arrested. In 2023, Thomas Quarles pleads guilty to murder and is sentenced to 40 years in prison.

January 14, 2020 – Bellaire High School – Bellaire, Texas. A 16-year-old male fatally shoots classmate Cesar Cortes. The teen is arrested and charged with manslaughter. The county district attorney said it appeared the shooting was unintentional. In 2021, the teen is sentenced to twelve years in prison, according to authorities.

November 14, 2019 – Saugus High School – Santa Clarita, California. Nathaniel Berhow, 16, opens fire, killing two and injuring three, then shoots himself.

May 6, 2019 – STEM School Highlands Ranch – Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Suspects Devon Erickson, 18, and Alec McKinney, 16, are apprehended after a shooting leaves one dead and eight others injured. Erickson is later sentenced to life in prison without parole while McKinney is sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

May 18, 2018 – Santa Fe High School – Santa Fe, Texas. Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, allegedly opens fire killing 10 and injuring 13. Pagourtzis is arrested and charged with capital murder and aggravated assault of a public servant. In November 2019, he is declared mentally incompetent to stand trial.

February 14, 2018 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – Parkland, Florida. Former student, Nikolas Cruz, 19, opens fire with an AR-15 rifle, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. According to law enforcement, the suspect activated a fire alarm to draw people outside to increase casualties. Cruz pleads guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. Cruz is later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

January 23, 2018 – Marshall County High School – Benton, Kentucky. Gabriel R. Parker, 15, opens fire killing two and injuring 18 others. The suspect is arrested at the scene and later charged with two counts of murder and 14 counts of first degree assault. Parker is later sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty.

December 7, 2017 – Aztec High School – Aztec, New Mexico. William Atchison shoots and kills students Casey Jordan Marquez and Francisco Fernandez. Atchison, a former student at the high school, dies of what police believe to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

September 13, 2017 – Freeman High School – Spokane, Washington. Caleb Sharpe, a sophomore at the school, opens fire killing one student and injuring three others. Sharpe later pleads guilty and is sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.

April 10, 2017 – North Park Elementary School – San Bernardino, California. Jonathan Martinez, 8, and his teacher, Karen Smith, are killed when Cedric Anderson, Smith’s estranged husband, walks into her special needs classroom and opens fire, armed with a large-caliber revolver. Two other students are wounded. Anderson then kills himself.

September 28, 2016 – Townville Elementary School – Greenville, South Carolina. A 14-year-old male opens fire on the playground, wounding two children and a teacher. Jacob Hall, one of the wounded children, dies three days later. Before going to the school, the teen, later identified as Jesse Osborne, shot and killed his father. In December 2018, Osborne pleads guilty to two murder charges and three attempted murder charges. In November 2019, Osborne is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, plus 30 years.

October 24, 2014 – Marysville-Pilchuck High School – Marysville, Washington. Freshman Jaylen Fryberg shoots five people in the school cafeteria, killing one. Fryberg dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene. A second victim dies of her injuries two days later; a third dies on October 31. A fourth victim dies on November 7.

June 10, 2014 – Reynolds High School – Troutdale, Oregon. Jared Padgett, 15, shoots and kills 14-year-old Emilio Hoffman in the school gym. He later takes his own life.

December 13, 2013 – Arapahoe High School – Centennial, Colorado. Karl Pierson, 18, opens fire inside, critically injuring one student and then killing himself. 17-year-old Claire Davis dies on December 21, eight days after being shot.

October 21, 2013 – Sparks Middle School – Sparks, Nevada. 12-year-old student Jose Reyes takes his parent’s handgun to school and shoots three, injuring two 12-year-old male students and killing Mike Landsberry, a teacher and Marine veteran. He then kills himself.

December 14, 2012 – Sandy Hook Elementary School – Newtown, Connecticut. Adam Lanza, 20, guns down 20 children, ages 6 and 7, and six adults, school staff and faculty, before turning the gun on himself. Investigating police later find Nancy Lanza, Adam’s mother, dead from a gunshot wound. The final count is 27 dead.

February 27, 2012 – Chardon High School – Chardon, Ohio. Student Daniel Parmertor, 16, is killed and four others wounded when student T.J. Lane, 17, opens fire in the school. On February 28, Demetrius Hewlin, 16, dies from his wounds and Russell King Jr., 17, is declared brain dead. In March 2013, Lane is sentenced to life in prison. On September 11, 2014, Lane escapes from prison. He is captured early the next morning.

January 5, 2011 – Millard South High School – Omaha, Nebraska. 17-year-old Robert Butler Jr. opens fire on Principal Curtis Case and Vice Principal Vicki Kasper. Butler then kills himself about a mile from the school. Vice Principal Kasper later dies at the hospital.

February 5, 2010 – Discovery Middle School – Madison, Alabama. 14-year-old Todd Brown dies after being shot in the head in a school hallway. Fellow ninth-grader Hammad Memon later pleads guilty and is sentenced to 30 years in prison.

October 16, 2009 – Carolina Forest High School – Conway, South Carolina. 16-year-old student Trevor Varinecz is shot and killed by a police officer after allegedly pulling a knife and stabbing the officer.

September 23, 2009 – John Tyler High School – Tyler, Texas. A 16-year-old, Byron Truvia, is taken into custody for stabbing and killing high school teacher Todd R. Henry. Truvia is later found unfit to stand trial.

September 15, 2009 – Coral Gables Senior High School – Coral Gables, Florida. 17-year-old Andy Jesus Rodriguez fatally stabs 17-year-old sophomore Juan Carlos Rivera during a fight. Rodriguez is later sentenced to 40 years in prison.

August 21, 2008 – Central High School – Knoxville, Tennessee. 15-year-old Jamar Siler shoots and kills 15-year-old Ryan McDonald. In 2011, Siler receives 30 years in prison in a plea agreement.

January 3, 2007 – Henry Foss High School – Tacoma, Washington. Student Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, fatally shoots another student, Samnang Kok, 17. Chanthabouly is sentenced in 2009 to more than 23 years in prison for second-degree murder.

October 2, 2006 – West Nickel Mines Amish School – Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. 32-year-old Charles Roberts IV goes to a small Amish school and takes at least 11 girls hostage. Five girls were killed and six others wounded. Roberts then kills himself.

September 29, 2006 – Weston High School – Cazenovia, Wisconsin. 15-year-old Eric Hainstock goes to school armed with a shotgun and a handgun. After a struggle with the school janitor, Hainstock shoots and kills the school principal. He is convicted of murder in August 2007 and sentenced to life in prison.

September 27, 2006 – Platte Canyon High School – Bailey, Colorado. 54-year-old Duane Morrison takes six female students hostage. When SWAT teams enter the school, Morrison shoots 16-year-old Emily Keyes. Morrison then kills himself. Keyes later dies at the hospital.

November 8, 2005 – Campbell County Comprehensive High School – Jacksboro, Tennessee. 15-year-old Kenneth Bartley Jr. opens fire on a principal and two assistant principals, killing one of them and critically wounding another, authorities said. In 2007, Bartley accepts a plea bargain, but his guilty plea is later vacated. In a retrial in February 2014, Bartley is found guilty of reckless homicide and not guilty of attempted first degree murder. He is sentenced to time served and released.

March 21, 2005 – Red Lake High School – Red Lake, Minnesota. 16-year-old Jeff Weise kills his grandfather and another adult, five students, a teacher and a security officer. He then kills himself.

February 3, 2004 – Southwood Middle School – Palmetto Bay, Florida. 14-year-old Michael Hernandez stabs to death 14-year-old Jaime Rodrigo Gough. In 2013, an appeals court tosses Hernandez’s life sentence and remands the case for re-sentencing. In 2016, Hernandez is again sentenced to life in prison.

September 24, 2003 – Rocori High School – Cold Spring, Minnesota. 15-year-old Jason McLaughlin shoots and kills 17-year-old Aaron Rollins and critically injures another student. The second student dies in October. In 2005, McLaughlin is sentenced to consecutive terms of life in prison for first-degree murder and 12 years for second-degree murder.

April 24, 2003 – Red Lion Area Junior High School – Red Lion, Pennsylvania. 14-year-old James Sheets brings a revolver to school and kills his principal, Eugene Segro, and then himself.

December 5, 2001 – Springfield High School – Springfield, Massachusetts. At a high school for troubled teens, 17-year-old Corey Ramos stabs to death Reverend Theodore Brown, a counselor at the school. In 2003, Ramos is sentenced to life in prison.

March 5, 2001 – Santana High School – Santee, California. 15-year-old Charles “Andy” Williams kills two classmates, a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, and injures 13. Williams is sentenced in 2002 to at least 50 years in prison.

May 26, 2000 – Lake Worth Community Middle School – Lake Worth, Florida. 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill, after being sent home for misbehaving, returns to school and shoots and kills his teacher Barry Grunow. Brazill is sentenced to 28 years in prison.

February 29, 2000 – Buell Elementary School – Mount Morris Township, Michigan. An unnamed 6-year-old boy shoots and kills a 6-year-old playmate, Kayla Rolland, at school. He is removed from his mother’s custody and put up for adoption.

November 19, 1999 – Deming Middle School – Deming, New Mexico. 12-year-old Victor Cordova shoots and kills a 13-year-old classmate. He is sentenced to two years in juvenile detention.

April 20, 1999 – Columbine High School – Littleton, Colorado. 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold kill 12 fellow students and one teacher before dying by suicide in the school library.

May 21, 1998 – Thurston High School – Springfield, Oregon. After killing his parents the previous day, 15-year-old Kip Kinkel returns to Thurston High armed with a rifle. He kills two students in the school cafeteria, a 16 and a 17-year-old. He is sentenced to 112 years in prison.

April 24, 1998 – James Parker Middle School – Edinboro, Pennsylvania. 14-year-old Andrew Wurst shoots and kills science teacher John Gillette at a school dance. He is sentenced to serve between 30 and 60 years.

March 24, 1998 – Westside Middle School – Jonesboro, Arkansas. 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson ambush fellow students and their teachers, killing five. Johnson is incarcerated in a youth facility and released on his 21st birthday, August 11, 2005. Golden is released on his 21st birthday, May 25, 2007.

December 1, 1997 – Heath High School – West Paducah, Kentucky. 14-year-old Michael Carneal opens fire on a school prayer group, killing three girls, who were 14, 15 and 17. He is serving life in prison.

October 1, 1997 – Pearl High School – Pearl, Mississippi. After killing his mother at home, 16-year-old Luke Woodham arrives at school and shoots two classmates. Woodham is serving three life sentences plus 140 years.

February 19, 1997 – Bethel High School – Bethel, Alaska. 16-year-old Evan Ramsey uses a shotgun stolen from his foster home to kill a 15-year-old student and the school principal. He is currently serving a term of 210 years.

September 25, 1996 – Dekalb Alternative School – Decatur, Georgia. 16-year-old David Dubose Jr. shoots and kills English teacher Horace Morgan on the steps of the school. Dubose is found not guilty by reason of insanity and is committed indefinitely to a state mental hospital.

February 2, 1996 – Frontier Junior High School – Moses Lake, Washington. 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis takes a rifle to school and kills two classmates and a teacher. He is sentenced to life in prison.

January 19, 1996 – Winston Education Center – Washington. Two masked gunmen kill 14-year-old Damion Blocker in a stairwell. 16-year-old shooter Darrick Evans is given a sentence of 41 years to life in prison.

November 15, 1995 – Richland High School – Lynnville, Tennessee. 17-year-old Jamie Rouse kills a business teacher and a 16-year-old student. Rouse is serving a life sentence.

October 12, 1995 – Blackville-Hilda High School – Blackville, South Carolina. 15-year-old Toby Sincino kills a teacher and then himself.

November 7, 1994 – Wickliffe Middle School – Wickliffe, Ohio. 37-year-old drifter Keith Ledeger shoots and kills school custodian Peter Christopher and injures three others. Ledeger is sentenced to life in prison.

April 12, 1994 – Margaret Leary Elementary School – Butte, Montana. 10-year-old James Osmanson, teased because his parents have AIDS, shoots and kills an 11-year-old on the school playground. Osmanson is sent to a private residential treatment center.

February 1, 1994 – Valley View Junior High School – Simi Valley, California. 13-year-old Philip Hernandez stabs to death a 14-year-old student in a school hallway. Hernandez is sentenced to four years in a California Youth Authority prison.

December 1, 1993 – Wauwatosa West High School – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. 21-year-old former student Leonard McDowell returns to his high school and kills Associate Principal Dale Breitlow. He is sentenced to life in prison.

May 24, 1993 – Upper Perkiomen High School – Pennsburg, Pennsylvania. 15-year-old student Jason Smith kills another student who had bullied him. He is sentenced to between 12 and 25 years in prison.

April 15, 1993 – Ford Middle School – Acushnet, Massachusetts. 44-year-old David Taber invades a middle school and takes three hostages. He later shoots and kills school nurse Carol Day. He is found not guilty of the murder by reason of insanity.

April 12, 1993 – Dartmouth High School – Dartmouth, Massachusetts. 16-year-old Jason Robinson is stabbed to death in his social studies class by three teenage attackers who invade the classroom.

January 18, 1993 – East Carter High School – Grayson, Kentucky. 17-year-old student Scott Pennington shoots and kills a teacher and custodian. He is sentenced to life in prison.

May 1, 1992 – Lindhurst High School – Olivehurst, California. 20-year-old dropout Eric Houston returns to his high school and kills a former teacher and three students. Houston is sentenced to death.

February 26, 1992 – Thomas Jefferson High School – Brooklyn, New York. A 15-year-old shoots and kills two other students. The shooter, Kahlil Sumpter, is sentenced in 1993 to between 6 2/3 and 20 years in prison and is released in 1998.

November 25, 1991 – Thomas Jefferson High School – Brooklyn, New York. A stray bullet kills a 16-year-old student during an argument between two other teens. Shooter Jason Bentley, 14, is sentenced in 1992 to three to nine years in prison.

January 17, 1989 – Cleveland Elementary School – Stockton, California. 24-year-old drifter Patrick Purdy uses an AK-47 to kill five children on an elementary school playground. He then takes his own life.

December 16, 1988 – Atlantic Shores Christian School – Virginia Beach, Virginia. 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot shoots and kills teacher Karen Farley. Elliott is sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

September 26, 1988 – Oakland Elementary School – Greenwood, South Carolina. 19-year-old James Wilson, copying the Winnetka, Illinois murders, kills 8-year-olds Tequila Thomas and Shequila Bradley in their school cafeteria. Wilson’s death sentence is overturned in January 2003.

May 20, 1988 – Hubbard Woods Elementary School – Winnetka, Illinois. 30-year-old Laurie Dann invades an elementary school and kills an 8-year-old boy. She injures six other people before taking her own life.

February 11, 1988 – Pinellas Park High School – Largo, Florida. Two 15-year-olds with stolen weapons, Jason McCoy and Jason Harless, shoot and kill Assistant Principal Richard Allen. McCoy serves two years in prison, and Harless serves eight.

March 2, 1987 – Dekalb High School – Dekalb, Missouri. 12-year-old Nathan Faris, who was teased about being overweight, shoots 13-year-old Timothy Perrin and then takes his own life.

December 4, 1986 – Fergus High School – Lewistown, Montana. 14-year-old Kristofer Hans shoots and kills substitute teacher Henrietta Smith. He is sentenced to 206 years in prison in 1988.

May 16, 1986 – Cokeville Elementary School – Cokeville, Wyoming. A couple in their 40s, David and Doris Young, take over an elementary school with a bomb and hold 150 children and adults hostage, demanding $300 million in ransom. The bomb accidentally detonates, setting the school on fire. Investigators later determine that during the fire David Young shot his wife and then killed himself. 74 people were injured in the fire.

January 21, 1985 – Goddard Junior High School – Goddard, Kansas. 14-year-old James Kearbey shoots and kills Principal Jim McGee. Kearbey spends seven years in juvenile detention and is released at the age of 21. On October 31, 2001, Kearbey is involved in a six-hour standoff with Wichita, Kansas, police. No injuries resulted and Kearbey is later acquitted of aggravated assault on a police officer.

February 24, 1984 – 49th Street School – Los Angeles. Sniper Tyrone Mitchell shoots at children on an elementary school playground, killing one and injuring 11. He later takes his own life.

January 20, 1983 – Parkway South Junior High – St. Louis. An unnamed 14-year-old shoots and kills another student before turning the gun on himself.

March 19, 1982 – Valley High School – Las Vegas. 17-year-old Pat Lizotte shoots and kills psychology teacher Clarence Piggott during class. Lizotte is sentenced to life in prison.

January 29, 1979 – Grover Cleveland Elementary – San Diego. 16-year-old Brenda Spencer opens fire on a school across from her home, killing the principal and janitor.

May 18, 1978 – Murchison Junior High School – Austin, Texas. 13-year-old John Christian shoots and kills his English teacher Wilbur Grayson, during class. The shooter is the son of George Christian, press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson from 1967 to 1969. After time in a psychiatric hospital, Christian attends high school in the Dallas area.

February 22, 1978 – Everett High School – Lansing, Michigan. 15-year-old Roger Needham kills another student who had bullied him. After four years in juvenile detention, Needham is released. He later earns a Ph.D in math and works as a professor in Missouri and New York.

March 18, 1975 – Sumner High School – St. Louis. 16-year-old Stephen Goods, a bystander, is shot and killed during a fight between other teens.

December 30, 1974 – Olean High School – Olean, New York. Honors student Anthony Barbaro kills a school janitor and two passers-by. Barbaro later kills himself while awaiting trial.

October 5, 1966 – Grand Rapids High School – Grand Rapids, Minnesota. 15-year-old David Black injures another student before killing teacher Forrest Willey.

September 15, 1959 – Edgar Allen Poe Elementary – Houston. Convict Paul Orgeron explodes a suitcase of dynamite on a school playground, killing himself, two adults and three children.

May 18, 1927 – Bath Consolidated Schoolhouse – Bath, Michigan. Farmer Andrew Kehoe sets off two explosions at the school, killing himself, six adults and 38 children.

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January 30, 2024
Michelle Obama Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
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Here’s a look at the life of Michelle Obama, wife of 44th US President Barack Obama.

