Jana was a 19-year-old in her final year of high school, with dreams of becoming a doctor. Then, ISIS came to her village last August, and her world collapsed.
She described to me in chilling detail, how the jihadis first demanded that members of her Yazidi religious minority convert to Islam. Then they stripped villagers of their jewelry, money and cellphones. They separated the men from the women.
A United Nations report explained what happened next. ISIS "gathered all the males older than 10 years of age at the local school, took them outside the village by pick-up trucks, and shot them."
Among those believed dead were Jana's father and eldest brother.
A different fate lay in store for the women.
About 200 Syrian rebels entered the besieged city of Kobani at dawn Wednesday with weapons that included mortars and heavy machine guns, a Syrian rebel commander said.
Col. Abdul Jabar Okaidi spoke to CNN by phone from inside Kobani, a Syrian border city.
Okaidi said the rebels are using weapons from the Free Syrian Army supplies, but did not disclose which brigades offered the weapons or assisted.
This is the first group to enter, and more fighters will come in if required, he said.
"Today, 200 is enough," he said. "But we can send more today if needed."
Nearly 7 in 10 Americans are angry at the direction the country is headed and 53% of Americans disapprove of President Barack Obama's job performance, two troubling signs for Democrats one week before the midterm elections, a new CNN/ORC International Poll shows.
Democrats are battling to try and save the Senate majority, while hoping to prevent more losses in the House, which the GOP controls by a 234 to 201 margin.
In the Senate, Republicans need a net gain of six seats, and several state polls in the past month of contested races show that Democrats are in danger of losing control of the majority, and thus Congress. Currently, Democrats control the Senate by a 55-45 margin with two of those seats held by independents that align themselves politically with Democrats.
Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped at least 30 boys and girls from a village in northeast Nigeria during the weekend.
The abductions are the latest in a string of recent kidnappings by Boko Haram that dims hope for the anticipated release of 219 schoolgirls held by the group since April following a controversial ceasefire declared by Nigerian authorities.
Heavily armed Boko Haram gunmen invaded the town of Mafa, in Borno state, on Friday through Saturday and seized 30 boys and girls, local leaders said.
The news of the kidnappings was slow to emerge due to lack of telecom service in the region, where most telecom towers have been destroyed in Boko Haram's five-year insurgency against Nigeria's government.
A doctor who recently returned from Guinea has tested positive for Ebola - the first case of the deadly virus in New York City.
Here is a timeline of Craig Spencer's movements since he got back from the West African nation:
When did he return from Guinea?
Spencer came back to the United States last week after treating Ebola patients in Guinea, where he worked for Doctors Without Borders.
He completed his work in Guinea on October 12 and left the country two days later via Brussels.
He arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on October 17, but he exhibited no symptoms of the virus until Thursday morning, said Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, New York City's health commissioner.
The physician, who works at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, was checking his temperature twice a day. He has not seen any patients since his return.
Did he have any symptoms?
The 33-year-old did not have any symptoms after his return, but developed a fever, nausea, pain and fatigue Thursday morning. He began feeling sluggish a couple of days ago, and his fever spiked to 100.3 degrees Thursday, authorities said.
How many people has he been in contact with?
Spencer was in contact with four people after he started exhibiting symptoms, authorities said. Ebola isn't contagious until someone has symptoms.
Three people - his fiancée and two friends - are being placed on quarantine and monitored, health officials said. The fourth person is a car service driver who had no direct contact with him and is not considered at risk.
Spencer also went for a three-mile jog and visited a bowling alley in Brooklyn prior to feeling symptomatic, according to Bassett.
The bowling alley closed Thursday as a precaution, but it said in a statement that health officials have determined there are no risks to customers.
He also traveled on three subway lines. "At the time that the doctor was on the subway he did not have fever ... he was not symptomatic," Bassett said.
See more on this developing story on CNN.com
First a soldier guarding a hallowed war memorial was gunned down in Canada's capital. Then shots erupted in the halls of the country's Parliament minutes later.
The two shootings in Ottawa Wednesday left lawmakers barricaded inside offices and parts of the city on lockdown for hours as police searched for suspects.
Ottawa Police lifted the lockdown Wednesday night and said there was no longer a danger to the public.
But many questions remain about the shootings: Who was the gunman? Why did he open fire? And was he acting alone?
"It appears there was just one shooter, and that shooter is dead," Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "But it has been a traumatic experience, obviously, for not only our city but the country."
Investigators haven't provided any possible motives for the shooting. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn't provide details about the investigation in a televised address to the nation Wednesday night.
"In the days to come, we will learn more about the terrorist and any accomplices he may have had, but this week's events are a grim reminder that Canada is not immune to the types of terrorist attacks we have seen elsewhere in the world," Harper said. "Let there be no misunderstanding: We will not be intimidated. Canada will never be intimidated."
It is unclear whether additional suspects were tied to the shootings or whether additional arrests have been made. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said more information would be provided in a press conference Thursday.
As authorities continued to investigate, details began to emerge about the man they suspect was behind the shooting.
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was identified by Canadian officials to their American counterparts as the suspected gunman, multiple U.S. officials told CNN.
