Susie Twydell was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2012, and now using a wheelchair, she thought she'd never be able to live out her dream of traveling to Africa to see gorillas in their natural habitat.
Twydell, 40, lives in London, and when she was told a team of porters could carry her in a stretcher up to see gorillas in a Rwandan wildlife park, she immediately started raising money for the trip of a lifetime. Twydell traveled to Rwanda with her husband, David, and as promised, was lifted into a stretcher and carried for 45 minutes up the mountain. She was transferred to a wheelchair and saw a silverback and its babies from just a few yards away.
"It took me by surprise, but it was the No. 1 experience of my life," she told Inside Edition. There are fewer than 1,000 wild mountain gorillas worldwide, and "it was such an amazing privilege" to be able to see a family. At one point, a baby gorilla came up to Twydell and started playing with her shoelaces. "They were clambering all over their silverback father, swinging from overhanging vines, and brilliantly for me, were mesmerized by the sight of a wheelchair in their midst," she said. Catherine Garcia
On Monday night, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley gave conservative teens at the High School Leadership Summit at George Washington University some very sound advice: stop trying to own the libs.
"Raise your hand if you've ever posted anything online to quote-unquote 'own the libs,'" she directed the crowd. Most raised their hands and started to clap, The Hill reports, as if they expected Haley to offer up praise. Instead, she told them that it may seem like "fun" and "can feel good, but step back and think about what you're accomplishing when you do this — are you persuading anyone? Who are you persuading? We've all been guilty of it at some point or another, but this kind of speech isn't leadership — it's the exact opposite."
True leadership involves "bringing people around to your points of view," she added. "Not by shouting them down, but by showing them how it is in their best interest to see things they way you do." Wise words from the ambassador, which participants will hopefully remember when Donald Trump Jr. — whose brash Twitter presence is equal parts trying to sell Trump-branded leashes and other accoutrements, ruining words like "lit," and retweeting conspiracies and messages about "stage 4 Trump Derangement Syndrome" — addresses the teenagers later this week. Catherine Garcia
With 1,000 fans cheering them on, Little Money and Coco made their way from the sand into the water off the Florida Keys.
Little Money is a 365-pound mature female green sea turtle, and Coco is a 215-pound male loggerhead. Both were rescued by the Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys and treated for gastrointestinal issues. Before their release back into the sea on Friday, they were fitted with satellite tracking transmitters so they can participate in the Tour de Turtles.
The Tour de Turtles, organized by the Sea Turtle Conservancy, runs from Aug. 1 to Oct. 31. During the three-month period, researchers are able to monitor the long-distance migration patterns of different types of sea turtles, and Little Money and Coco are the only rehabilitated turtles in this year's race. "It's important to protect sea turtles because they are part of multiple ecosystems — so they're part of the marine system, they're part of the beach system, and humans depend on those systems to be healthy — healthy turtles, healthy ecosystems, healthy humans," Dan Evans, research biologist for the Sea Turtle Conservancy, told CBS Miami. Catherine Garcia
Do you like chicken? Like, really like it? Like it so much that you will go to Chick-fil-A for lunch, fill up on nuggets, then purchase a meal kit so you can make yourself some chicken at home for dinner?
Then you're in luck. On Monday, Chick-fil-A announced that from late August through mid-November, customers in the Atlanta area will be able to go to 150 different locations in the city and pick up a meal kit. Each one will cost $15.89 and serve two, with meals including chicken flatbread, crispy dijon chicken, chicken parmesan, chicken enchiladas, and pan-roasted chicken, with kale salad and macaroni and cheese sides.
Chick-fil-A promises these should take 30 minutes or less to prepare, and it's possible that one day, these items will make it to the restaurant's menu. Restaurant consultant Aaron Allen told CNN he's pretty sure this is just a publicity stunt, because it doesn't make a lot of sense for Chick-fil-A to offer these meal kits, but advertising executive Austin Wright said the company would have spent a lot of money on this one piece of marketing. "This is an attempt for them to increase the average ticket size," he said. "People can only buy so many chicken sandwiches." Catherine Garcia
Police have identified the suspect in Sunday night's shooting on a busy Toronto street as Faisal Hussain, 29.
The attack left two people dead — an unidentified 10-year-old girl and Reese Fallon, 18, a recent high school graduate who was going to start classes at McMaster University in Toronto this fall. More than a dozen people were injured and remain hospitalized. Police said two officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect on a side street near where the attack took place. He was found dead there, and it's not clear yet if he shot himself or he was killed during the shootout.
Hussain's family released a statement saying he had a history of depression and psychosis, which medication was unable to treat. "While we did our best to seek help for him throughout his life of struggle and pain, we could never imagine that this would be his devastating and destructive end," the family said. "Our hearts are in pieces for the victims and for our city as we all come to grips with this terrible tragedy. We will mourn those who were lost for the rest of our lives." Police said they do not have a motive for the attack. Catherine Garcia
Twin forest fires are raging on both sides of Athens, leaving at least three people dead and 56 injured, Greek authorities said.
The fires are being stoked by high winds, and an unknown number of homes have burned to the ground. Some people, left with nowhere else to go, have escaped by running down to the beach and entering the water. There are also fires in northeastern Greece and the island of Crete, with at least 600 firefighters dispatched to battle the blazes. Cyprus has offered to send firefighters to Greece, while Spain has said it will provide water-dropping aircraft.
"We are doing everything humanly possible to try and tackle these fires," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said. "What concerns us is that there are fires occurring simultaneously." Catherine Garcia
On Friday, federal prosecutors were given 12 audio recordings seized from Michael Cohen, a court filing made public Monday states.
Cohen is President Trump's former personal lawyer, whose home, office, and hotel room were raided by FBI agents in April. Originally, the recordings were deemed privileged, but the filing, made in New York's Southern District Court, said "the parties withdrew their designations of 'privileged,'" meaning prosecutors could listen to them as part of their investigation into Cohen, Politico reports.
On Friday, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani confirmed to The New York Times that Cohen secretly recorded a 2016 conversation with Trump about payments to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump that ended in 2007. He claimed that this was the first time Trump heard about the payments, and said they were never issued. The filing does not say whether prosecutors have any recordings of Trump and Cohen. Catherine Garcia
On Monday, the Senate confirmed Robert Wilkie, previously an undersecretary at the Pentagon, as the next secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
He was confirmed with an 86-9 vote, and has been the acting secretary since President Trump's last nominee, Adm. Ronny Jackson, withdrew from consideration. The VA is the second largest federal agency, behind the Department of Defense, and has a staffing shortage, with the VA inspector general announcing in June the agency has more than 2,300 vacancies. Catherine Garcia