Birth date: January 17, 1964

Birth place: Chicago, Illinois

Birth name: Michelle LaVaughn Robinson

Father: Fraser Robinson, water filtration worker

Mother: Marian (Shields) Robinson

Marriage: Barack Obama (October 3, 1992-present)

Children: Sasha, Malia

Education: Princeton University, B.A., 1985; Harvard University, J.D., 1988

Religion: Christian

Graduated magna cum laude with a sociology degree from Princeton.

Met Barack Obama when she was assigned to be his mentor at Sidley & Austin, a Chicago law firm.

Her father suffered from and eventually died of multiple sclerosis.

Has won a Grammy Award.

Nominated for one Primetime Emmy Award.

1988-1991 – Associate attorney at Sidley & Austin in Chicago.

1991-1992 – Assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

1992-1993 – Assistant Commissioner of Planning and Development.

1993-1996 – Founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago.

1996-2002 – Associate Dean of Student Services for the University of Chicago and director of the University Community Service Center.

2002-2005 – Executive Director for Community Affairs for University of Chicago Hospitals.

2005-2007 – Member of the board of Tree House Foods, a food supplier for Walmart stores.

2005-January 2009 – Vice President of Community and External Affairs for University of Chicago Hospitals.

January 20, 2009 – Becomes the first lady of the United States.

April 2009 – “Michelle Obama: In Her Own Words” is published.

February 2009 – Appears on the March cover of Vogue magazine.

February 9, 2010 – Launches the national campaign, “Let’s Move!,” to reduce childhood obesity.

April 2011 – Launches the national veterans’ campaign, “Joining Forces,” with Jill Biden.

June 20, 2011 – Travels to Africa for a week to focus on youth leadership, education, health and wellness.

June 21, 2011 – Visits former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela at his home.

May 29, 2012 – “American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America” is published.

February 24, 2013 – Presents the Academy Award for best picture.

March 13, 2013 – Along with other high profile celebrities and politicians, Obama’s financial information is hacked and posted online. Her student loan information and credit report are posted.

March 14, 2013 – Is on the cover of April’s edition of Vogue. This is the second time she has appeared on the cover.

May 2014 – Launches the national campaign, “Reach Higher,” a higher education initiative.

March 2015 – Launches the national campaign, “Let Girls Learn,” a global focus on girls’ education.

July 2015 – Guest edits “More” magazine. Obama is the magazine’s first guest editor as well as the first, first lady to guest edit an entire issue of “More.”

November 10, 2016 – Obama hosts the soon-to-be first lady, Melania Trump, for tea and a tour of the White House residence, Press Secretary Josh Earnest says in a White House briefing.

November 11, 2016 – Is on the cover of December’s edition of Vogue. This is the third time she has appeared on the cover.

January 13, 2017 – Gives her final White House remarks thanking her supporters and saying, “being your first lady has been the greatest honor of my life and I hope I’ve made you proud.”

September 27, 2017 – Remarks that “any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice” during an appearance at the Inbound 2017 conference in Boston.

May 21, 2018 – Netflix announces the Obamas have signed a multi-year production deal that in which the two will work both in front of and behind the camera.

November 13, 2018 – Obama’s memoir “Becoming” is published, shooting to No. 1 on the Amazon Best Sellers list.

December 27, 2018 – Is voted the woman most admired by Americans this year, knocking Hillary Clinton from the top spot for the first time in 17 years, according to Gallup’s annual survey.

November 20, 2019 – Is nominated for a Grammy for best spoken word album for the audio version of “Becoming.”

December 30, 2019 – For the second year in a row, a Gallup survey lists Obama as the woman most admired by Americans.

January 26, 2020 – Wins a Grammy for best spoken word album for the audio version of “Becoming.”

July 16, 2020 – Announces that she is launching “The Michelle Obama Podcast” on Spotify.

March 10, 2021 – Obama speaks candidly, in an interview with People magazine about her struggles with low-grade depression during the Covid-19 pandemic and the challenges of 2020. “Depression is understandable in these circumstances, during these times,” she said in the interview. “To think that somehow that we can just continue to rise above all the shock and the trauma and the upheaval that we have been experiencing without feeling it in that way is just unrealistic.”

June 21, 2022 – Audible, Amazon’s audiobook and podcast service, announces that Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground, signed an exclusive multi-year first-look production deal with Audible.

Michelle Obama’s evolving style

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January 3, 2024
Andrew Yang Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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Here is a look at the life of Andrew Yang, entrepreneur and former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

Birth date: January 13, 1975

Birth place: Schenectady, New York

Birth name: Andrew M. Yang

Father: Kei-Hsiung Yang, researcher at IBM and GE

Mother: Nancy L. Yang, systems administrator

Marriage: Evelyn (Lu) Yang (2011-present)

Children: Two sons

Education: Brown University, B.A. in Economics, 1996; J.D. Columbia University School of Law, 1999

Religion: Protestant

His parents are originally from Taiwan.

The primary proposal for his political platform was the idea of universal basic income (UBI). This “Freedom Dividend” would have provided every citizen with $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year.

Yang established Freedom Dividend, a pilot program to push for universal basic income, in which he personally funds monthly cash payments.

Is featured in the 2016 documentary, “Generation Startup.”

His campaign slogan was “MATH,” or “Make America Think Harder.”

In 1992, he traveled to London as a member of the US National Debate Team.

After graduating from Columbia, Yang practiced law for a short time before changing his career focus to start-ups and entrepreneurship.

2002-2005 – Vice president of a healthcare start-up.

2006-2011 – Managing director, then CEO, of Manhattan Prep, a test-prep company.

2009 – Kaplan buys Manhattan Prep for more than $10 million.

September 2011 – Founds Venture for America, a non-profit which connects recent college graduates with start-ups. Leaves the company in 2017.

2012 – Is recognized by President Barack Obama as a “Champion of Change.”

April 2012 – Ranks No. 27 on Fast Company’s list of 100 Most Creative People in Business.

February 4, 2014 – His book, “Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America,” is published.

May 11, 2015 – Obama names Yang an ambassador for global entrepreneurship.

November 6, 2017 – Files FEC paperwork for a 2020 presidential run.

February 2, 2018 – Announces his run for president via YouTube and Twitter.

April 3, 2018 – His book, “The War on Normal People,” is published.

March 2019 – Yang explores the possibility of using a 3D hologram to be able to campaign remotely in two or three places at once.

January 4, 2020 – Launches a write-in campaign for the Ohio Democratic primary in March of 2020 after failing to fully comply with the state’s ballot access laws.

February 11, 2020 – In New Hampshire, Yang suspends his presidential campaign.

February 19, 2020 – CNN announces that Yang will be joining the network as a political commentator.

March 5, 2020 – Launches Humanity Forward, a nonprofit group that will “endorse and provide resources to political candidates who embrace Universal Basic Income, human-centered capitalism and other aligned policies at every level,” according to its website. Yang also announces that he will launch a podcast.

December 23, 2020 – Files paperwork to participate in New York’s 2021 mayoral race, according to city records.

January 13, 2021 – Yang announces his candidacy for New York City mayor.

June 22, 2021 – Yang concedes the New York City mayoral race.

October 4, 2021 – Yang announces in a blog post that he is “breaking up” with the Democratic Party and has registered as an independent

July 27, 2022 – Yang, along with former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, and a group of former Republican and Democratic officials form a new political party called Forward.

September 12, 2023 – Yang’s political thriller “The Last Election,” co-written with Stephen Marche, is published.

2020 hopeful wants holograms to campaign in multiple cities

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December 28, 2023
Mpox in the United States Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
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Here’s a look at mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, in the United States. In 2022, an outbreak was declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO). The virus originated in Africa and is the cousin of the smallpox virus.

In November 2022, WHO renames the monkeypox virus as mpox after working with International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) to rename the the virus using non-stigmatizing, non-offensive social and cultural nomenclature.

(Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Mpox is a poxvirus. It generally causes pimple- or blister-like lesions and flu-like symptoms such as fever. The disease is rarely fatal.

Mpox spreads through close contact. This includes direct physical contact with lesions as well as “respiratory secretions” shared through face-to-face interaction and touching objects that have been contaminated by mpox lesions or fluids. The virus may also pass to a fetus through the placenta.

Anyone can become ill from mpox, but the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that more than 99% of mpox cases in the United States in the 2022 outbreak have been among men who have sex with men. However, mpox is not generally considered a sexually transmitted disease.

Mpox is usually found in West and Central Africa, but additional cases have been seen in Europe, including the United Kingdom, and other parts of the world in recent years. Those cases are typically linked to international travel or imported animals infected with the poxvirus.

CDC Mpox Map and Case Count

WHO Situation Reports

Timeline and 2022 Outbreak

1958 – Mpox is discovered when monkeys kept for research cause two outbreaks in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1970 – The first human case is recorded in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).

2003 – An outbreak in the United States is linked to infected pet prairie dogs imported from Ghana and results in more than 80 cases.

July 16, 2021 – The CDC and local health officials in Dallas announce they are investigating a case of mpox in a traveler from Nigeria. “The individual is a City of Dallas resident who traveled from Nigeria to Dallas, arriving at Love Field airport on July 9, 2021. The person is hospitalized in Dallas and is in stable condition,” the Dallas County Department of Health and Human Services says in a statement.

May 17, 2022 – The first confirmed US case of mpox in the 2022 outbreak is reported to the CDC in a traveler who returned to Massachusetts from Canada.

May 19, 2022 – WHO reports that death rates of the outbreak have been between 3% and 6%.

May 23, 2022 – The CDC announces the release of mpox vaccine doses from the nation’s Strategic National Stockpile for “high-risk people.” In the United States, the two-dose Jynneos vaccine is licensed to prevent smallpox and specifically to prevent mpox.

May 26, 2022 – CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announces that the United States is distributing the vaccine to states with reported cases and recommends vaccination for people at highest risk of infection due to direct contact with someone who has mpox.

June 22, 2022 – The CDC announces a partnership with five commercial laboratories to ramp up testing capacity in the United States.

June 23, 2022 – New York City launches the first mpox vaccination clinic in the United States.

June 28, 2022 – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Biden administration announce an enhanced vaccination strategy and report that more than 9,000 doses of vaccine have been distributed to date.

July 22, 2022 – Two American children contract mpox – a first in the United States. According to the CDC, the two cases are unrelated.

July 23, 2022 – WHO declares mpox a public health emergency of international concern, “an extraordinary event that may constitute a public health risk to other countries through international spread of disease and may require an international coordinated response.”

July 27, 2022 – After weeks of mpox vaccines being in limited supply, more than 786,000 additional doses are made available in the United States, according to HHS.

July 29, 2022 – New York declares a state disaster emergency in response to the mpox outbreak.

August 1, 2022 – California and Illinois declare states of emergency. California has reported more than 800 cases, while Illinois has had more than 500, according to data from the CDC.

August 2, 2022 – An mpox response team is created by the Biden administration. President Joe Biden names Robert Fenton from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as the White House national mpox response coordinator.

August 2, 2022 – A report from Spain’s National Institute for Microbiology indicates two men, ages 31 and 44, who died from mpox in unrelated cases had both developed encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, which can be triggered by viral infections. Encephalitis is a very rare condition known to be associated with mpox. It has been reported in people with mpox in West Africa and in a patient in the United States in 2003 during the small outbreak linked to imported prairie dogs.

August 4, 2022 – The Biden administration declares the mpox outbreak a national public health emergency.

August 5, 2022 – A report published by the CDC finds that 94% of cases were among men who had recent sexual or close intimate contact with another man. Further, 54% of cases were among Black Americans and Latinos.

August 9, 2022 – In an effort to stretch the limited supply of the Jynneos mpox vaccine, federal health officials authorize administering smaller doses using a different method of injection. The new injection strategy allows health-care providers to give shallow injections intradermally, in between layers of the skin, with one-fifth the standard dose size instead of subcutaneously, into the fatty layer below the skin, with the larger dose.

August 18, 2022 – The White House announces the acceleration of the HHS vaccine distribution timeline, with an additional 1.8 million doses of the Jynneos vaccine being made available. Additional vaccines will be distributed to communities hosting large LGBTQI+ events.

August 19, 2022 – Washington’s King County, which includes Seattle, declares mpox a public health emergency, with more than 270 recorded cases.

September 12, 2022 – The first US death due to mpox is confirmed in Los Angeles County, California.

May 11, 2023 – WHO declares the mpox outbreak is no longer a global health emergency.

October 26, 2023 – CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, votes unanimously to recommend that certain individuals ages 18 and older who are at high risk for getting mpox continue to get the vaccine as a routine part of their sexual health care.

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December 28, 2023
King Juan Carlos I Fast Facts | CNN

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Here’s a look at the life of the former King of Spain.

Birth date: January 5, 1938

Birth place: Rome, Italy

Birth name: Juan Carlos Alfonso Victor Maria de Borbon y Borbon

Father: Don Juan de Borbon y Battenburg, Count of Barcelona, third son of King Alfonso XIII of Spain

Mother: Dona Maria de las Mercedes de Borbon y Orleans, Princess of the Two Sicilies and Countess of Barcelona

Marriage: Princess Sofia of Greece (May 14, 1962-present)

Children: Infanta Elena of Spain, Elena Maria, Isabel, Dominica de Silos de Borbon y Grecia, Duchess of Lugo, December 1963; Infanta Cristina of Asturias, Cristina Federica Victoria Antonia de la Santísima Trinidad de Borbón y Grecia, Duchess of Palma de Mallorca, June 1965; Prince of the Asturias, Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso y de la Santísima Trinidad y de Todos los Santos de Borbón y Grecia, January 1968

Education: Marianist, Fribourg, Switzerland; Instituto San Isidro, Madrid, Spain; Navy Orphans’ College, Spain; Saragossa Military Academy, Saragossa, Spain; Naval College, Marin, Spain; Spanish Air Academy, San Javier, Spain; University of Madrid, Spain

Military: Spanish Army, Spanish Navy, Spanish Air Force

The Spanish Royal Family pays income taxes by constitutional provision and lives in a converted hunting lodge, Zarzuela Palace, by choice.

The Palacio Real, the Royal Palace, in Madrid is used for formal events such as visits from heads of state.

First visited the United States in 1958, during training as a naval midshipman aboard the Juan Sebastian Elcano.

Great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria, distant cousin to both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

Both King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia are descendants of Queen Victoria.

Distant relative of fifteenth century’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.

1947 – Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s Law of Succession declares the Spanish royal family will be restored to power upon his death.

1948 – Makes first trip to Spain, after Franco and Don Juan de Borbon agree to a Spanish education for the heir apparent.

1960 – Completes military training and becomes the first Spanish officer to hold the rank of lieutenant in all three branches of the military.

August 1962 – During his honeymoon, visits the United States and meets US President John F. Kennedy.

1969 – Invested as crown prince and designated as Franco’s successor.

November 22, 1975 – Crowned Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, two days after the death of Franco and restores the Spanish monarchy after a 44-year interregnum.

June 1-4, 1976 – First reigning Spanish monarch to visit the United States. He meets with US President Gerald Ford.

1977 – Enacts political reforms that lead to the first democratic election since 1936.

1978 – Adoption of a new constitution gives the monarchy more than a titular or ceremonial role in the government.

February 1981 – An attempted coup is blocked when forces loyal to the King refuse to join the rebellion.

2000 – Celebrates his 25th anniversary on the throne.

March 11, 2004 – Addresses the nation and visits the wounded after 10 bombs go off on four commuter trains during rush hour in Madrid.

November 10, 2007 – Tells Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, “Why don’t you shut up?” (¿Por qué no te callas?), during the Ibero-American summit in Santiago, Chile.

May 8, 2010 – Has a growth removed from his right lung, which turns out to be benign.

August 8, 2010 – With Queen Sofia, hosts US First Lady Michelle Obama and her youngest daughter, Sasha, at the summer palace on Mallorca Island.

April 14, 2012 – Undergoes hip replacement surgery after falling during a trip to Botswana. He is readmitted later in the month to “reduce a dislocation” of the hip. He undergoes another surgery for his hip in November 2012.

July 2012 – Is dropped as honorary president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – Spain after his April elephant hunting trip in Botswana is widely criticized. “Although not illegal, the hunting was widely viewed as incompatible with the King’s position at the head of WWF-Spain,” the group said in a statement. He had held the honorary post since 1968.

March 3, 2013 – Is hospitalized for surgery on herniated discs. While he is recovering, a small fire breaks out at the hospital but he is not affected.

September 2013 – Undergoes a third hip surgery in Madrid to replace the infected joint..

June 2, 2014 – Announces that he is abdicating in favor of his son Prince Felipe.

June 18, 2014 – Formally abdicates.

January 14, 2015 – A 12 judge panel rules Juan Carlos must face a paternity lawsuit – by a Belgian woman alleging that he’s her father – before the nation’s Supreme Court. Ingrid Sartiau, from Brussels, alleges that her mother and Juan Carlos had a relationship in late 1965, and she was born, as a result, in August 1966. At that time, Juan Carlos was married but still a prince.

March 11, 2015 – Spain’s Supreme Court dismisses the paternity suit against Juan Carlos.

November 29, 2016 – Attends the memorial service for former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

June 2, 2019 – Officially retires from public life.

June 8, 2020 – Spain’s Supreme Court announces an investigation into Juan Carlos for possible crimes involving an alleged 2008 transfer of $100 million from the Saudi king for a high-speed rail project in Saudi Arabia. Switzerland is also investigating the contract.

August 3, 2020 – Leaves Spain amid scrutiny of alleged financial dealings. In a letter to his son, King Felipe VI, Juan Carlos writes that he made the decision to leave “in the face of the public repercussion that certain past events of my private life are generating.”

December 2021 – Swiss prosecutors drop charges against Juan Carlos regarding the Saudi rail project.

March 2022 – Spanish prosecutors close their investigations into Juan Carlos and file no charges.

May 19, 2022 – A resident of the United Arab Emirates since his self-imposed exile, Juan Carlos travels to Spain for the first time since fleeing nearly two years prior.

October 6, 2023 – London’s High Court throws out a lawsuit brought by his former lover Corinna Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein accusing Juan Carlos of coordinating a campaign of harassment and surveillance against her. Juan Carlos has denied the allegations.

