Stories by CNN

More than 1,800 flights have been canceled Thursday across the United States, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware, as severe winter weather complicates holiday travel.

The number of travelers expected to fly – 7.2 million – is just shy of 2019’s 7.3 million. And when you factor in that airlines are operating fewer flights that are more crowded, there’s serious potential for a serious mess for air travelers. How to cope? Here are some strategies.

Unless you live in a year-round warm climate and plan to stay there, it’s important to know how winter storms behave, how to avoid and prepare for them, and heaven forbid, what to do in the worst-case scenario.

Key U.S. airlines have issued travel waivers ahead of what’s forecast to be a brutal “bomb cyclone” of wintry weather in the Midwest and other regions later this week.

“It’s too soon to say whether iGAS case numbers are just returning to pre-pandemic levels or if they are rising beyond what we would normally expect based on what we know about GAS seasonal patterns,” CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich wrote In an email.

The European carmaker said it will “idle” the assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois on Feb. 23 and said the layoffs are expected to exceed six months. 

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago has revoked an honorary doctorate awarded to Kanye West, as the fallout from the rapper’s offensive remarks about Black and Jewish people continues.

Donald Trump and his family were not charged in this case, but the former president was mentioned repeatedly during the trial by prosecutors about his connection to the benefits doled out to certain executives, including company-funded apartments, car leases and personal expenses.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol has decided to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, told reporters Tuesday.

Rates of deaths from drug overdoses among older adults have more than tripled in the past two decades, according to one report published Wednesday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. In 2020, more than 5,000 adults 65 and older in the United States died of a drug overdose.

The U.S. federal government has yet again delayed nationwide security requirements for driver’s licenses and other identification cards, giving states, including Illinois, more time to issue REAL IDs to residents.

A railroad strike could clog supply chains and lead to a spike in prices on necessities such as gasoline and food — dampening an economy that many fear is heading toward a recession. 

Georgia Democrats have called for an investigation by state officials into Walker’s residency after CNN’s KFile reported last week that Walker was getting a tax break in Texas intended for a primary residence, possibly running afoul of Texas tax law.

The study found that visits to the ER with suicidal thoughts increased 59% from 2016-17 to 2019-21. There was a corresponding increase in cases in which suicidal ideation was the principal diagnosis, which rose from 34.6% to 44.3%.

There have been about eight flu hospitalizations for every 100,000 people this season — rates typically seen in December or January. The RSV hospitalization rate is 10 times higher than usual for this point in the season, too. 

About 26 million people had already applied to the program by the time a federal judge froze it on November 10, prompting the government to stop taking applications. No debt has been canceled thus far.

Almost all children catch RSV at some point before they turn 2 years old, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Most adults who catch it have a mild illness; for those who are elderly or who have chronic heart or lung disease or a weakened immune system, it can be dangerous. But RSV can be especially tricky for infants and kids.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona doubled down on the administration’s commitment to providing student debt relief in an op-ed published Saturday, and encouraged those eligible to continue applying through the live online application.

At least three new cases of misconduct have emerged since the release of a report alleging systemic abuse within women’s professional soccer, US Soccer Federation president Cindy Parlow Cone said. 

The protests were triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in a hospital three days after being apprehended by the morality police in Tehran and taken to a “re-education center” for not abiding by the state’s hijab rules.

Bernard Shaw was CNN’s first chief anchor and was with the network when it launched on June 1, 1980. He retired from CNN after more than 20 years on February 28, 2001.

The survey found that 11% of young adults reported using marijuana on a daily basis in 2021 and 43% had used it in the past year. About 8% of young adults reported using substances such as LSD, PCP and psychedelic mushrooms in the past year, up from just 3% in 2011.

On Sunday, Chicago O’Hare saw the most cancellations and delays, with approximately 12% of flights canceled, and over 45% of flights delayed.

Both Pfizer and Moderna are working on bivalent boosters: vaccines made up of both the old formula and a new one that targets the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the coronavirus. If the shots meet US Food and Drug Administration standards, they will probably be available as early as September, the FDA says.

NASA said in February it intends to keep operating the International Space Station until the end of 2030, after which the ISS would be deorbited and crashed into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. Commercially operated space platforms would replace the ISS as a venue for collaboration and scientific research, NASA said.

At 81, Dr. Anthony Fauci has served more than five decades under seven presidents, advising every American president since Ronald Reagan.