In response to rising youth violence, Baltimore leaders are ramping up efforts to de-escalate conflicts between young people and protect students going to and from school. Officials last week announced an arrest in the March 6 killing of Izaiah Carter, a 16-year-old who was fatally shot in a park adjacent to his east Baltimore high school. He's one of three high schoolers killed within blocks of their schools so far in 2023 — even as Baltimore shootings and homicides overall have each decreased about 25% compared to this time last year. Carter's mother, Michelle Hines, questions whether the school system and law enforcement could have done more to protect her son.

A new study says warming will fuel more supercells in the United States and that those storms will move eastward from their current range. The study says that makes it more likely that the lethal storms will strike more often in the more populous areas of Southern states. Supercells are nature's nastiest storms, producing most killer tornadoes and damaging hail. Even with moderate warming, the study projects a nearly 7% increase in supercells by century's end. The study author says what computer simulations show for the year 2100 seems to be here now. Scientists say Friday's Mississippi tornado fits the projected pattern but can't be blamed on climate change.

One hand-crocheted blanket came with a note saying “Welcome to the USA" and advising the recipient to dress warmly in Vermont. It was among at least 86 blankets sewn, knitted and crocheted by crafters as gifts for refugees to welcome them to their new community in Vermont. It’s part of the national Welcome Blanket project, a crowd-sourced artistic action supporting refugees settling in the U.S. The crafters attach a note to their blankets with details about their own family history with immigration or migration. The blankets that were made for the Vermont project were on display at a local museum before they were given away to refugees and immigrants last week.

Friends and neighbors say retirees Lonnie and Melissa Pierce lived a quiet life in the Mississippi Delta before a powerful tornado dropped a semi-truck onto their home like a bomb. The husband and wife from Rolling Fork, were among at least 21 people in Mississippi and one in Alabama killed by devastating storms that spawned tornadoes across the Deep South since Friday. More than half of those killed lived in Mississippi's Sharkey County, where Coroner Angelia Eason says it felt like “losing 13 family members.” Neighbors said the Pierces were “about the best” people they knew. Lonnie Pierce was a retired welder, and Melissa Pierce volunteered for a Christian charity.

The former student who shot through the doors of a Christian elementary school in Nashville and killed three children and three adults had drawn a detailed map of the school, including potential entry points, and conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the massacre. Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake did not say exactly what drove the shooter to open fire Monday morning at The Covenant School before being killed by police. But he provided chilling examples of the shooter’s elaborate planning for the bloodshed, including a manifesto and other writings that police are going over. The victims include three 9-year-old children, the school’s top administrator, a substitute teacher and a custodian.

A new Georgia commission to discipline and remove wayward prosecutors would be the latest move by Republicans nationwide to ratchet up oversight. The Georgia measure got final approval by the state Senate after House passage earlier Monday. It now goes to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has previously voiced support. The Georgia bill parallels efforts to remove prosecutors in Florida, Missouri, Indiana and Pennsylvania. It's also part of broader disputes nationwide over how certain criminal offenses should be charged. All the efforts strike at the question of prosecutorial discretion — a prosecutor’s decision of what cases to try and what charges to bring.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s attorneys are expected to call a series of experts and read depositions from her two teenage children as the trial over her 2016 Utah ski collision with a Utah man enters its sixth day. The actor's defense attorneys are expected on Tuesday to continue arguing that the retired optometrist suing her crashed into Paltrow and that his injuries are less severe than he claims. They have less than three days to make their case to the eight-member jury that will decide on Terry Sanderson's lawsuit. He claims Paltrow's reckless skiing left him with lasting injuries and is asking more than $300,000 in damages.

The survivor of a mass shooting last July 4th outside Chicago rushed to the scene of the latest such tragedy in Nashville, expressing disbelief that one had occurred again. Ashley Beasley drove to the scene of the shooting Monday at The Covenant School that killed three children and three adults before the shooter was killed. She told the Chicago Tribune by phone, "I cannot believe this is happening.” Beasley stopped in Nashville on her way back from Washington to lobby members of Congress to pass a federal assault weapons ban.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that electricity generated from renewables surpassed coal electricity production in the United States for the first time in 2022. The growth of wind and solar significantly drove the increase in renewable energy and experts say these two resources will be the “backbone” of clean energy growth in the U.S. because of their reliability and affordability. Renewables passed nuclear electricity production for the first time in 2012 and continued to outpace it.

A pediatric surgeon who left The Covenant School in Nashville moments before a shooter opened fire, killing six people, says she is horrified by the gun violence that has plagued the U.S. Britney Grayson had just finished regaling children about Kenya, where she works as a pediatric surgeon, when she drove out of the parking lot looking for a Starbucks. Moments later, a shooter entered the small religious grade school and opened fire, killing three children and three adults. She later posted to Facebook, questioning why such attacks remain so common in the U.S.