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December 27, 2023
I used DNA analysis to find my birth family, and it sent me across 3 continents | CNN

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CNN
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When I sent DNA samples to genetic testing services searching for my birth family, I had no idea it would launch me on an adventure across three continents.

In 1961, I was adopted at birth in California. Over the years, I’ve searched for my birth family on and off but have always been stymied by sealed records and tight-lipped officials. In the past decade, however, home DNA testing and easy online access to official records have changed the game.

I spit into plastic tubes (one for each of the two big players in this industry in the United States: 23andMe and Ancestry.com), dropped them in the mail, and waited, anxiously, for the results. When the email arrived in early 2022, I was stunned.

After a lifetime believing I was a basic White American, I learned that was only half true. My birth mother was born in Iowa. But it turned out my father was North African.

I reached out to anonymous DNA matches through 23andMe and Ancestry’s messaging systems, but no one replied. Then came weeks of research using Ancestry.com and various public records databases until I was able to identify both my parents and find contact information for a handful of their close relatives.

I discovered my birth father had been born in the mid-1930s in Casablanca. Romantic visions of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman (fictionally) escaping the Nazis swam in my head.

Records showed he had emigrated to the United States in 1959 and ended up in San Francisco. My mother had been raised in San Diego and also moved to San Francisco right after high school. But why had he left Morocco? What brought her to San Francisco? I had to know more.

After days of imagining the best and worst, I drafted scripts for what to say to genetically close family members who most likely had no idea I even existed. Then I apprehensively reached out.

To my great relief, my mother’s and father’s families both welcomed me with open arms – despite their shock at discovering I existed.

I learned quickly that both my biological parents had died and was deeply disappointed I had forever missed my chance to meet them. Would things have been different if I’d searched harder earlier?

But I was thrilled that all their siblings were still alive.

From my new family, I pieced together a rough sketch of my parents’ stories: On opposite sides of the world, they had both butted heads with difficult parents and left home at the first opportunity. They both wound up in one of the most free-thinking places on Earth: San Francisco.

He worked as floor installer in the city’s North Beach neighborhood, where she was a cocktail waitress and dancer. I pictured them meeting while he installed floors in a nightclub where she was working.

By all accounts, it must have been a very brief affair. My father was living with a girlfriend, and my mother’s sister says she never once heard my mother discuss my father in any way. Other than the sister and her mother, no one else in her family was told she was pregnant. My father’s family says they are 100% certain he was never told, either.

There were other big surprises: I was told my mother never had another child – or even a serious boyfriend – for the rest of her life. On my father’s side, I was shocked to learn I had a half-brother and half-sister and dozens of cousins in France and Morocco.

They invited me to visit. I booked a trip to meet my father’s huge, welcoming family.

In Paris, a cousin threw me an exuberant party at her sunny suburban home, where I was warmly embraced by the entire French branch of the family. They gave me insiders’ hints tailored to my interests about where to go and what to see off the beaten track.

At their recommendation, I spent an afternoon in a huge, beautiful city park in eastern Paris called Buttes-Chaumont. I ate dinner at the French equivalent of a working-class diner (a bouillon, named for the broth) called Julien. It was my third time in Paris, but now I saw it through new eyes, imagining myself as something of an honorary son of the city.

Morocco was another world entirely. I had never traveled to a Muslim country or anywhere outside Europe or the Americas. The experience was a strange and magical combination of foreign adventure and comfort travel, buffered by family looking out for me.

I spent the first six days in the seaside resort town of Dar Bouazza, about 45 minutes from Casablanca, where my large Moroccan family owns a set of neighboring summer homes just yards from the beach. The houses are built on property my grandfather bought nearly a century ago (when the land was thought to be worthless) as a place to escape the summer heat of Casablanca.

French is the family’s primary language, and my aunts and uncles don’t speak English. Some younger cousin was usually available to translate, but group conversations at the table or on the back deck were always in French, leaving me no way to join in. I resolved to learn conversational French by my next visit.

Despite the language gap, I got to know them all – the stern uncle, the motherly aunts, the prankster cousin. And I recognized many of their personality traits and quirks – how boisterous, curious and sly they are – in myself.

I spent nearly a week wolfing down delicious, authentic Moroccan meals such as lamb tajine (steam roasted with vegetables inside a ceramic dish of the same name) and pastilla (spiced, shredded chicken or game bird wrapped in filo pastry) cooked and served on seaside terraces by the small household staffs common in middle-class Moroccan homes.

Exploring a new homeland

Yet I wanted to see more of my father’s homeland, so I left on a tour of Fez and Marrakech arranged by a cousin and her husband, who happen to own a luxury travel company.

Those two cities were beautiful and awe-inspiring, alien yet weirdly familiar. I experienced them in a unique and very personal way thanks to my DNA journey: as a son just one generation removed from his father’s homeland.

Professional guides created tours personalized to my interests and my newly discovered family’s culture and history – right down to a side trip to my family’s ancestral mausoleum in Fez.

I saw the things my father might have seen touring the cities’ colorful medinas (marketplaces) where the guides introduced me to shopkeepers by my new family name. I saw gorgeous mosques and unexpected sidelights such as Marrakech’s largest Jewish temple, Synagogue Lazama. I watched craftsmen at work, making pottery, leather goods and fabric just as it has been done for centuries.

The highlight of the tour was a side trip to the ancient Roman ruins at Volubilis, between Fez and the Moroccan capital of Rabat. The city was abandoned by Rome around the third century and was not excavated until the early 20th. Seeing well-preserved walls, foundations, and floor mosaics on site – something that simply cannot be seen in the Americas – was a superb experience for a history buff like me.

The tour was capped by a hike in the High Atlas Mountains to spend an afternoon with a local family who gave me a Berber-style cooking lesson, teaching me how to stew lamb and vegetables in a traditional Moroccan tagine.

The patriarch even loaned me a djellaba, a traditional Moroccan outer robe, to wear for a photo, which felt both strange and strangely comforting – a perfect encapsulation of the whole trip.

Getting a home DNA test can launch you on your own great adventure – intended or not.

Former CNN correspondent Samuel Burke created an entire podcast series in partnership with CNN Philippines, “Suddenly Family,” around the surprises – pleasant and otherwise – that can spring from DNA analysis.

“DNA testing can open up this Pandora’s Box that nobody in the DNA industry talks about,” he said.

Burke said some people just want to know about genetic health conditions they may carry. Many more are just looking to learn more about their ethnicity, “how Irish, how Jewish, how Native American they are.” But he said few realize the testing services will connect them to other people, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Whether you know nothing about your family background or think you know everything, there are likely to be surprises. Among them, Burke lists finding out a parent was unfaithful or that you’re the product of artificial insemination. Or you could discover you’re not biologically related to one of your parents.

Burke said being prepared is key to avoiding some of the pitfalls.

“Expect that you will find out something unexpected.” And he says that if you suspect something bad, you can opt out of sharing your results. Burke added the single best piece of advice he’s heard while reporting on DNA is “slow down.” Don’t become “hell-bent on solving the mysteries” and sharing your results as quickly as possible.

Whether or not your DNA testing has unexpected results, it can inspire some fascinating travel across the country or, as in my case, around the world.

What I learned on my adventure, however, is that the best part – even more than the places you visit – is the people you bond with, your new-found family who are like you, but also very different.

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December 25, 2023
Dilma Rousseff Fast Facts | CNN

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Here’s a look at the life of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

Birth date: December 14, 1947

Birth place: Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Birth name: Dilma Vana Rousseff

Father: Pedro Rousseff, construction entrepreneur

Mother: Dilma Jane (da Silva) Rousseff, teacher

Marriages: Carlos Araujo (1973-2000, divorced); Claudio Galeno Linhares (1968-early 1970s, divorced)

Children: with Carlos Araujo: Paula, 1976

Education: Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, B.A. Economics, 1977

Prior to running for president, she had never run for an elected office.

Joined the resistance movement against the military dictatorship and was jailed and allegedly tortured in the early 1970s.

Rousseff democratized Brazil’s electricity sector through the “Luz Para Todos” (Light for All) program, which made electricity widely available, even in rural areas.

1986 – Finance secretary for the city of Porto Alegre.

2003 – Is named minister of mines and energy by President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva.

2003-2010 – Serves as chair of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run oil company.

June 2005-March 2010 – Lula da Silva’s chief of staff.

April 2009 – Is diagnosed with stage one lymphoma and begins treatment. By September, she is declared cancer free.

October 31, 2010 – Wins a run-off election to become Brazil’s first female president.

September 21, 2011 – Becomes the first female leader to kick off the annual United Nations General Assembly debates.

2011 – Allegations of corruption are the basis of her dismissal of six cabinet ministers in her first year in office. Between June and December, her chief of staff, ministers of tourism, agriculture, transportation, sports and labor along with 20 transportation employees resign as a result of the scandal.

September 17, 2013 – The United States and Brazil jointly agree to postpone Rousseff’s state visit to Washington next month due to controversy over reports the US government was spying on her communications.

September 24, 2013 – In a speech before the UN General Assembly, Rousseff speaks about allegations that the US National Security Agency spied on her. “Tampering in such a manner in the lives and affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and, as such, it is an affront to the principles that should otherwise govern relations among countries, especially among friendly nations.”

2014 – Executives at Petrobras are accused of illegally “diverting” billions from the company’s accounts for their personal use or to pay off officials. Rousseff served as chair of Petrobras during many of the years when the alleged corruption took place. She denies any knowledge of the corruption.

October 26, 2014 – Is reelected president.

December 2, 2015 – A bid to impeach Rousseff is launched by the speaker of the country’s lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha. Rousseff has been accused of hiding a budgetary deficit to win reelection in 2014, and opponents blame her for the worst recession in decades.

April 17, 2016 – A total of 367 lawmakers in the Brazilian parliament’s lower house vote to impeach Rousseff, comfortably more than the two-thirds majority required by law. The impeachment motion will next go to the country’s Senate.

May 12, 2016 – The Brazilian Senate votes 55-22 to begin an impeachment trial against Rousseff. Rousseff will step down for 180 days and Vice President Michel Temer will serve as interim president while the trial takes place.

August 4, 2016 – After a final report concludes that reasons exist to proceed with formally removing Rousseff, the Brazilian Senate impeachment commission votes in favor of trying the suspended president in front of the full senate chamber.

August 25, 2016 – Rousseff’s impeachment trial begins.

August 31, 2016 – Brazil’s Senate votes 61-20 in favor of removing Rousseff from office.

September 5, 2017 – Corruption charges are filed against Rousseff, her predecessor Lula da Silva, and six Workers’ Party members. They are accused of running a criminal organization, to divert funds from state-owned oil firm Petrobras. The charges are related to Operation Car Wash, a lengthy money laundering investigation conducted by the Brazilian government. Lula da Silva, Rousseff, and the Workers’ party deny the allegations.

October 7, 2018 – Rousseff only receives 15% of the vote for senator in the general election.

March 24, 2023 – The New Development Bank announces its board of governors elected Rousseff as its new president.

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December 25, 2023
7 countries, 7 traditional Christmas feasts | CNN

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Christmas is celebrated in many ways in many corners of the globe, and the cuisine that marks the holiday is as diverse as the people feasting on it.

Christmas and Advent food traditions are comforting at a time when many people have had a challenging year. And Christmas dishes are particularly special in many households.

The typical Christmas meal may be different by destination, but the idea of indulging in a feast, be it on the day itself or the night before, isn’t.

Here’s a look at how locals celebrate Christmas through cuisine in seven countries. We asked hospitality experts about these traditions, and they shared their perspective on what’s typical for them as well as their families and friends.

The French enjoy their lavish holiday meal on December 24, says Francois Payard, the renowned pastry chef who grew up in Nice.

Locals sit down for dinner around 8 p.m., he says, and savor a first course of seafood. That usually means a lobster thermidor – a baked dish of the cooked crustacean mixed with mustard, egg yolks and brandy – or a shrimp scampi.

Then it’s on to a large capon – a male chicken that’s renowned for its tenderness – and a medley of sides including mashed potatoes and chestnuts sauteed with butter and topped with sage. “Chestnuts are a fixture in any Christmas meal for us,” says Payard.

Dessert, the grand finale, is a yule log, or bûche de Noël – the French version of a Christmas cake. Often two are served – one chocolate, the other chestnut. To drink, it’s the finest wine you can get your hands on, usually red from Burgundy that’s not too full-bodied for the capon.

On Christmas Day, the French savor a hearty brunch that may include creamy scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and toast. The meal finishes with assorted cheeses such as Brie, Gruyere and Munster, Payard says.

Similar to France, Italians celebrate Christmas with their biggest spread on the eve of the big day. Luca Finardi, the general manager of the Mandarin Oriental Milan, says that locals usually attend midnight Mass and enjoy a sumptuous meal before heading to church.

Smoked salmon with buttered crostini or a smoked salted cod is the precursor to the main meal. Italians from coastal areas such as the Amalfi Coast may start with a crudo such as sea bass with herbs and sea salt, says Finardi.

Next up is tortellini in brodo – stuffed pasta bathed in a hot broth of chicken and Parmesan cheese – the latter of which must come from the namesake region in Italy.

For the main meal, northern Italians tend to have stuffed turkey while those from seaside areas may tuck into a large baked sea bass surrounded by roasted potatoes and vegetables.

“The must no matter where you’re from is panettone – a typical sweet bread,” says Finardi. “The secret is to warm it up for just a few minutes.” Spumante, a sparkling wine, is the drink of choice.

As for the famous Italian Christmas meal of the feast of the seven fishes, Finardi says it’s limited mainly to the Campania region, which includes the Amalfi Coast and Naples.

Christmas Day is more about connecting with family and less about food, Finardi says. “We eat leftovers and recover from the day before.”

England

The Brits don’t typically indulge in their big holiday meal on Christmas Eve. “The 24th is for cooking with our families and going to the local pub for a pint,” says Nicola Butler, the owner of the London-based luxury travel company NoteWorthy.

The real festivities start on Christmas morning with a glass of champagne and a breakfast of smoked salmon and mince pieces, she says. Later that day, after the Queen’s annual Christmas speech is aired, it’s time for dinner.

That means a turkey or roast beef and a host of sides such as roasted parsnips and carrots, buttered peas and Brussels sprouts. Some families include Yorkshire pudding, a savory baked good of flour, eggs and milk made with meat drippings.

Dessert is Christmas pudding, which is actually a dark and dense cake made with dried fruits, spices and usually a splash of brandy. “We have lots of wine to go along with the food,” says Butler.

Maria Loi, the celebrity Greek chef, says that the country’s holiday celebrations begin on Christmas Eve around 7 p.m.

“Families sit around the fireplace and eat a special wheat bread that we make only at Christmas,” she says. “Some households also eat pork sausages. It’s the only [occasion] Greeks eat pork because the meat is not common in our cuisine.”

After attending an early morning holy communion on Christmas Day, Greeks go home for an all-day eating fest, says Loi.

Homemade honey cookies with walnuts or almonds come first followed by chicken soup with orzo. A few hours later, it’s on to either a roast chicken stuffed with chestnuts or variations of grilled or braised pork dishes. Sides such as sauteed wild greens, finely shredded romaine with scallions and feta cheese and roasted lemon potatoes accompany the entrée.

Dessert is light and could be baked apples with honey and walnuts or Greek yogurt topped with honey. To drink, Loi says Greeks favor red wine.

Mexicans get the Christmas festivities going on December 24, according to Pablo Carmona and Josh Kremer, co-founders of Paradero Hotels.

“Families start by breaking a piñata that’s filled with all sorts of locally made candies in chili and tamarind flavors,” says Kremer. Dinner follows usually somewhere between 7 and 10 p.m.

The meal starts with posole – a stew with big corn kernels and pork or beef that’s accompanied by as many as 20 condiments such as parsley, cilantro, chiles and assorted cheeses.

In a nod to the American influence in Mexico, the entrée – at least for Carmona and Kremer – is a turkey with all the trimmings such as mashed potatoes and green beans.

The sweet finish is often a creamy flan plus strawberries and cream. But the meal isn’t complete without tequilas and mezcals to go along with the food.

On the 25th, many Mexicans heat up the leftovers from the night before. “We’re tired so we don’t want to bother to cook,” says Carmona.

Many Costa Ricans celebrate Christmas with a middle-of-the-night extravaganza, says Leo Ghitis, owner of Nayara Hotels, in the country’s northern highlands. “We go to midnight Mass and come home and have a huge meal at 2 a.m.,” he says.

Homemade tamales, filled with either chicken or pork or vegetables and cheese, kick off the spread. Then it’s on to arroz con pollo, Costa Rica’s national rice dish that’s made with green beans, peas, carrots, saffron, cilantro and a chopped up whole chicken.

The third course is an assortment of grilled proteins. Costa Ricans who live along the coast have seafood such as marlin, tuna, mahi mahi, shrimp and lobster while inlanders tuck into beef, pork and chicken. Sides are the same for both: rice with black beans, boiled palm fruit with sour cream and a hearts of palm salad with avocado.

Dessert is typically a coconut flan and arroz con leche – rice with milk, sugar and cinnamon.

“We top off the meal with lots of rum punch and eggnog and don’t finish until 4 or 5 a.m.,” says Ghitis.

Christmas Day itself is about finishing leftovers and hitting the streets for outdoor parties, he says.

Christmas Day is the big food celebration for Bahamians, says Vonya Ifill, the director of talent and culture at Rosewood Baha Mar.

Locals have a big dinner that includes turkey, ham, macaroni and cheese, peas and rice made with coconut milk and potato salad.

“We have this feast in the evening and then at midnight go off and celebrate Boxing Day with a Junkanoo Festival,” she says. “After dancing and parading around all evening and into the early morning hours, we end the festivities with a boiled fish or fish stew.”

The seafood, she says, is always accompanied by potato bread or Johnny Cake, a cornmeal flatbread.

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December 24, 2023
A timeline of Elijah McClain's death and the trials of the officers and paramedics accused of wrongdoing | CNN

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CNN
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Three police officers and two paramedics have faced juries on charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide stemming from the 2019 death of Elijah McClain in Aurora, Colorado.

But the path to court was anything but straightforward.

McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was confronted by police officers on August 24, 2019, after someone reported seeing a person wearing a ski mask who “looks sketchy.” After officers wrestled him to the ground and paramedics injected him with a potent sedative, McClain suffered a heart attack on the way to a hospital and died days later, authorities said.

Prosecutors initially declined to bring charges in his death, but the case received renewed scrutiny following the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in spring 2020. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed a special prosecutor to reexamine the case, and in 2021 a grand jury indicted three officers and two paramedics in McClain’s death.

The defendants have now faced juries in three separate trials in 2023, to different results. Officer Randy Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault, while officers Jason Rosenblatt and Nathan Woodyard were acquitted of all charges. Paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec will soon learn their fate.

Here’s a timeline of McClain’s death, the resulting investigation, the protests that brought renewed attention to the case and the criminal trials.

Three White officers stopped McClain in Aurora on August 24, 2019, while he was walking home from a convenience store in the Denver suburb after 10:30 p.m., according to a police overview of the incident.

Carrying iced tea in a plastic bag, McClain eventually was in a physical struggle with the officers after, police say, he resisted arrest.

Early in the encounter, an officer told McClain to stop, and when McClain kept walking, two officers grabbed his arms, the overview reads. McClain says, “Let me go … I’m an introvert, please respect the boundaries that I am speaking,” according to body camera footage from one of the officers.

After an officer asked him to cooperate so they could talk, McClain tells officers he had been trying to pause his music so he could hear them, and tells them to let him go, the overview reads.

Eventually, one officer is heard telling another that McClain tried to grab his gun.

All three officers tackled McClain to the ground, and Woodyard placed him in a carotid hold – in which an officer uses their biceps and forearm to cut off blood flow to a subject’s brain – police said in the overview document. McClain briefly became unconscious, and Woodyard released the hold, the document reads, citing the officers.

Body camera video of the encounter shows McClain at some point saying he couldn’t breathe.

Because the hold was used, department policy compelled the officers to call the fire department for help, authorities said. Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics arrived and saw McClain on the ground and resisting officers, the overview says.

Paramedic Cooper diagnosed McClain with “excited delirium” and decided to inject him with the powerful sedative ketamine, the overview says.

McClain suffered a heart attack on the way to a hospital, authorities said. Three days later, he was declared brain-dead and taken off life support.

The Adams County coroner’s office submitted an autopsy report on November 7, stating the cause and manner of death were “undetermined.” The report cited the scene investigation and examination findings as factors leading to that conclusion.

Roughly two weeks later, the Adams County district attorney, Dave Young, declined to file criminal charges against any of the first responders. In a letter to the Aurora police chief on November 22, Young referred to the undetermined cause of death as one of the factors.

“The evidence does not support a conclusion that Mr. McClain’s death was the direct result of any particular action of any particular individual,” Young wrote. “Under the circumstances of this investigation, it is improbable for the prosecution to prove cause of death beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of twelve. Consequently, the evidence does not support the prosecution of a homicide.”

Also on November 22, after the district attorney’s decision, Aurora police released the officers’ body camera videos.

“We certainly recognize and understand that this has been an incredibly devastating and difficult process for them over these last several weeks,” then-Police Chief Nick Metz said.

A police review board concluded that the use of force against McClain, including the carotid hold, “was within policy and consistent with training.”

City officials announced on February 6 they would hire an independent expert to review the case.

George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was fatally restrained by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. Bystander video of the encounter sets off outrage and leads to widespread protests, including in Aurora, under the Black Lives Matter movement.

In early June, the three officers who confronted McClain were assigned to administrative duties, primarily due to safety concerns because police and city employees were receiving threats, a police spokesperson said.

On June 9, Aurora police and city officials announced changes to police policies, including a ban on carotid holds.

Ten days later, Gov. Polis signed police accountability legislation into law, requiring all officers to use activated body cameras or dashboard cameras during service calls or officer-initiated public interactions. The measure also barred officers from using chokeholds.

Polis also signed an executive order appointing Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser to investigate McClain’s case, the governor announced on June 25. More than 2 million people had signed a petition urging officials to conduct a new investigation.

On June 27, protesters in the Aurora area gathered on Highway 225, temporarily shutting it down in a demonstration calling for justice in McClain’s death.

On June 30, the US attorney’s office for Colorado, the US Department of Justice’s civil rights division and the FBI’s Denver division announced they have been reviewing the case since 2019 for potential federal civil rights violations.

Aurora police on July 3 fired two officers who they say snapped selfie photographs at McClain’s memorial site, located where he was killed, while they were on duty.

Officer Rosenblatt also was fired, with police saying he received the photo in a text and replied, “ha ha,” and did not notify supervisors. The photos were taken on October 20, 2019.

A third officer seen in the photos resigned days before a pre-disciplinary hearing, police said.

On July 20, the Aurora City Council approved a resolution for an independent investigation of McClain’s death to proceed.

The McClain family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Aurora on August 11.

“Aurora’s unconstitutional conduct on the night of August 24, 2019, is part of a larger custom, policy, and practice of racism and brutality, as reflected by its conduct both before and after its murder of Elijah McClain, a young Black man,” the lawsuit stated.

On the same day, Aurora city officials announced the police department would undergo a “comprehensive review” by external experts on civil rights and public safety.

Aurora city officials released a 157-page report on February 22, detailing the findings of the independent investigation it commissioned into McClain’s death.

The report asserted that officers did not have the legal basis to stop, frisk or restrain McClain. It also criticized emergency medical responders’ decision to inject him with ketamine and rebuked the police department for failing to seriously question the officers after the death.

Elijah McClain’s mom has watched the bodycam video ‘over and over’

Sheneen McClain, Elijah’s mother, cried while reading the report.

“It was overwhelming knowing my son was innocent the entire time and just waiting on the facts and proof of it,” Sheneen McClain told CNN at the time. “My son’s name is cleared now. He’s no longer labeled a suspect. He is actually a victim.”

Elijah McClain’s father said the report only confirmed what the family already knew. “The Aurora police and medics who murdered my son must be held accountable,” LaWayne Mosley said after the report’s release.

In response to the report, city officials began work on establishing an independent monitor to scrutinize police discipline, Aurora City Manager Jim Twombly said.

“I believe the investigative team has identified the issue that is at the root of the case: the failure of a system of accountability,” Twombly said after the report’s release.

On September 1, the state attorney general announced a grand jury indicted officers Roedema, Rosenblatt and Woodyard and paramedics Cichuniec and Cooper.

Each was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide as part of a 32-count indictment.

Roedema and Rosenblatt also were indicted on one count of assault and one count of crime of violence. Cooper and Cichuniec were further indicted on three counts of assault and six counts of crime of violence.

“Our goal is to seek justice for Elijah McClain, for his family and friends and for our state,” Weiser, the state attorney general, said. “In so doing, we advance the rule of law and our commitment that everyone is accountable and equal under the law.”

The charges brought McClain’s parents to tears. “I started crying because it’s been two years,” Sheneen McClain said. “It’s been a long journey.”

“Nothing will bring back my son, but I am thankful that his killers will finally be held accountable,” Mosley, his father, said through the attorney’s release.

On September 15, the Colorado attorney general’s office released a 112-page report that found the Aurora police had a pattern of practicing racially biased policing, excessive force, and had failed to record legally required information when interacting with the community. The report also found the police department used force against people of color almost 2.5 times more than against White people.

The state investigation also revealed the fire department had a pattern and practice of administering ketamine illegally, the attorney general’s office said.

The state attorney general’s office and the city of Aurora agreed November 16 on terms of a consent decree to address the issues raised in the office’s report two months earlier.

On November 19, the city finalized an agreement to pay $15 million to McClain’s family to settle the federal civil rights lawsuit.

The cause of death in McClain’s case was changed in light of evidence from the grand jury’s investigation, according to an amended autopsy report publicly released September 23.

The initial autopsy report had said the cause of death was undetermined. But the amended report listed “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint” as the cause of death.

The manner of death remained undetermined in the amended report.

“Simply put, this dosage of ketamine was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose, even though the blood ketamine level was consistent with a ‘therapeutic’ concentration,” pathologist Dr. Stephen Cina wrote in the amended autopsy report. “I believe that Mr. McClain would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine.”

Cina could not determine whether the carotid hold contributed to the death, but “I have seen no evidence that injuries inflicted by the police contributed,” he wrote.

On September 20, Roedema and Rosenblatt, two of the officers who arrested McClain, stood trial on charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and assault.

Prosecutors said they used excessive force on McClain, failed to follow their training and misled paramedics about his health status. In contrast, defense attorneys placed blame on McClain for resisting arrest and on the paramedics who treated him.

Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault. Rosenblatt was acquitted of all charges.

On October 16, the third officer, Woodyard, stood trial on charges of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Like in the earlier trial, prosecutors argued he used excessive force on McClain, while defense attorneys argued the force was necessary and blamed the paramedics.

Woodyard was found not guilty on all charges.

McClain’s mother Sheneen told CNN affiliate KUSA she no longer has faith in the justice system after Woodyard’s acquittal.

“It lets us down, not just people of color, it lets down everybody,” she said. “They don’t do the right thing, they always do the bare minimum.”

Cooper and Cichuniec, the paramedics who treated McClain, stood trial on charges of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

Both paramedics testified they believed McClain was experiencing “excited delirium” during his confrontation with Aurora police officers, and their treatment protocol was to administer a ketamine dose they believed was safe and would not kill a person.

Prosecutors said the paramedics “didn’t take any accountability for any single one of their actions” while testifying at their trial.

“They both stood there while Elijah got worse and worse and did nothing,” Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson said. “They are both responsible.”

Cooper and Cichuniec were found guilty of criminally negligent homicide Friday.

Cichuniec was also found guilty of a second-degree unlawful administration of drugs assault charge.

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December 22, 2023
Jon Corzine Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

Here’s a look at the life of Jon Corzine, former governor of New Jersey.

Birth date: January 1, 1947

Birth place: Willey’s Station, Illinois

Birth name: Jon Stevens Corzine

Father: Roy Allen Corzine Jr., farmer

Mother: Nancy (Hedrick) Corzine, teacher

Marriages: Sharon Elghanayan (2010-present); Joanne Dougherty (1969-2003, divorced)

Children: with Joanne Dougherty: Jennifer, Joshua and Jeffrey

Education: University of Illinois, B.A., 1969; University of Chicago, M.B.A., 1973

Military: United States Marine Corps Reserves, Sergeant, 1969-1975

Religion: Methodist

Is the third New Jersey governor to break a leg while in office. Jim McGreevey broke his leg in 2002 and Christie Whitman broke hers in 1999.

1975 – Begins working for Goldman Sachs.

1980 – Is named a partner at Goldman Sachs.

1994-1999 – Chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs.

November 7, 2000 – Is elected to the United States Senate.

2001-2006 – United States Senator representing New Jersey.

November 8, 2005 – Is elected governor of New Jersey.

January 17, 2006-January 19, 2010 – 54th governor of New Jersey.

July 1, 2006 – Orders a government shutdown amid a budgetary impasse between the state legislature and his office. It ends on July 8th.

December 21, 2006 – Corzine signs a bill legalizing same-sex civil unions.

April 12, 2007 – Is seriously injured in a car accident. According to official reports, Corzine’s driver was going 90mph in a 65mph zone, and Corzine was not wearing a seat belt.

December 17, 2007 – Signs legislation repealing the death penalty.

November 3, 2009 – Is defeated in his re-election bid by Republican Chris Christie.

March 23, 2010 – Is named CEO of MF Global.

October 31, 2011 – MF Global files for bankruptcy after it is revealed that more than $600 million of customer money is missing.

November 4, 2011 – Corzine resigns from MF Global.

December 2011 – Corzine testifies multiple times before both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, claiming he does not know where the missing customer money went.

November 15, 2012 – The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations releases a report saying that Corzine’s risky decisions led to the loss of customer funds.

April 4, 2013 – Louis Freeh, bankruptcy trustee for MF Global and former head of the FBI, releases a report blaming the demise of the commodities trading firm on Corzine.

April 23, 2013 – Louis Freeh files a lawsuit against Corzine and two lieutenants at MF Global saying their risky decisions led to the company’s bankruptcy and the improper use of the client’s money to cover losses.

November 5, 2013 – A bankruptcy judge approves a recovery plan that will allow almost 26,000 customers to collect 100 cents on the dollar of a combined $1.6 billion in lost investments from MF Global.

March 11, 2014 – Corzine’s youngest son, Jeffrey Corzine, 31, commits suicide.

December 23, 2014 – A New York federal court orders MF Global Holdings to pay restitution in the amount of $1.212 billion, plus a $100 million civil penalty for its subsidiary’s misuse of funds.

January 5, 2017 – The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission says a federal court ordered Corzine to pay a $5 million penalty for his role in MF Global’s “Unlawful use of customer funds” and his “failure to diligently supervise the handling of customer funds.”

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December 20, 2023
Ted Cruz Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

Here’s a look at the life of Ted Cruz, Republican senator from Texas and former 2016 presidential candidate.

Birth date: December 22, 1970

Birth place: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Birth name: Rafael Edward Cruz

Father: Rafael Cruz, pastor

Mother: Eleanor Darragh, computer programmer

Marriage: Heidi (Nelson) Cruz (2001-present)

Children: Caroline and Catherine

Education: Princeton University, B.A. in Public Policy, 1992; Harvard Law School, J.D., 1995

Religion: Southern Baptist

His father, Rafael Cruz, left Cuba as a teenager in 1957 amid the nation’s revolution. During the Cuban revolution, Rafael Cruz sided with Fidel Castro against dictator Fulgencio Batista, but later became a critic of Castro.

While at Harvard Law School, Cruz was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and founder of the Harvard Latino Law Review.

First Hispanic US Senator from Texas.

Was a dual citizen of Canada and the United States until he renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014.

1996-1997 – Clerks for US Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

1997-1999 – Attorney with the Washington, DC-based law firm Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal.

1999-2000 – Domestic policy adviser during George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign.

2001 – Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice.

2001-2003 – Director of the Office of Policy Planning, with the Federal Trade Commission.

2003-2008 – Solicitor General of Texas. He is the first Hispanic to hold the position. He is also the longest serving solicitor general in Texas’ history.

2004-2009 – Adjunct law professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

2008-2012 – Attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in Houston.

May 29, 2012 – Wins enough votes in the Texas GOP senatorial primary to force a runoff.

July 31, 2012 – Defeats Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the runoff election for the Republican Senate nomination, by a vote of 57% to 43%.

November 6, 2012 – Elected US senator from Texas by defeating Democrat Paul Sadler, 56% to 41%.

November 14, 2012 – Named vice chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

January 3, 2013 – Sworn in as the 34th US senator from Texas.

September 24, 2013 – Reads Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham” as a bedtime story for his children during a 21-hour speech aimed at derailing President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.

June 2014 – His spokeswoman confirms that Cruz has renounced his Canadian citizenship, and is no longer a dual citizen of Canada and the United States.

March 23, 2015 – Cruz announces his candidacy for president in a 30-second video message posted on Twitter shortly after midnight. Later in the day he announces he is running for president during a speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

July 15, 2015 – A New York Times spokesperson confirms that Cruz’s memoir will appear on the New York Times’ bestseller list, a week after the newspaper rejected it as a bestseller because sales were allegedly inflated by “bulk purchases.” Cruz’s book “A Time for Truth” was published on June 30.

April 27, 2016 – Cruz formally names Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential running mate – a last-ditch move to regain momentum after being mathematically eliminated from winning the GOP presidential nomination outright.

May 3, 2016 – Cruz announces he is suspending his presidential bid after losing the Indiana primary.

May 10, 2016 – Ending speculation about whether he would take a break from Congress to prep for another presidential run in 2020, Cruz announces that he will campaign to keep his Senate seat in 2018.

September 23, 2016 – Cruz endorses Donald Trump for the presidency, surprising many after a contentious primary filled with nasty personal attacks and Cruz’s dramatic snub of Trump at the Republican National Convention, where he pointedly refused to endorse the nominee.

November 6, 2018 – Cruz defeats Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke 50.9% to 48.3% in the race for Senate in Texas, holding off the progressive online fundraising sensation.

March 15, 2019 – A watchdog group discloses that Cruz’s campaign has been fined $35,000 by the Federal Election Commission for failing to accurately report more than $1 million in loans that helped underwrite his first Senate bid in 2012.

July 13, 2020 – China announces sanctions against US officials, including Cruz, in retaliation for measures revealed on July 9 by the US Treasury Department over Beijing’s alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

January 6, 2021 – Cruz objects to Arizona’s Electoral College results during the joint session of Congress.

February 17, 2021 – Cruz travels to Cancun, Mexico, for vacation as a winter disaster in his home state leaves millions without power or water. He later says the trip “was obviously a mistake” and that “in hindsight I wouldn’t have done it.”

September 30, 2021 – The Supreme Court agrees to hear a case concerning Cruz’s 2018 campaign and consider regulations that limit money that committees can raise after the election to reimburse loans made before the election. On May 16, 2022, the Supreme Court rules in favor of Cruz. The court says that a federal cap on candidates using political contributions after an election to recoup personal loans made to their campaign is unconstitutional.

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December 15, 2023
Puerto Rico Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
—

Here’s a look at the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a self-governing US territory located in the Caribbean.

(from the CIA World Factbook)

Area: 9,104 sq km

Population: 3,057,311 (2023 est.)

Capital: San Juan

The people of Puerto Rico are US citizens. They vote in US presidential primaries, but not in presidential elections.

First named San Juan Bautista by Christopher Columbus.

The governor is elected by popular vote with no term limits.

Jenniffer González has been the resident commissioner since January 3, 2017. The commissioner serves in the US House of Representatives, but has no vote, except in committees. Gonzalez is the first woman to hold this position.

It is made up of 78 municipalities.

Over 40% of the population lives in poverty, according to the Census Bureau.

Puerto Ricans have voted in six referendums on the issue of statehood, in 1967, 1993, 1998, 2012, 2017 and 2020. The 2012 referendum was the first time the popular vote swung in statehood’s favor. Since these votes were nonbinding, no action had to be taken, and none was. Ultimately, however, Congress must pass a law admitting them to the union.