Bibeau, who was born in 1982, was a convert to Islam and had a history of drug use before he converted, two sources said.
His passport had been confiscated by Canadian authorities when they learned he planned to go fight overseas, a U.S. law enforcement official told CNN's Susan Candiotti. The official said it was not clear when that happened.
Canadian broadcaster CBC reported that Bibeau had a record of drug arrests going back 10 years.
See more on this developing story on CNN.com
Ben Bradlee, the zestful, charismatic Washington Post editor who guided the paper through the era of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate and was immortalized on screen in "All the President's Men," has died. He was 93.
Bradlee began end-of-life care at his home last month after suffering from Alzheimer's disease and dementia for several years. He was the executive editor of The Washington Post from 1968 to 1991, during which time the paper covered the downfall of President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal.
"He was diagnosed a while ago, but it became obvious that he had a serious problem about two years ago," his wife, Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn, said in a recent C-SPAN interview.
In November, President Barack Obama awarded Bradlee the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor awarded to civilians.
"Ben was a true friend and genius leader in journalism," Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein - the Post duo who broke and pursued the Watergate story - said in a statement. "He forever altered our business. His one unbending principle was the quest for the truth and the necessity of that pursuit."
Bradlee was, in his way, Washington royalty: friend to John F. Kennedy, overseer of the capital's most important newspaper, a mover and shaker in a tailored suit. In one era, when politicians and journalists were chummier, he kept the capital's secrets; in another, he exposed them. He was descended from Boston Brahmins and easily hobnobbed with the wealthy and eminent.
Still, even as he became one of them, Bradlee always maintained his skepticism of Washington power players. And it only grew stronger over time.
In a 1995 interview with CNN's Larry King, Bradlee said he had observed "an enormous increase in not telling the truth, lying" during his career covering government. Asked whether it was Democrats or Republicans who lied more, Bradlee said, "Well, the whole mob."
It was a pair of scandals that made Bradlee a national figure.
In 1971, the Post and The New York Times decided to publish thePentagon Papers, leaked classified documents that showed that the war in Vietnam was not going as political leaders and the military brass portrayed it. Bradlee, publisher Katharine Graham and the Post fought the objections of Richard Nixon's administration all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the newspapers' right to publish the documents.
The editor said the fight propelled the Post into the upper echelons of American journalism.
"The Post was still looking for a seat at the big table," he recalled. "We weren't at the big table yet. We very much wanted to go there."
A year later, Post reporters Bernstein and Woodward led the way in unraveling Watergate, the story of the break-in and coverup that ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
See more on this story on CNN.com
The U.S. military has airdropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies to Kurdish fighters in the Syrian city of Kobani to beef up the defense against ISIS forces, the Pentagon said.
"The aircraft delivered (items) that were provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq and intended to enable continued resistance against ISIL's attempts to overtake Kobani," the U.S. Central Command said Sunday.
(The administration refers to the group as ISIL, the acronym for "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant." CNN refers to it as ISIS; the group recently started calling itself the Islamic State.)
The move was partly humanitarian but also aimed at shoring up the Kurdish defenders of Kobani, senior Obama administration officials said - acknowledging it was a shift in the administration's tactics to date.
"This is a part of the President's larger strategy to degrade and destroy ISIL wherever they are," one official said.
The gear was delivered by three C-130 cargo planes and appeared to have been received on the ground by Kurdish fighters, senior Obama administration officials.
There have been reports that ISIS may have anti-aircraft missiles, but the officials said they had no evidence to back those reports and that the cargo planes flew in unescorted.
See more on this developing story on CNN.com
A nurse with Ebola may have shown symptoms of the virus as many as four days before authorities once indicated, meaning that she might have been contagious while flying on not just one, but two commercial flights, officials said Thursday.
Amber Vinson was hospitalized Tuesday, one day after she took a Frontier flight from Cleveland to Dallas. Tests later found that Vinson - who was among those who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, at Dallas' Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital - had Ebola.
Authorities indicated Vinson had a slightly elevated temperature of 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit, which was below the fever threshold for Ebola, but didn't show any symptoms of the disease while on her Monday flight. This is significant because a person isn't contagious with Ebola, which spreads through the transmission of bodily fluids, until he or she has symptoms of the disease.
But on Thursday, Dr. Chris Braden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters in Ohio that "we have started to look at the possibility that she had symptoms going back as far as Saturday. ... We can't rule out (that) she might have had the start of her illness on Friday."
"So this new information now is saying we need to go back now to the flight that she took on Friday the 10th and include them in our investigation of contacts," said Braden.
The CDC announced later Thursday that is "expanding its outreach to airline passengers now to include those who flew from Dallas-Fort Worth to Cleveland on Frontier flight 1142" last Friday - which is how Vinson got to Ohio, from Texas, originally.
See more on this developing story on CNN.com
Could John Berman be related to the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, noted as the Prince of Philosophers?
Berman travels to Amsterdam, the country where his ancestors, the Spinozas, lived for 140 years in search of his “inner Spinoza”… and the truth.
To see more familiar faces of CNN share their own stories, visit CNN.com/Roots.
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