In addition to becoming a state, options for Puerto Rico’s future status include remaining a commonwealth, entering “free association” or becoming an independent nation. “Free association” is an official affiliation with the United States where Puerto Rico would still receive military assistance and funding.

1493-1898 – Puerto Rico is a Spanish colony.

July 25, 1898 – During the Spanish-American War, the United States invades Puerto Rico.

December 10, 1898 – With the signing of the Treaty of Paris, Spain cedes Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States. The island is named “Porto Rico” in the treaty.

April 12, 1900 – President William McKinley signs the Foraker Act into law. It designates the island an “unorganized territory,” and allows for one delegate from Puerto Rico to the US House of Representatives with no voting power.

March 2, 1917 – President Woodrow Wilson signs the Jones Act into law, granting the people of Puerto Rico US citizenship.

May 1932 – Legislation changes the name of the island back to Puerto Rico.

November 1948 – The first popularly elected governor, Luis Muñoz Marín, is voted into office.

July 3, 1950 – President Harry S. Truman signs Public Law 600, giving Puerto Ricans the right to draft their own constitution.

October 1950 – In protest of Public Law 600, Puerto Rican nationalists lead armed uprisings in several Puerto Rican towns.

November 1, 1950 – Puerto Rican nationalists Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola attempt to shoot their way into Blair House, where President Truman is living while the White House is being renovated. Torresola is killed by police; Collazo is arrested and sent to prison.

June 4, 1951 – In a plebiscite vote, more than three-quarters of Puerto Rican voters approve Public Law 600.

February 1952 – Delegates elected to a constitutional convention approve a draft of the constitution.

March 3, 1952 – Puerto Ricans vote in favor of the constitution.

July 25, 1952 – Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth as the constitution is put in place. This is also the anniversary of the United States invasion of Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.

March 1, 1954 – Five members of the House of Representatives are shot on the House floor; Alvin Bentley, (R-MI), Ben Jensen (R-IA), Clifford Davis (D-TN), George Fallon (D-MD) and Kenneth Roberts (D-AL). Four Puerto Rican nationalists, Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero and Irving Flores Rodriguez, are arrested and sent to prison. President Jimmy Carter grants Cordero clemency in 1977 and commutes all four of their sentences in 1979.

July 23, 1967 – Commonwealth status is upheld via a status plebiscite.

1970 – The resident commissioner gains the right to vote in committee via an amendment to the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970.

September 18, 1989 – Hurricane Hugo hits the island as a Category 4 hurricane causing more than $1 billion in property damages.

November 14, 1993 – Commonwealth status is upheld via a plebiscite.

September 21, 1998 – Hurricane Georges hits the island causing an estimated $1.75 billion in damage.

August 6, 2009 – Sonia Sotomayor, who is of Puerto Rican descent, is confirmed by the US Senate (68-31). She becomes the third woman and the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

November 6, 2012 – Puerto Ricans vote for statehood via a status plebiscite. The results are deemed inconclusive.

August 3, 2015 – Puerto Rico defaults on its monthly debt for the first time in its history, paying only $628,000 toward a $58 million debt.

December 31, 2015 – The first case of the Zika virus is reported on the island.

January 4, 2016 – Puerto Rico defaults on its debt for the second time.

May 2, 2016 – Puerto Rico defaults on a $422 million debt payment.

June 30, 2016 – President Barack Obama signs the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), a bill that establishes a seven-member board to oversee the commonwealth’s finances. The following day Puerto Rico defaults on its debt payment.

January 4, 2017 – The Puerto Rico Admission Act is introduced to Congress by Rep. Gonzalez.

May 3, 2017 – Puerto Rico files for bankruptcy. It is the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history.

June 5, 2017 – Puerto Rico declares its Zika epidemic is over. The Puerto Rico Department of Health has reported more than 40,000 confirmed cases of the Zika virus since the outbreak began in 2016.

June 11, 2017 – Puerto Ricans vote for statehood via a status plebiscite. Over 97% of the votes are in favor of statehood, but only 23% of eligible voters participate.

September 20, 2017 – Hurricane Maria makes landfall near Yabucoa in Puerto Rico as a Category 4 hurricane. It is the strongest storm to hit the island in 85 years. The energy grid is heavily damaged, with an island-wide power outage.

September 22, 2017 – The National Weather Service recommends the evacuation of about 70,000 people living near the Guajataca River in northwest Puerto Rico because a dam is in danger of failing.

October 3, 2017 – President Donald Trump visits. The trip comes after mounting frustration with the federal response to the storm. Many residents remain without power and continue to struggle to get access to food and fuel nearly two weeks after the storm hit.

December 18, 2017 – Gov. Ricardo Rosselló orders a review of deaths related to Hurricane Maria as the number could be much higher than the officially reported number. The announcement from the island’s governor follows investigations from CNN and other news outlets that called into question the official death toll of 64.

January 22, 2018 – Rosselló announces that the commonwealth will begin privatizing the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.

January 30, 2018 – More than four months after Maria battered Puerto Rico, the Federal Emergency Management Agency tells CNN it is halting new shipments of food and water to the island. Distribution of its stockpiled 46 million liters of water and four million meals and snacks will continue. The agency believes that amount is sufficient until normalcy returns.

February 11, 2018 – An explosion and fire at a power substation causes a blackout in parts of northern Puerto Rico, according to authorities.

May 29, 2018 – According to an academic report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, an estimated 4,645 people died in Hurricane Maria and its aftermath in Puerto Rico. The article’s authors call Puerto Rico’s official death toll of 64 a “substantial underestimate.”

August 8, 2018 – Puerto Rican officials say the death toll from Maria may be far higher than their official estimate of 64. In a report to Congress, the commonwealth’s government says documents show that 1,427 more deaths occurred in the four months after Hurricane Maria than “normal,” compared with deaths that occurred the previous four years. The 1,427 figure also appears in a report published July 9.

August 28, 2018 – The Puerto Rican government raises its official death toll from Maria to 2,975 after a report on storm fatalities is published by researchers at George Washington University. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, a critic of the Trump administration, says local and federal government failed to provide needed aid. She says the botched recovery effort led to preventable deaths.

August 29, 2018 – Trump says the federal government’s response to the disaster was “fantastic.” He says problems with the island’s aging infrastructure created challenges for rescue workers.

September 4, 2018 – The US Government Accountability Office releases a report revealing that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was so overwhelmed with other storms by the time Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico that more than half of the workers it was deploying to disasters were known to be unqualified for the jobs they were doing in the field.

September 13, 2018 – In a tweet, Trump denies that nearly 3,000 people died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. He expresses skepticism about the death toll, suggesting that individuals who died of other causes were included in the hurricane count.

July 9, 2019 – Excerpts of profanity-laden, homophobic and misogynistic messages between Rosselló and members of his inner circle are published by local media.

July 10, 2019 – Six people, including Puerto Rico’s former education secretary and a former health insurance official, are indicted on corruption charges. The conspiracy allegedly involved directing millions of dollars in government contracts to politically-connected contractors.

July 11, 2019 – A series of protests begin in response to the leaked messages and the indictment, with calls for Rosselló to resign.

July 13, 2019 – The Center for Investigative Journalism publishes hundreds of leaked messages from Rosselló and other officials. Rosselló and members of his inner circle ridicule numerous politicians, members of the media and celebrities.

July 24, 2019 – Rosselló announces he will resign on August 2.

August 7, 2019 – Puerto Rico’s Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez Garced is sworn in as the third governor Puerto Rico has had in less than a week. Earlier in the day, the August 2nd swearing-in of Rosselló’s handpicked successor, attorney Pedro Pierluisi, is thrown out by the Supreme Court, on grounds he has not been confirmed by both chambers of the legislature.

September 27, 2019 – The federal control board that oversees Puerto Rico’s finances releases a plan that would cut the island’s debt by more than 60% and rescue it from bankruptcy. The plan targets bonds and other debt held by the government and will now go before a federal judge. The percentage of Puerto Rico’s taxpayer funds spent on debt payments will fall to less than 9%, compared to almost 30% before the restructuring.

December 28, 2019 – A sequence of earthquakes of magnitude 2.0 or higher begin hitting Puerto Rico, including a 6.4 magnitude quake on January 7 that killed at least one man, destroyed homes and left most of the island without power.

February 4, 2020 – A magnitude 5 earthquake strikes Puerto Rico. It is the 11th earthquake of at least that size in the past 30 days, according to the US Geological Survey.

November 3, 2020 – Puerto Ricans vote in favor of statehood, and Pierluisi is elected governor.

January 2, 2021 – Pierluisi is sworn in.

April 21, 2022 – The Supreme Court rules that Congress can exclude residents of Puerto Rico from some federal disability benefits available to those who live in the 50 states.

August 4, 2022 – Vázquez is arrested in San Juan on bribery charges connected to the financing of her 2020 campaign.

September 18, 2022 – Hurricane Fiona makes landfall along the southwestern coast of Puerto Rico, near Punta Tocon, with winds of 85 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. The hurricane causes catastrophic flooding, amid a complete power outage. Two people are killed.

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December 15, 2023
American woman accused of conspiring to kill her husband released on bail in the Bahamas | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Lindsay Shiver of Thomasville, Georgia, pleaded not guilty on Friday, Dec. 8, to killing her estranged husband in a Bahamian court during her formal arraignment.

CNN
—

American Lindsay Shiver, accused of conspiring to kill her husband with two co-defendants in the Bahamas, was granted bail of $100,000 by a Bahamian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday.

She will be outfitted with an electronic monitoring device and must comply with an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. As Shiver walked into court wearing ripped jeans and a T-shirt, spectators yelled questions but it did not appear she replied to anyone.

Shiver must report to the Cable Beach Police Station in Nassau three times per week. She must also not come within 100 feet of her husband, as part of her bail conditions.

When Bahamian Supreme Court Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson finished laying out the conditions of Shiver’s bail, Shiver responded with a soft “OK.” After Shiver picks up her electronic monitoring device, she will be allowed to go to her new residence without returning to jail, her attorney Ian Cargill told CNN on Wednesday.

Shiver’s alleged co-conspirators, Terrance Adrian Bethel, 28, and Farron Newbold Jr., 29, had previously been released on $20,000 bail, Cargill told CNN on Friday.

Shiver, 36, of Thomasville, Georgia, is accused of unsuccessfully conspiring with the two Bahamas natives to kill her husband, Robert Shiver, on July 16 while on the Abaco Islands, months after the couple filed for divorce.

Police in the Bahamas successfully foiled the plot by acting on information found on a phone recovered during a separate criminal inquiry into a recent break-in at a local business, a Bahamian police source told CNN.

The defendants were arraigned last month, according to court documents. They were not required to enter pleas at that hearing.

Lindsay and Robert Shiver had filed for divorce in April, court records indicate.

Robert Shiver filed for divorce on April 5, and Lindsay Shiver filed for divorce the following day, according to the complaint listed on the Thomas County, Georgia, Clerk of Courts website.

Robert Shiver lists Lindsay’s “adulterous conduct” as a reason for divorce, saying the marriage is irrevocably broken, according to the filings viewed by CNN. The filing from Lindsay Shiver says she has “incurred debt beyond her means to pay,” and asks that her husband be made to pay.

Robert Shiver is an insurance executive and former Auburn University football player, court records and his company’s website show. Lindsay Shiver also attended Auburn University, according to social media posts.

Lindsay Shiver’s next court appearance is slated for October 5.

CNN has reached out to attorneys representing each of them in the divorce case.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly spelled the name of Bahamian Supreme Court Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson.

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December 8, 2023
2023 In Review Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
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Here is a look back at the events of 2023.

January 3 – Republican Kevin McCarthy fails to secure enough votes to be elected Speaker of the House in three rounds of voting. On January 7, McCarthy is elected House speaker after multiple days of negotiations and 15 rounds of voting. That same day, the newly elected 118th Congress is officially sworn in.

January 7 – Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, is pulled over for reckless driving. He is hospitalized following the arrest and dies three days later from injuries sustained during the traffic stop. Five officers from the Memphis Police Department are fired. On January 26, a grand jury indicts the five officers. They are each charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. On September 12, the five officers are indicted by a federal grand jury on several charges including deprivation of rights.

January 9 – The White House counsel’s office confirms that several classified documents from President Joe Biden’s time as vice president were discovered last fall in an office at the Penn Biden Center. On January 12, the White House counsel’s office confirms a small number of additional classified documents were located in President Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.

January 13 – The Trump Organization is fined $1.6 million – the maximum possible penalty – by a New York judge for running a decade-long tax fraud scheme.

January 21 – Eleven people are killed in a mass shooting at a dance studio in Monterey Park, California, as the city’s Asian American community was celebrating Lunar New Year. The 72-year-old gunman is found dead the following day from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

January 24 – CNN reports that a lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence discovered about a dozen documents marked as classified at Pence’s Indiana home last week, and he has turned those classified records over to the FBI.

January 25 – Facebook-parent company Meta announces it will restore former President Donald Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram in the coming weeks, just over two years after suspending him in the wake of the January 6 Capitol attack.

February 1 – Tom Brady announces his retirement after 23 seasons in the NFL.

February 2 – Defense officials announce the United States is tracking a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States. On February 4, a US military fighter jet shoots down the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean. On June 29, the Pentagon reveals the balloon did not collect intelligence while flying over the country.

February 3 – A Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derails in East Palestine, Ohio. An evacuation order is issued for the area within a mile radius of the train crash. The order is lifted on February 8. After returning to their homes, some residents report they have developed a rash and nausea.

February 7 – Lebron James breaks the NBA’s all-time scoring record, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

February 15 – Payton Gendron, 19, who killed 10 people in a racist mass shooting at a grocery store in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo last May, is sentenced to life in prison.

February 18 – In a statement, the Carter Center says that former President Jimmy Carter will begin receiving hospice care at his home in Georgia.

February 20 – President Biden makes a surprise trip to Kyiv for the first time since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago.

February 23 – Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly is sentenced to 20 years in prison in a Chicago federal courtroom on charges of child pornography and enticement of a minor. Kelly is already serving a 30-year prison term for his 2021 conviction on racketeering and sex trafficking charges in a New York federal court. Nineteen years of the 20-year prison sentence will be served at the same time as his other sentence. One year will be served after that sentence is complete.

February 23 – Harvey Weinstein, who is already serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York, is sentenced in Los Angeles to an additional 16 years in prison for charges of rape and sexual assault.

March 2 – SpaceX and NASA launch a fresh crew of astronauts on a mission to the International Space Station, kicking off a roughly six-month stay in space. The mission — which is carrying two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates — took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

March 2 – The jury in the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh finds him guilty of murdering his wife and son. Murdaugh, the 54-year-old scion of a prominent and powerful family of local lawyers and solicitors, is also found guilty of two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in the killings of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh on June 7, 2021.

March 3 – Four US citizens from South Carolina are kidnapped by gunmen in Matamoros, Mexico, in a case of mistaken identity. On March 7, two of the four Americans, Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown, are found dead and the other two, Latavia McGee and Eric Williams, are found alive. The cartel believed responsible for the armed kidnapping issues an apology letter and hands over five men to local authorities.

March 10 – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announces that Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by California regulators. This is the second largest bank failure in US history, only to Washington Mutual’s collapse in 2008. SVB Financial Group, the former parent company of SVB, files for bankruptcy on March 17.

March 27 – A 28-year-old Nashville resident shoots and kills three children and three adults at the Covenant School in Nashville. The shooter is fatally shot by responding officers.

March 29 – Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is detained by Russian authorities and accused of spying. On April 7, he is formally charged with espionage.

March 30 – A grand jury in New York votes to indict Trump, the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges. On April 4, Trump surrenders and is placed under arrest before pleading not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records. Prosecutors allege that Trump sought to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election through a hush money scheme with payments made to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He has denied the affairs.

April 6 – Two Democratic members of the Tennessee House of Representatives, Rep. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson, are expelled while a third member, Rep. Gloria Johnson, is spared in an ousting by Republican lawmakers that was decried by the trio as oppressive, vindictive and racially motivated. This comes after Jones, Pearson and Johnson staged a demonstration on the House floor calling for gun reform following the shooting at the Covenant School. On April 10, Rep. Jones is sworn back in following a unanimous vote by the Nashville Metropolitan Council to reappoint him as an interim representative. On April 12, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners vote to confirm the reappointment of Rep. Pearson.

April 6-13 – ProPublica reports that Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, have gone on several luxury trips involving travel subsidized by and stays at properties owned by Harlan Crow, a GOP megadonor. The hospitality was not disclosed on Thomas’ public financial filings with the Supreme Court. The following week ProPublica reports Thomas failed to disclose a 2014 real estate deal he made with Crow. On financial disclosure forms released on August 31, Thomas discloses the luxury trips and “inadvertently omitted” information including the real estate deal.

April 7 – A federal judge in Texas issues a ruling on medication abortion drug mifepristone, saying he will suspend the US Food and Drug Administration’s two-decade-old approval of it but paused his ruling for seven days so the federal government can appeal. But in a dramatic turn of events, a federal judge in Washington state says in a new ruling shortly after that the FDA must keep medication abortion drugs available in more than a dozen Democratic-led states.

April 13 – 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard is arrested by the FBI in connection with the leaking of classified documents that have been posted online.

April 18 – Fox News reaches a last-second settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, paying more than $787 million to end a two-year legal battle that publicly shredded the network’s credibility. Fox News’ $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is the largest publicly known defamation settlement in US history involving a media company.

April 25 – President Biden formally announces his bid for reelection.

May 2 – More than 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) go on strike for the first time since 2007. On September 26, the WGA announces its leaders have unanimously voted to authorize its members to return to work following the tentative agreement reached on September 24 between union negotiators and Hollywood’s studios and streaming services, effectively ending the months-long strike.

May 9 – A Manhattan federal jury finds Trump sexually abused former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996 and awards her $5 million for battery and defamation.

June 8 – Trump is indicted on a total of 37 counts in the special counsel’s classified documents probe. In a superseding indictment filed on July 27, Trump is charged with one additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts, bringing the total to 40 counts.

June 16 – Robert Bowers, the gunman who killed 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, is convicted by a federal jury on all 63 charges against him. He is sentenced to death on August 2.

June 18 – A civilian submersible disappears with five people aboard while voyaging to the wreckage of the Titanic. On June 22, following a massive search for the submersible, US authorities announce the vessel suffered a “catastrophic implosion,” killing all five people aboard.

June 20 – ProPublica reports that Justice Samuel Alito did not disclose a luxury 2008 trip he took in which a hedge fund billionaire flew him on a private jet, even though the businessman would later repeatedly ask the Supreme Court to intervene on his behalf. In a highly unusual move, Alito preemptively disputed the nature of the report before it was published, authoring an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in which he acknowledged knowing billionaire Paul Singer but downplaying their relationship.

June 29 – The Supreme Court says colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis for granting admission, a landmark decision overturning long-standing precedent.

July 13 – The FDA approves Opill to be available over-the-counter, the first nonprescription birth control pill in the United States.

July 14 – SAG-AFTRA, a union representing about 160,000 Hollywood actors, goes on strike after talks with major studios and streaming services fail. It is the first time its members have stopped work on movie and television productions since 1980. On November 8, SAG-AFTRA and the studios reach a tentative agreement, officially ending the strike.

July 14 – Rex Heuermann, a New York architect, is charged with six counts of murder in connection with the deaths of three of the four women known as the “Gilgo Four.”

August 1 – Trump is indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, in the 2020 election probe. Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

August 8 – Over 100 people are killed and hundreds of others unaccounted for after wildfires engulf parts of Maui. Nearly 3,000 homes and businesses are destroyed or damaged.

August 14 – Trump and 18 others are indicted by an Atlanta-based grand jury on state charges stemming from their efforts to overturn the former president’s 2020 electoral defeat. Trump now faces a total of 91 charges in four criminal cases, in four different jurisdictions — two federal and two state cases. On August 24, Trump surrenders at the Fulton County jail where he is processed and released on bond.

August 23 – Eight Republican presidential candidates face off in the first primary debate of the 2024 campaign in Milwaukee.

September 12 – House Speaker McCarthy announces he is calling on his committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden, even as they have yet to prove allegations he directly profited off his son’s foreign business deals.

September 14 – Hunter Biden is indicted by special counsel David Weiss in connection with a gun he purchased in 2018, the first time in US history the Justice Department has charged the child of a sitting president. The three charges include making false statements on a federal firearms form and possession of a firearm as a prohibited person.

September 22 – New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez is charged with corruption-related offenses for the second time in 10 years. Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes” in exchange for the senator’s influence, according to the newly unsealed federal indictment.

September 28 – Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving female US senator in history, dies at the age of 90. On October 1, California Governor Gavin Newsom announces he will appoint Emily’s List president Laphonza Butler to replace her. Butler will become the first out Black lesbian to join Congress. She will also be the sole Black female senator serving in Congress and only the third in US history.

September 29 – Las Vegas police confirm Duane Keith Davis, aka “Keffe D,” was arrested for the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur.

October 3 – McCarthy is removed as House speaker following a 216-210 vote, with eight Republicans voting to remove McCarthy from the post.

October 25 – After three weeks without a speaker, the House votes to elect Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

October 25 – Robert Card, a US Army reservist, kills 18 people and injures 13 others in a shooting rampage in Lewiston, Maine. On October 27, after a two-day manhunt, he is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.

November 13 – The Supreme Court announces a code of conduct in an attempt to bolster the public’s confidence in the court after months of news stories alleging that some of the justices have been skirting ethics regulations.

November 19 – Former first lady Rosalynn Carter passes away at the age of 96.

January 8 – Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro storm the country’s congressional building, Supreme Court and presidential palace. The breaches come about a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in a runoff election on October 30.

January 15 – At least 68 people are killed when an aircraft goes down near the city of Pokhara in central Nepal. This is the country’s deadliest plane crash in more than 30 years.

January 19 – New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden announces she will not seek reelection in October.

January 24 – President Volodymyr Zelensky fires a slew of senior Ukrainian officials amid a growing corruption scandal linked to the procurement of war-time supplies.

February 6 – More than 15,000 people are killed and tens of thousands injured after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes Turkey and Syria.

February 28 – At least 57 people are killed after two trains collide in Greece.

March 1 – Bola Ahmed Tinubu is declared the winner of Nigeria’s presidential election.

March 10 – Xi Jinping is reappointed as president for another five years by China’s legislature in a ceremonial vote in Beijing, a highly choreographed exercise in political theater meant to demonstrate legitimacy and unity of the ruling elite.

March 16 – The French government forces through controversial plans to raise the country’s retirement age from 62 to 64.

April 4 – Finland becomes the 31st member of NATO.

April 15 – Following months of tensions in Sudan between a paramilitary group and the country’s army, violence erupts.

May 3 – A 13-year-old boy opens fire on his classmates at a school in Belgrade, Serbia, killing at least eight children along with a security guard. On May 4, a second mass shooting takes place when an attacker opens fire in the village of Dubona, about 37 miles southeast of Belgrade, killing eight people.

May 5 – The World Health Organization announces Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency.

May 6 – King Charles’ coronation takes place at Westminster Abbey in London.

August 4 – Alexey Navalny is sentenced to 19 years in prison on extremism charges, Russian media reports. Navalny is already serving sentences totaling 11-and-a-half years in a maximum-security facility on fraud and other charges that he says were trumped up.

September 8 – Over 2,000 people are dead and thousands are injured after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake hits Morocco.

October 8 – Israel formally declares war on the Palestinian militant group Hamas after it carried out an unprecedented attack by air, sea and land on October 7.

November 8 – The Vatican publishes new guidelines opening the door to Catholic baptism for transgender people and babies of same-sex couples.

November 24 – The first group of hostages is released after Israel and Hamas agree to a temporary truce. Dozens more hostages are released in the following days. On December 1, the seven-day truce ends after negotiations reach an impasse and Israel accuses Hamas of violating the agreement by firing at Israel.

Awards and Winners

January 9 – The College Football Playoff National Championship game takes place at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. The Georgia Bulldogs defeat Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs 65-7 for their second national title in a row.

January 10 – The 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards are presented live on NBC.

January 16-29 – The 111th Australian Open takes place. Novak Djokovic defeats Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets to win a 10th Australian Open title and a record-equaling 22nd grand slam. Belarusian-born Aryna Sabalenka defeats Elena Rybakina in three sets, becoming the first player competing under a neutral flag to secure a grand slam.

February 5 – The 65th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony takes place in Los Angeles at the Crypto.com Arena.

February 12 – Super Bowl LVII takes place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35. This is the first Super Bowl to feature two Black starting quarterbacks.

February 19 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wins the 65th Annual Daytona 500 in double overtime. It is the longest Daytona 500 ever with a record of 212 laps raced.

March 12 – The 95th Annual Academy Awards takes place, with Jimmy Kimmel hosting for the third time.

March 14 – Ryan Redington wins his first Iditarod.

April 2 – The Louisiana State University Tigers defeat the University of Iowa Hawkeyes 102-85 in Dallas, to win the program’s first NCAA women’s basketball national championship.

April 3 – The University of Connecticut Huskies win its fifth men’s basketball national title with a 76-59 victory over the San Diego State University Aztecs in Houston.

April 6-9 – The 87th Masters tournament takes place. Jon Rahm wins, claiming his first green jacket and second career major at Augusta National.

April 17 – The 127th Boston Marathon takes place. The winners are Evans Chebet of Kenya in the men’s division and Hellen Obiri of Kenya in the women’s division.

May 6 – Mage, a 3-year-old chestnut colt, wins the 149th Kentucky Derby.

May 8-9 – The 147th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show takes place at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York. Buddy Holly, a petit basset griffon Vendéen, wins Best in Show.

May 20 – National Treasure wins the 148th running of the Preakness Stakes.

May 21 – Brooks Koepka wins the 105th PGA Championship at Oak Hill County Club in Rochester, New York. This is his third PGA Championship and fifth major title of his career.

May 22-June 11 – The French Open takes place at Roland Garros Stadium in Paris. Novak Djokovic wins a record-breaking 23rd Grand Slam title, defeating Casper Ruud 7-6 (7-1) 6-3 7-5 in the men’s final. Iga Świątek wins her third French Open in four years with a 6-2 5-7 6-4 victory against the unseeded Karolína Muchová in the women’s final.

May 28 – Josef Newgarden wins the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500.

June 10 – Arcangelo wins the 155th running of the Belmont Stakes.

June 11 – The 76th Tony Awards takes place.

June 12 – The Denver Nuggets defeat the Miami Heat 94-89 in Game 5, to win the series 4-1 and claim their first NBA title in franchise history.

June 13 – The Vegas Golden Knights defeat the Florida Panthers in Game 5 to win the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.

June 18 – American golfer Wyndham Clark wins the 123rd US Open at The Los Angeles Country Club.

July 1-23 – The 110th Tour de France takes place. Danish cyclist Jonas Vingegaard wins his second consecutive Tour de France title.

July 3-16 – Wimbledon takes place in London. Carlos Alcaraz defeats Novak Djokovic 1-6 7-6 (8-6) 6-1 3-6 6-4 in the men’s final, to win his first Wimbledon title. Markéta Vondroušová defeats Ons Jabeur 6-4 6-4 in the women’s final, to win her first Wimbledon title and become the first unseeded woman in the Open Era to win the tournament.

July 16-23 – Brian Harman wins the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, Wirral, England, for his first major title.

July 20-August 20 – The Women’s World Cup takes place in Australia and New Zealand. Spain defeats England 1-0 to win its first Women’s World Cup.

August 28-September 10 – The US Open Tennis Tournament takes place. Coco Gauff defeats Aryna Sabalenka, and Novak Djokovic defeats Daniil Medvedev.

October 2-9 – The Nobel Prizes are announced. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all,” according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

November 1 – The Texas Rangers win the World Series for the first time in franchise history, defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-0 in Game 5.

November 5 – The New York City Marathon takes place. Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola sets a course record and wins the men’s race. Kenya’s Hellen Obiri wins the women’s race.

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December 7, 2023
Sandy Hook School Shootings Fast Facts | CNN

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Here’s a look at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. On December 14, 2012, six adults and 20 children were killed by Adam Lanza, who had earlier killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, in their home.

Birth date: April 22, 1992

Death date: December 14, 2012

Birth place: Kingston, New Hampshire

Birth name: Adam Lanza

Father: Peter Lanza, an accountant

Mother: Nancy (Champion) Lanza

Lanza’s parents were divorced in September 2009.

A 2014 report by the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate described Lanza as a young man with deteriorating mental health who had a fascination with mass shootings.

Weapons found at the scene were legally purchased by Nancy Lanza.

Lanza used a Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S rifle during the shooting spree. Three weapons were found next to his body; the semiautomatic .223-caliber rifle made by Bushmaster, and two handguns. An Izhmash Saiga-12, 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun was found in his car.

December 14, 2012 – At an unknown time, 20-year-old Adam Lanza kills his mother Nancy, 52, with a .22 caliber Savage Mark II rifle. Lanza then drives his mother’s car to Sandy Hook Elementary, about five miles away.

At approximately 9:30 a.m., Lanza arrives at Sandy Hook Elementary, a school with about 700 students. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, had installed a new security system that required every visitor to ring the front entrance’s doorbell for admittance. Lanza shoots his way through the entrance.

Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Sherlach step out to the hall to see what is going on, and are followed by Vice Principal Natalie Hammond. Hochsprung and Sherlach are killed, and Hammond is injured.

The first 911 calls to police are made at approximately 9:30 a.m. Police and first responders arrive approximately five minutes later.

Lanza enters the classroom of substitute teacher Lauren Rousseau. Lanza kills 14 children as well as Rousseau and a teacher’s aide.

He then enters the classroom of teacher Victoria Soto. Six children in the room, as well as Soto and a teacher’s aide, are killed. Lanza dies by suicide in the same classroom, ending the rampage in less than 11 minutes.

At about 3:15 p.m., an emotional President Barack Obama gives a televised address, “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” He orders flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and other federal buildings.

December 15, 2012 – Connecticut State Police release the names of the victims: six adult women and 12 girls and eight boys, all ages six and seven.

December 16, 2012 – Obama visits with the relatives of those who were killed. He also attends an interfaith vigil. “We can’t tolerate this anymore,” he says. “These tragedies must end, and to end them we must change.”

December 17, 2012 – Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy announces a statewide moment of silence on December 21. He also requests that bells be tolled 26 times in memory of the victims.

December 18, 2012 – Newtown Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson announces Sandy Hook students will remain out of school until January. At that time, they will be taught in a converted middle school.

January 8, 2013 – Malloy announces the names of the people who will serve on the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, to review current policy and make recommendations on public safety, mental health and violence prevention policies.

March 2013 – A new police report reveals Lanza possessed a list of 500 of the world’s most notorious mass murderers, and was trying to rack up the greatest number of kills in history.

November 25, 2013 – Connecticut state officials release a report closing the investigation into the shooting and confirm that Lanza had no assistance and was the only shooter.

December 4, 2013 – Audio recordings of the 911 calls from Sandy Hook Elementary are released.

December 27, 2013 – The final report on the investigation into the shooting is released.

November 21, 2014 – The Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate, as directed by the State Child Fatality Review Panel, releases a report profiling Lanza’s developmental and educational history. The report notes “missed opportunities” by Lanza’s mother, the school district and multiple health care providers. It identifies “warning signs, red flags, or other lessons” that could be learned.

December 15, 2014 – The families of nine children killed, along with one teacher who survived the attack, file a wrongful death suit against the manufacturers and distributors of the Bushmaster rifle, as well as the retail store and dealer who sold the firearm used in the shooting.

March 6, 2015 – The final report of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission is released.

December 17, 2015 – In a final agreement, 16 plaintiffs will share in a $1.5 million settlement against the estate of Nancy Lanza. The plaintiffs are from eight separate lawsuits filed in early 2015.

April 14, 2016 – A superior court judge rules that the wrongful death suit against gun manufacturers can proceed. The judge denies a motion to dismiss the case on the basis that firearms companies have limited liability when their products are used by criminals, according to a federal law passed in 2005.

October 14, 2016 – Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis dismisses a lawsuit that families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims had filed against a gun manufacturer, invoking a federal statute known as PLCAA, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The law prohibits lawsuits against gun manufacturers and distributors if their firearms were used in the commission of a criminal act.

November 15, 2016 – The Sandy Hook families file an appeal, asking the Connecticut Supreme Court to consider their case against the gun manufacturer.

March 14, 2019 – The Connecticut Supreme Court rules that the families of the Sandy Hook victims can go forward with their lawsuit against Remington, which makes the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle used in the shooting.

April 5, 2019 – Remington files an appeal with the US Supreme Court, asking the high court to decide on the state’s interpretation of a federal statute that grants gun manufacturers immunity from any lawsuit related to injuries that result from criminal misuse of their product.

November 12, 2019 – The US Supreme Court declines to take up the Remington appeal.

July 27, 2021 – Remington offers nearly $33 million to nine families of victims killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in a proposed lawsuit settlement.

November 15, 2021 – The families suing InfoWars founder Alex Jones win a case against him after a judge rules that Jones, and the entities owned by him, are liable by default in the defamation case against them. Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis cites the defendants’ “willful noncompliance” with the discovery process as her core reasoning behind the ruling. The case stems from past claims that the 2012 mass shooting was staged. Jones has since acknowledged that the shooting was real.

February 15, 2022 – A settlement is reached between the nine families of victims killed and the now-bankrupt Remington and its four insurers, according to court records. The plaintiffs’ attorneys say the $73 million settlement also includes “thousands of pages of internal company documents that prove Remington’s wrongdoing and carry important lessons for helping to prevent future mass shootings.”

August 4, 2022 – A jury decides that Jones will have to pay Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim, a little more than $4 million in compensatory damages.

October 12, 2022 – A Connecticut jury decides Jones should pay eight family members of Sandy Hook shooting victims and one first responder $965 million in compensatory damages caused by his lies regarding the shooting. On November 10, a Connecticut judge orders Jones to pay an additional $473 million in punitive damages.

November 13, 2022 – The Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial, designed by Dan Affleck and Ben Waldo, is unveiled publicly in Newtown, Connecticut.

October 19, 2023 – A federal bankruptcy judge rules that bankruptcy proceedings will not shield Jones from more than $1.1 billion in damages he owes the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims.

November 22, 2023 – In a court document, the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims offer Jones a “path out of bankruptcy” if he pays them a “small fraction” of the more than $1 billion he owes in damages, which could help resolve the bankruptcy cases of both Jones and Free Speech Systems. The families suggest Jones pay at least $85 million over 10 years — $8.5 million per year for a decade, in addition to half of any annual income over $9 million, “with a proportionate reduction of liabilities for each year of full payment.”

The Victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School

Allison Wyatt, 6
Ana Marquez-Greene, 6
Anne Marie Murphy, 52 (Teacher)
Avielle Richman, 6
Benjamin Wheeler, 6
Caroline Previdi, 6
Catherine Hubbard, 6
Charlotte Bacon, 6
Chase Kowalski, 7
Daniel Barden, 7
Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47 (Principal)
Dylan Hockley, 6
Emilie Parker, 6
Grace McDonnell, 7
Jack Pinto, 6
James Mattioli, 6
Jesse Lewis, 6
Jessica Rekos, 6
Josephine Gay, 7
Lauren Rousseau, 30 (Teacher)
Madeleine Hsu, 6
Mary Sherlach, 56 (Psychologist)
Noah Pozner, 6
Olivia Engel, 6
Rachel D’Avino, 29, (Therapist)
Victoria Soto, 27 (Teacher)

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December 6, 2023
Ebrahim Raisi Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
—

Here’s a look at the life of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi.

Birth date: December 14, 1960

Birth place: Mashhad, Iran

Full name: Sayyid Ebrahim Raisol-Sadati

Father: Seyyed Haji, a cleric

Mother: Sayyedeh Esmat Khodadad Husseini

Marriage: Jamileh Alamolhoda (1983-present)

Children: Two daughters

Education: Attended seminary in Qom; Shahid Motahari University, Ph.D in law

Religion: Islamic, Shiite Muslim

His father passed away when Raisi was 5 years old.

Wears a black turban, signifying that he is a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.

Has long opposed engagement with the West and is a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei.

Raisi is the first elected Iranian leader who is under US sanctions.

Early 1980s – Prosecutor for the cities of Karaj and Hamadan.

1985-1988 – Deputy prosecutor of Tehran, Iran.

1988 – According to different rights groups, Raisi is part of a four-person “death panel” which allegedly oversees the mass execution of up to 5,000 political prisoners. To date, Raisi has never publicly commented on these allegations, but it’s believed that he rarely leaves Iran for fear of retribution or international justice over the executions.

1989-1994 – Prosecutor general of Tehran.

1994-2004 – Head of the General Inspection Organization, tasked with investigating misconduct and corruption.

2004-2014 – First deputy chief justice.

2006 – Raisi is elected to the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that appoints the supreme leader.

2012 – Becomes prosecutor general of the Special Court for the Clergy.

2014-2016 – Prosecutor general of Iran.

2016-2019 – Custodian of Astan Quds Razavi, a foundation reportedly worth billions, and responsible for managing the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad.

May 19, 2017 – Loses in the presidential election to Hassan Rouhani, claiming 38.5% of the vote to Rouhani’s 57%.

March 7, 2019 – Ayatollah Khamenei appoints Raisi as chief justice.

March 12, 2019 – Elected deputy chief of the Assembly of Experts.

November 4, 2019 – The US Department of the Treasury sanctions Raisi, citing his participation in the 1988 “death commission” and also a United Nations report indicating that Iran’s judiciary approved the execution of at least nine children between 2018 and 2019.

June 19, 2021 – Is declared the winner of a historically uncompetitive presidential election in Iran. Raisi wins almost 18 million of the nearly 29 million ballots cast, according to Interior Minister Rahmani Fazli. Many reform-minded Iranians had refused to take part in an election widely seen as a foregone conclusion. Overall voter turnout was only 48.8% – the lowest since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.

June 21, 2021 – In his first international news conference since being elected president, Raisi says he would not meet with US President Joe Biden, even if both sides agreed on terms to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, under which Iran had pledged to stop uranium enrichment in return for the lifting of crippling US sanctions. Responding to a question from CNN, the president-elect accuses the United States and the European Union of violating the deal and calls on Biden to lift all sanctions, before adding that Iran’s ballistic missile program is “not up for negotiation.”

August 5, 2021 – Is officially sworn in as president.

November 2023 – Raisi attends a summit in Saudi Arabia where Arab and Muslim leaders decry Israeli “war crimes” in Gaza. Speaking at the summit, Raisi says “we have gathered here today to discuss the focus of the Islamic world, which is the Palestinian cause, where we’ve witnessed the worst crimes in history.”

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December 6, 2023
No antibiotics worked, so this woman turned to a natural enemy of bacteria to save her husband's life | CNN

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CNN
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In February 2016, infectious disease epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee was holding her dying husband’s hand, watching him lose an exhausting fight against a deadly superbug infection.

After months of ups and downs, doctors had just told her that her husband, Tom Patterson, was too racked with bacteria to live.

“I told him, ‘Honey, we’re running out of time. I need to know if you want to live. I don’t even know if you can hear me, but if you can hear me and you want to live, please squeeze my hand.’

“All of a sudden, he squeezed really hard. And I thought, ‘Oh, great!’ And then I’m thinking, ‘Oh, crap! What am I going to do?’”

What she accomplished next could easily be called miraculous. First, Strathdee found an obscure treatment that offered a glimmer of hope — fighting superbugs with phages, viruses created by nature to eat bacteria.

Then she convinced phage scientists around the country to hunt and peck through molecular haystacks of sewage, bogs, ponds, the bilge of boats and other prime breeding grounds for bacteria and their viral opponents. The impossible goal: quickly find the few, exquisitely unique phages capable of fighting a specific strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria literally eating her husband alive.

Next, the US Food and Drug Administration had to greenlight this unproven cocktail of hope, and scientists had to purify the mixture so that it wouldn’t be deadly.

Yet just three weeks later, Strathdee watched doctors intravenously inject the mixture into her husband’s body — and save his life.

Their story is one of unrelenting perseverance and unbelievable good fortune. It’s a glowing tribute to the immense kindness of strangers. And it’s a story that just might save countless lives from the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant superbugs — maybe even your own.

“It’s estimated that by 2050, 10 million people per year — that’s one person every three seconds — is going to be dying from a superbug infection,” Strathdee told an audience at Life Itself, a 2022 health and wellness event presented in partnership with CNN.

“I’m here to tell you that the enemy of my enemy can be my friend. Viruses can be medicine.”

How this ‘perfect predator’ saved his life after nine months in the hospital

During a Thanksgiving cruise on the Nile in 2015, Patterson was suddenly felled by severe stomach cramps. When a clinic in Egypt failed to help his worsening symptoms, Patterson was flown to Germany, where doctors discovered a grapefruit-size abdominal abscess filled with Acinetobacter baumannii, a virulent bacterium resistant to nearly all antibiotics.

Found in the sands of the Middle East, the bacteria were blown into the wounds of American troops hit by roadside bombs during the Iraq War, earning the pathogen the nickname “Iraqibacter.”

“Veterans would get shrapnel in their legs and bodies from IED explosions and were medevaced home to convalesce,” Strathdee told CNN, referring to improvised explosive devices. “Unfortunately, they brought their superbug with them. Sadly, many of them survived the bomb blasts but died from this deadly bacterium.”

Today, Acinetobacter baumannii tops the World Health Organization’s list of dangerous pathogens for which new antibiotics are critically needed.

“It’s something of a bacterial kleptomaniac. It’s really good at stealing antimicrobial resistance genes from other bacteria,” Strathdee said. “I started to realize that my husband was a lot sicker than I thought and that modern medicine had run out of antibiotics to treat him.”

With the bacteria growing unchecked inside him, Patterson was soon medevaced to the couple’s hometown of San Diego, where he was a professor of psychiatry and Strathdee was the associate dean of global health sciences at the University of California, San Diego.

“Tom was on a roller coaster — he’d get better for a few days, and then there would be a deterioration, and he would be very ill,” said Dr. Robert “Chip” Schooley, a leading infectious disease specialist at UC San Diego who was a longtime friend and colleague. As weeks turned into months, “Tom began developing multi-organ failure. He was sick enough that we could lose him any day.”

After that reassuring hand squeeze from her husband, Strathdee sprang into action. Scouring the internet, she had already stumbled across a study by a Tbilisi, Georgia, researcher on the use of phages for treatment of drug-resistant bacteria.

A phone call later, Strathdee discovered phage treatment was well established in former Soviet bloc countries but had been discounted long ago as “fringe science” in the West.

“Phages are everywhere. There’s 10 million trillion trillion — that’s 10 to the power of 31 — phages that are thought to be on the planet,” Strathdee said. “They’re in soil, they’re in water, in our oceans and in our bodies, where they are the gatekeepers that keep our bacterial numbers in check. But you have to find the right phage to kill the bacterium that is causing the trouble.”

Buoyed by her newfound knowledge, Strathdee began reaching out to scientists who worked with phages: “I wrote cold emails to total strangers, begging them for help,” she said at Life Itself.

One stranger who quickly answered was Texas A&M University biochemist Ryland Young. He’d been working with phages for over 45 years.

“You know the word persuasive? There’s nobody as persuasive as Steffanie,” said Young, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics who runs the lab at the university’s Center for Phage Technology. “We just dropped everything. No exaggeration, people were literally working 24/7, screening 100 different environmental samples to find just a couple of new phages.”

While the Texas lab burned the midnight oil, Schooley tried to obtain FDA approval for the injection of the phage cocktail into Patterson. Because phage therapy has not undergone clinical trials in the United States, each case of “compassionate use” required a good deal of documentation. It’s a process that can consume precious time.

But the woman who answered the phone at the FDA said, “‘No problem. This is what you need, and we can arrange that,’” Schooley recalled. “And then she tells me she has friends in the Navy that might be able to find some phages for us as well.”

In fact, the US Naval Medical Research Center had banks of phages gathered from seaports around the world. Scientists there began to hunt for a match, “and it wasn’t long before they found a few phages that appeared to be active against the bacterium,” Strathdee said.

Back in Texas, Young and his team had also gotten lucky. They found four promising phages that ravaged Patterson’s antibiotic-resistant bacteria in a test tube. Now the hard part began — figuring out how to separate the victorious phages from the soup of bacterial toxins left behind.

“You put one virus particle into a culture, you go home for lunch, and if you’re lucky, you come back to a big shaking, liquid mess of dead bacteria parts among billions and billions of the virus,” Young said. “You want to inject those virus particles into the human bloodstream, but you’re starting with bacterial goo that’s just horrible. You would not want that injected into your body.”

Purifying phage to be given intravenously was a process that no one had yet perfected in the US, Schooley said, “but both the Navy and Texas A&M got busy, and using different approaches figured out how to clean the phages to the point they could be given safely.”

More hurdles: Legal staff at Texas A&M expressed concern about future lawsuits. “I remember the lawyer saying to me, ‘Let me see if I get this straight. You want to send unapproved viruses from this lab to be injected into a person who will probably die.’ And I said, “Yeah, that’s about it,’” Young said.

“But Stephanie literally had speed dial numbers for the chancellor and all the people involved in human experimentation at UC San Diego. After she calls them, they basically called their counterparts at A&M, and suddenly they all began to work together,” Young added.

“It was like the parting of the Red Sea — all the paperwork and hesitation disappeared.”

The purified cocktail from Young’s lab was the first to arrive in San Diego. Strathdee watched as doctors injected the Texas phages into the pus-filled abscesses in Patterson’s abdomen before settling down for the agonizing wait.

“We started with the abscesses because we didn’t know what would happen, and we didn’t want to kill him,” Schooley said. “We didn’t see any negative side effects; in fact, Tom seemed to be stabilizing a bit, so we continued the therapy every two hours.”

Two days later, the Navy cocktail arrived. Those phages were injected into Patterson’s bloodstream to tackle the bacteria that had spread to the rest of his body.

“We believe Tom was the first person to receive intravenous phage therapy to treat a systemic superbug infection in the US,” Strathdee told CNN.

“And three days later, Tom lifted his head off the pillow out of a deep coma and kissed his daughter’s hand. It was just miraculous.”

Today, nearly eight years later, Patterson is happily retired, walking 3 miles a day and gardening. But the long illness took its toll: He was diagnosed with diabetes and is now insulin dependent, with mild heart damage and gastrointestinal issues that affect his diet.

“He isn’t back surfing again, because he can’t feel the bottoms of his feet, and he did get Covid-19 in April that landed him in the hospital because the bottoms of his lungs are essentially dead,” Strathdee said.

“As soon as the infection hit his lungs he couldn’t breathe and I had to rush him to the hospital, so that was scary,” she said. “He remains high risk for Covid but we’re not letting that hold us hostage at home. He says, ‘I want to go back to having as normal life as fast as possible.’”

To prove it, the couple are again traveling the world — they recently returned from a 12-day trip to Argentina.

“We traveled with a friend who is an infectious disease doctor, which gave me peace of mind to know that if anything went sideways, we’d have an expert at hand,” Strathdee said.

“I guess I’m a bit of a helicopter wife in that sense. Still, we’ve traveled to Costa Rica a couple of times, we’ve been to Africa, and we’re planning to go to Chile in January.”

Patterson’s case was published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in 2017, jump-starting new scientific interest in phage therapy.

“There’s been an explosion of clinical trials that are going on now in phage (science) around the world and there’s phage programs in Canada, the UK, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, India and China has a new one, so it’s really catching on,” Strathdee told CNN.

Some of the work is focused on the interplay between phages and antibiotics — as bacteria battle phages they often shed their outer shell to keep the enemy from docking and gaining access for the kill. When that happens, the bacteria may be suddenly vulnerable to antibiotics again.

“We don’t think phages are ever going to entirely replace antibiotics, but they will be a good adjunct to antibiotics. And in fact, they can even make antibiotics work better,” Strathdee said.

In San Diego, Strathdee and Schooley opened the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics, or IPATH, in 2018, where they treat or counsel patients suffering from multidrug-resistant infections. The center’s success rate is high, with 82% of patients undergoing phage therapy experiencing a clinically successful outcome, according to its website.

Schooley is running a clinical trial using phages to treat patients with cystic fibrosis who constantly battle Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a drug-resistant bacteria that was also responsible for the recent illness and deaths connected to contaminated eye drops manufactured in India.

And a memoir the couple published in 2019 — “The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband From a Deadly Superbug” — is also spreading the word about these “perfect predators” to what may soon be the next generation of phage hunters.

How naturally occurring viruses could help treat superbug infections

“I am getting increasingly contacted by students, some as young as 12,” Strathdee said. “There’s a girl in San Francisco who begged her mother to read this book and now she’s doing a science project on phage-antibiotic synergy, and she’s in eighth grade. That thrills me.”

Strathdee is quick to acknowledge the many people who helped save her husband’s life. But those who were along for the ride told CNN that she and Patterson made the difference.

“I think it was a historical accident that could have only happened to Steffanie and Tom,” Young said. “They were at UC San Diego, which is one of the premier universities in the country. They worked with a brilliant infectious disease doctor who said, ‘Yes,’ to phage therapy when most physicians would’ve said, ‘Hell, no, I won’t do that.’

“And then there is Steffanie’s passion and energy — it’s hard to explain until she’s focused it on you. It was like a spiderweb; she was in the middle and pulled on strings,” Young added. “It was just meant to be because of her, I think.”

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December 6, 2023
Breakthrough Women Fast Facts: Business, Education, US Government and Sports | CNN

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Here is a look at women in business, education, government and sports who have broken through the glass ceiling and become the first in their respective positions in the United States.

1739 – Elizabeth Timothy is the first woman newspaper publisher, of the South Carolina Gazette.

1867-1919 – Madam C.J. Walker is the first woman to become a self-made millionaire. Her business develops and sells hair care products for Black women.

1934 – Lettie Pate Whitehead is the first woman to serve as a director of a major corporation, the Coca-Cola Company.

1967 – Isabel Benham is the first female partner at a Wall Street bond house, R.W. Pressprich & Co.

1972 – Juanita Kreps becomes the first woman to serve as a director of the New York Stock Exchange. In 1977, she is the first woman appointed secretary of Commerce.

1972 – Katharine Graham is the first woman to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the Washington Post.

July 1999 – Carly Fiorina is the first woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 20 company, Hewlett-Packard.

October 1999 – Martha Stewart is the first woman to become a self-made billionaire. Her creative home brand includes books, a magazine, home furnishings and entertaining and gardening TV shows.

2011 – Beth Mooney is the first woman to serve as CEO of a top 20 US bank, KeyCorp.

2013 – Mary Barra is the first woman to serve as CEO of a major automaker, General Motors.

September 10, 2020 – Citigroup names Jane Fraser as CEO, the first woman to lead a major US bank.

December 12, 2022 – The Wall Street Journal names Emma Tucker as its next editor. Tucker will be the first woman to head the newspaper.

1648 – Margaret Brent of Maryland appears before a court to request the right to vote. She is considered the first woman to practice law.

July 16, 1840 – Catherine Brewer is the first in a group of 11 women to earn bachelor’s degrees, graduating from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.

1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman to receive a medical degree. She earns a M.D. from the Geneva Medical College in New York.

1866 – Lucy Hobbs is the first woman to receive a doctorate in dental surgery, graduating from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery.

1869 – Arabella Mansfield is admitted to the Iowa State Bar, becoming the first woman admitted to a state bar.

1870 – Ada Kepley graduates from Union College of Law in Chicago and is the first woman to earn a law degree.

1873 – Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earns a degree in chemistry.

1877 – Helen Magill becomes the first woman to earn a Ph.D., when she graduates from Boston University.

1872 – Victoria Claflin Woodhull becomes the first woman presidential candidate in the United States when she is nominated for the Equal Rights Party.

April 4, 1887 – Susanna Madora Salter is the first woman elected mayor of a US town, Argonia, Kansas.

1916 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to Congress. She serves just one term and then is elected again in 1940 for one term. During this time, she votes against participation in both World War I and World War II.

November 21, 1922 – Rebecca Felton is the first woman to serve in the US Senate. She is appointed by Georgia’s governor who wanted to win over female voters after his initial opposition to the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote. She serves 24 hours in this temporary vacancy during the session break.

January 5, 1925 – Nellie Tayloe Ross is the first woman to serve as a governor of a state, Wyoming. In May 1933, she also becomes the first woman to serve as director of the US Mint.

1928 – Genevieve R. Cline is the first woman appointed as a US federal judge. She is nominated to the US Customs Court by President Calvin Coolidge.

1932 – Hattie Wyatt Caraway is the first woman elected to the US Senate. She wins a special election after taking her late husband’s seat by appointment. She serves Arkansas in the Senate for nearly 14 years.

1933 – Frances Perkins is the first woman to be appointed US secretary of labor, making her the first woman to serve on a presidential cabinet. She is largely responsible for crafting much of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” labor and Social Security legislation.

1948 – Margaret Chase Smith of Maine is the first woman to win election to both houses of Congress. (She was elected to the House in 1940.) Her landmark legislation is the Armed Services Integration Act (giving women in the military full status).

June 21, 1949 – Georgia Neese Clark is the first woman to be named Treasurer of the United States. She is appointed by President Harry S. Truman.

1949 – Helen “Eugenie” Anderson is the first woman to serve as a United States ambassador. Under President Truman, Anderson serves as the ambassador to Denmark. Later, she also becomes the first woman to sign a diplomatic treaty, and the first woman to sit on the United Nations Security Council.

1960 – Oveta Culp Hobby becomes the first secretary of health, education, and welfare. Later, she is also the first director of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and the first woman to receive the US Army Distinguished Service Medal.

1964 – Margaret Chase Smith is the first woman placed in nomination for president of the United States by a major political party. At the Republican National Convention, she loses the nomination to Barry Goldwater.

1977 – Juanita Kreps is the first woman appointed secretary of commerce. In 1972, she was the first woman to serve as a director of the New York Stock Exchange.

December 6, 1979 – Shirley Hufstedler is sworn in as the first secretary of Education.

September 25, 1981 – Sandra Day O’Connor takes her seat as the first woman on the US Supreme Court. She was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

1983 – Elizabeth Dole becomes the first woman to serve as secretary of Transportation.

1984 – Geraldine Ferraro is the first woman nominated for vice president of the United States by a major party, at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

1990 – Dr. Antonia Novello is the first woman (and the first Hispanic person) to be appointed as US surgeon general.

January 21, 1993 – Hazel R. O’Leary is confirmed as the first woman to serve as US secretary of energy. She’s also the first African American to serve in that role.

March 11, 1993 – Janet Reno is confirmed as the first woman to serve as US attorney general.

August 5, 1993 – Sheila Widnall is confirmed by the Senate to serve as secretary of the Air Force, the first woman to serve as secretary of a branch of the US military.

January 23, 1997 – Madeleine Albright is sworn in as the first woman to serve as US secretary of state. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton.

December 17, 2000-2005 – Condoleezza Rice is the first woman to serve as national security adviser, to President George W. Bush.

January 2001 – Gale Norton becomes the first woman to serve as US secretary of the interior, and Ann Veneman is the first woman to serve as US secretary of agriculture. Both were nominated by President George W. Bush.

2001 – Fran Mainella is the first woman to be appointed director of the US National Park Service.

2007 – Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) becomes the first woman to serve as speaker of the House of Representatives.

2008 – Sarah Palin is the first woman to run for vice president as a Republican.

2008 – Ann Dunwoody is the first woman to receive a rank of four-star general in the US Army.

2009 – Janet Napolitano becomes the first woman to serve as US secretary of homeland security. Previously, Napolitano had been the first female chair of the National Governors Association and the first woman to serve as the attorney general of Arizona.

February 2014 – Janet Yellen becomes the first woman to chair the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

September 2014 – Megan Smith is the first woman to be appointed as US chief technology officer.

February 2015 – Megan Brennan becomes the first woman to serve as US postmaster general.

May 13, 2016 – Air Force General Lori Robinson is appointed to lead US Northern Command, becoming the nation’s first female combatant commander.

July 26, 2016 – Hillary Clinton is the first US woman to lead the ticket of a major party. She secures the Democratic nomination at the national convention in Philadelphia.

September 14, 2016 – Carla Hayden is sworn in as the first female librarian of Congress.

May 17, 2018 – Gina Haspel is confirmed as the first female director of the CIA.

December 7, 2018 – Beth Kimber becomes the first woman to lead the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.

June 29, 2019 – Maj. Gen. Laura Yeager becomes the first woman to lead a US Army infantry division.

December 31, 2020 – Pelosi’s office announces the appointment of Rear Adm. Margaret Grun Kibben as chaplain of the House of Representatives — the first woman to serve in the role in either chamber.

January 25, 2021 – Janet Yellen is confirmed as the first female Treasury secretary.

October 19, 2021 – Dr. Rachel Levine is sworn in as the first female four-star admiral for the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Levine is also the first openly transgender four-star officer across the nation’s eight uniformed services.

January 20, 2021 – Kamala Harris is sworn in as vice president of the United States, making her America’s first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president.

November 19, 2021 – US President Joe Biden temporarily transfers power to Harris while he is under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy. Harris becomes the first woman with presidential power.

December 15, 2021 – Keechant Sewell is selected as the next New York City police commissioner, leading the nation’s largest police department. She becomes the first woman to lead the NYPD in its 176-year history. Her appointment begins in January 2022.

December 1, 2022 – Admiral Linda Fagan becomes the first woman to lead a branch of the armed forces, as the 27th commandant of the US Coast Guard.

November 2, 2023 – Admiral Lisa Franchetti becomes the first woman to lead the Navy and the first woman in the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

READ MORE: Women Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates: A Selected List from the Center for American Women and Politics.

1997 – Dee Kantner and Violet Palmer become the first women to serve as referees in the NBA.

April 8, 2015 – Sarah Thomas becomes the first female to be a full-time NFL referee.

February 2, 2020 – Katie Sowers, offensive assistant for the San Francisco 49ers football team, becomes the first woman to coach in the Super Bowl.

July 20, 2020 – Alyssa Nakken, the first female coach on a Major League Baseball staff in league history, becomes the first woman to coach on the field during a major league game. Nakken coached first base during an exhibition game between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s.

November 13, 2020 – The Miami Marlins announce the hiring of Kim Ng as the team’s new general manager, making her the first woman GM in Major League Baseball history. She is believed to be the first woman hired as a GM to lead a professional men’s sports team in any North American major league.

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December 4, 2023
16 luxury hotels that go all-out for Christmas | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travel’s weekly newsletter. Get news about destinations opening, inspiration for future adventures, plus the latest in aviation, food and drink, where to stay and other travel developments.

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Twinkling lights, glitter, Champagne and petit fours. It’s time to treat yourself to some holiday cheer.

Luxury hotels serve up a glamorous way to brighten up the Christmas season, whether for an overnight stay or an elegant afternoon tea.

These lavish hotels are worth a closer look for a few hours of sipping tea and admiring Christmas decorations or for a spur of the moment escape or a future holiday splurge.

Natural mineral springs have drawn guests, including US presidents, to The Greenbrier for more than two centuries. The historic hotel opened in 1913.

Letters to Santa, a fun run and cookie decorating workshops are all part of The Greenbrier’s lineup in the days surrounding December 25.

On Christmas Eve, there’s a Season’s Greetings Dinner ($125 per adult; $55 per child) and a service in the resort’s chapel. On Christmas Day, puzzles and board games, indoor planetarium presentations and a Christmas musical will keep families entertained.

Rates start at $609.

The Greenbrier, 101 Main Street West, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia

The Fife Arms: Braemar, Scotland

Fishing, foraging and hiking are just outside at The Fife Arms, an antiques-packed, 19th-century retreat within Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands.

The hotel is 14.5 kilometers (nine miles) from Balmoral, the Royal Family’s residence in Scotland.

For winter guests, there’s a seasonal alpine fondue hut with a cozy fireplace. On the menu, a traditional Swiss option of molten cheese is joined by a Scottish take on the rich classic – a blend of two local cheeses and a local pale ale.

Rooms start at about $650 in late December. There’s also a special Christmas package, subject to availability.

The Fife Arms, Braemar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

“Serenity Season” is right on time at the Ojai Valley Inn, where spa treatments, golf, tennis, yoga and more can be incorporated into a restorative stay at this 220-acre coastal valley resort.

In December, caroling, a nightly Menorah lighting, breakfast with Santa and story time with Santa’s elves are among the festivities. On December 24, there’s a Jingle Bell Jaunt across the resort grounds.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner will be served at both Olivella and The Oak, and there’s a grand buffet on Christmas Day at The Farmhouse ($195 per adult, including wine; $65 for children 12 and younger).

December room rates start at $795 per night.

Ojai Valley Inn, Ojai, California

Tea time and Christmastime coincide at The Plaza’s elegant Palm Court, where three holiday tea menus will be available through December 31.

The Holiday Signature Tea ($155 per person) features savories and sweets, including a foie gras macaron and an oolong tea cheesecake.

Eloise, the hotel’s famous fictional resident, lends her name to a children’s tea available for $118 per child.

There’s a Christmas Day buffet ($325 for adults). And for New Year’s Eve, a lavish grand fête offering comes with a price tag to match: $995 per person.

The starting rate at The Plaza for Christmas week is $1,800 per night.

The Plaza, Fifth Avenue at Central Park South, New York

Anantara Golden Triangle: Chiang Rai, Thailand

As far as memorable holiday experiences go, it’s hard to beat sleeping in a clear bubble with elephants roaming right outside.

It’s possible at Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort in Thailand’s Chiang Rai province. The resort’s two-bedroom Jungle Bubble Lodge is transformed into snow globes for the holidays. Starlit skies and gentle giants add another layer to the magic.

The resort has a selection of more traditional luxury rooms, and guests can learn more about the beloved residents at Elephant Camp.

A Christmas Day brunch will showcase fresh, locally sourced ingredients.

Rooms start at about $1,660, including meals, airport transfers and some activities.

Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort, Wiang, Chiang Saen District, Chiang Rai

A sledding mountain, two outdoor skating rinks and a new Aurora Ice Lounge are just part of the annual Christmas at the Princess festival. Add 7.5 million lights, a train and more: It’s safe to say Fairmont Scottsdale Princess doesn’t believe in holding back for the holidays.

The festival, which runs through January 6, is open to the public. Free for hotel guests, the entrance fee is $35 per wristband with advance purchase; children three and under are admitted for free. Self-parking is $35 in advance.

Rooms start at $399. There are also holiday packages available.

Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, 7575 East Princess Drive, Scottsdale, Arizona

Rock House: Providenciales, Turks and Caicos

There’s certainly a lot to be said for a warm-weather Christmas that involves lounging poolside with a cocktail.

The luxury resort Rock House on the island of Providenciales in Turks and Caicos offers holiday programming from December 18 through January 3 including live music at al fresco restaurant Vita, a craft market, s’mores and more.

On Christmas Eve, guests are invited to a boat experience followed by brunch from chef Dennis Boon, and in the evening, a Feast of the Seven Fishes is followed by live entertainment at Vita.

A “Journey of the Mediterranean” Christmas dinner will features flavors from Greece, Morocco and Italy.

Christmas week rates start at $1,100 a night.

Rock House, Blue Mountain Road, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands

Historic Hôtel de Crillon delivers a next-level Parisian holiday.

From December 11 through January 1, a festive afternoon tea service with pastries and canapés is available at the Jardin d’Hiver for about $95 per person.

A seven-course Christmas Eve menu at L’Écrin starts at about $650. A lavish Christmas Day brunch, featuring items such as scallop carpaccio, roasted veal rack and black truffle mashed potatoes, is available for about $250 including a glass of Champagne.

The five-star property, originally built in 1758 under the direction of King Louis XV, overlooks Paris’ Place de la Concorde.

Over Christmas weekend, rooms start at $2,265.

Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel, 10 place de la Concorde, Paris

In the United States capital, the Willard InterContinental will host free nightly performances by local choral and vocal ensembles in the lobby through December 23, and signature holiday cocktails will be available in the famed Round Robin Bar.

Holiday afternoon tea – with finger sandwiches and pastries – will be served every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from December 2 through December 30 ($90 per adult or $102 with a glass of champagne; $65 per child).

Room rates in December start at $289.

Willard InterContinental, 1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC

Four Seasons: Hampshire and London, England

An hour from central London, Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire serves up a sophisticated country Christmas in an 18th-century manor on 500 acres of rolling meadows.

An equestrian center and other outdoor offerings will ensure a hearty appetite for holiday meals at Wild Carrot, afternoon tea in the Drawing Room or a cozy Swiss-inspired meal at the pop-up alpine restaurant Off Piste.

Hotel Hampshire rates during the Christmas season start at about $1,790.

For a sparkling city Christmas, guests at Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane will find an enchanted forest of chandeliers in the lobby, Christmas afternoon tea and other special holiday menus. Room rates start around $1,050 this season.

Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire and Four Seasons Hotel London Park Lane, England

Madeline Hotel & Residences: Telluride, Colorado

With 14,000-foot peaks as your backdrop, why not have a ski and spa Christmas?

Madeline Hotel & Residences in Telluride boasts luxurious ski-in/ski-out accommodation, with a spa that offers treatments such as Alpine Remedy Muscle Relief for your after-ski rejuvenation.

There’s a three-course Christmas Eve dinner that can be packed to-go or enjoyed at Black Iron Kitchen + Bar, featuring juniper-glazed Cornish game hen or herb-crusted Colorado lamb leg, for $175 for adults, $55 per child.

A Holiday Maker’s Market will be held on select days leading up to Christmas, and the interactive art installation Alpenglow is returning for a second year. The resort has teamed up with a local holiday decorating service to offer a menu of in-room Christmas trees with choices from Tartan & Tradition to the sparkly All That Glitters.

The starting rate during Christmas is $1,799.

Madeline Hotel & Residences, Auberge Resorts Collection, Mountain Village Blvd. Telluride, Colorado

The holidays are a gourmet affair at the Royal Mansour in Marrakech.

The property’s restaurants will feature special menus for Christmas and New Year’s Eve from Michelin-star chefs.

At La Grande Brassiere, which debuted at Royal Mansour on November 1, chef Hélène Darroze is introducing a festive afternoon tea featuring items such as an orange blossom tropézienne and a cardamom opéra.

Pastry chef Jean Lachenal and Darroze have created four bûches de Noël this year, including a mango and gingerbread yule log topped with a light cream with local cinnamon.

The hotel will host a Christmas market in its lobby on December 16 with handmade crafts, Christmas sweets and gift items for sale, with proceeds going to local charities.

Hotel rates start at about $1,420 per night.

Royal Mansour, Rue Abou El Abbas Sebti, Marrakech, Morocco

Founded by Standard Oil Co. magnate Henry Morrison Flagler in 1896, The Breakers Palm Beach carries its lovely traditions right through the holiday season.

The oceanfront Italian Renaissance-style resort dazzles with sparkling lights, and holiday tea is available at HMF on December 20-23 and December 26-30 for $120 per person.

The Circle will host a buffet brunch on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day ($285 per person; $100 for children 12 and younger). There’s also a Christmas Day buffet in the Ponce de Leon ballroom, and the resort’s Flagler Steakhouse will serve three-course, prix fixe menus on December 24 and 25.

There’s limited room availability in December with rates starting at $1,090.

The Breakers, One South County Road, Palm Beach, Florida

The Ritz Paris is putting on exactly what you’d expect from the elegant luxury property.

Christmas Tea is available at Bar Vendôme and Salon Proust, starting at about $75 per person with a hot beverage or about $95 with a glass of Champagne.

The Salon d’Eté will serve a lavish holiday brunch on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day for about $325 per person. The Ritz’s new restaurant Espadon is offering a next-level New Year’s Eve tasting menu for about $2,220 per person, including wine pairings.

Rates around Christmas start at about $2,300 a night.

Ritz Paris, 15 place Vendôme, Paris, France

Guests at Claridge’s will be treated to horse-drawn carriage rides and carol singing over Christmas.

Three-night Christmas packages feature those festive events, plus a personal Christmas tree, Champagne, a visit from Father Christmas, a Christmas lunch, stockings for all and a full English breakfast each day. (Pricing available upon request).

Festive afternoon tea, served through January 1, starts at about $130.

Claridge’s enlists celebrated designers each year to create an eye-catching lobby Christmas tree.

This year’s tree, from Louis Vuitton, is a sculptural creation situated within two large LV wardrobe trunks. Both Claridge’s and Louis Vuitton were founded in 1854.

Rooms start at about $1,060.

Claridge’s, Brook Street, Mayfair , London

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December 2, 2023
Sandra Day O'Connor Fast Facts | CNN

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Here is a look at the life of Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court.

Birth date: March 26, 1930

Death date: December 1, 2023

Birth place: El Paso, Texas

Birth name: Sandra Day

Father: Harry A. Day, rancher

Mother: Ada Mae (Wilkey) Day, rancher

Marriage: John Jay O’Connor III (1952-2009, his death)

Children: Scott, Brian and Jay

Education: Stanford University, B.A. in Economics, 1950, graduated magna cum laude; Stanford Law School, LL.B, 1952

In law school, she was on the Stanford Law Review and third in her class.

Completed law school in two years.

A proponent of judicial restraint. At her confirmation hearings, she said, “Judges are not only not authorized to engage in executive or legislative functions, they are also ill-equipped to do so.”

In retirement, O’Connor has campaigned around the United States to abolish elections for judges, believing that a merit system leads to a more qualified and untainted judiciary.

1952-1953 – County deputy attorney in San Mateo, California.

1955-1957- Works as a civilian lawyer for the Quartermaster Corps in Germany, while her husband serves with the Army’s Judge Advocate General Corps.

1959 – Opens a law firm in Maryvale, Arizona.

1965-1969 – Assistant attorney general of Arizona.

1969 – Appointed to fill a vacant seat in the Arizona Senate.

1970 – Elected to the Arizona Senate.

1972 – Reelected to the Arizona Senate and elected majority leader. She is the first woman to hold this office in any state.

1975-1979 – Superior Court judge of Maricopa County.

1979-1981 – Judge of the Arizona Court of Appeals.

August 19, 1981 – Formally nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, to fill the seat of retiring Justice Potter Stewart.

September 21, 1981 – Confirmed by the US Senate.

September 25, 1981 – Sworn in as the first female Supreme Court justice of the United States.

1982 – Writes an opinion invalidating a women-only enrollment policy at a Mississippi State nursing school because it “tends to perpetuate the stereotyped view of nursing as an exclusively women’s job.” Mississippi University for Women, et al., v. Hogan

October 21, 1988 – Has surgery for breast cancer after being diagnosed earlier in the year.

1996 – Writes the majority opinion in a 5-4 decision to restrict affirmative action policies and voting districts that are created to boost the political power of minorities. Shaw v. Reno

1999 – Writes the majority ruling opinion in a 5-4 decision that public school districts that receive federal funds can be held liable when they are “deliberately indifferent” to the sexual harassment of one student by another. Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education

2000 – Votes with the majority in a 5-4 decision that strikes down state laws banning the medical procedure that critics call “partial-birth” abortion. Stenberg v. Carhart

December 2000 – Votes in the majority to end the recount in Florida which leads to George W. Bush becoming president of the United States. O’Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy are the only justices who do not attach their names to either a concurring or dissenting opinion in the case. Bush v. Gore

January 31, 2006 – Retires from the Supreme Court.

2008 – Develops the website, OurCourts which later becomes iCivics, a free program for students to learn about civics.

July 30, 2009 – Is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

February 25, 2014 – Her book “Out Of Order,” which is based on the history of the Supreme Court, is published.

October 23, 2018 – Writes a letter revealing that she has been diagnosed with the “beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease.”

March 19, 2019 – The biography, “First: Sandra Day O’Connor,” is published.

July 19, 2019 – O’Connor’s former home is listed by the National Park Service in the National Register of Historic Places. The adobe house built by O’Connor and her husband in 1958 in Paradise Valley, Arizona, was relocated to Tempe, Arizona, in 2009. It is the home of the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute.

April 13, 2022 – President Joe Biden signs a bipartisan bill into law to erect statues of O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the grounds of the US Capitol. The legislation stipulates that the statues should be placed within two years of its enactment.

December 1, 2023 – Dies at age 93 from complications related to dementia.

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December 1, 2023