‘Wheel of Fortune’ contestant goes viral for ‘worst’ answer ever: ‘That was painful’

To grab or not to grab, that is the question.

Donald Trump's announcement that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency has alarmed some government ethics experts.

City Council is taking on Hizzoner again after an embarrassing defeat over the November ballot by establishing their own Charter Revision Commission ahead of the 2025 and 2026 general election.

Organizers have filed over 10 permit applications for demonstrations and displays in January related to Trump, democracy, the Israel-Gaza war and abortion.

The Senate can stop her.

Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce empathized with Dallas Cowboys star wide receiver CeeDee Lamb about fighting the sun glare at AT&T Stadium.

In what could have been an ominous possibility for the Knicks in the backcourt, all three of their banged-up guards were able to suit up Wednesday night against the Bulls.

The Consumer Price Index in October rose 2.6% year-over-year, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, a higher rate than September's 2.4%. The uptick means the Federal Reserve's 2% target rate is further out of reach. Kelly O'Grady reports.

President Biden and President-elect Donald Trump held a meeting at the White House on Wednesday, where the two political foes shook hands in front of reporters. The two sat in the Oval Office for nearly two hours, discussing domestic issues, plus the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Ed O'Keefe has more.

CBS News projected Wednesday that Republicans will keep their majority in the House, which along with control of the Senate, will make it easier for President-elect Donald Trump to fill his Cabinet posts and potentially fulfill his legislative agenda. Scott MacFarlane reports from the U.S. Capitol.

President-elect Donald Trump surprised Washington on Wednesday when he announced he intends to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to be his attorney general. He also selected former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be his director of national intelligence. Robert Costa has the latest.

President-elect Trump has promised to crack down on the southern border and deport those here illegally. But the million-dollar question left by the Biden administration: Just how many people is that?

Here's a look at the top stories making headlines on the "CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell."

Sauce Gardner delivered an apology on Wednesday for responding to people on social media earlier this week.

It's time to make your echo chamber great again! In 2024, that means curating your world to exclude those who voted for Donald Trump.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart had lots of praise for backup safety Jake Pope on Tuesday, just days after he criticized the player for appearing to celebrate with fans from the opposing team.

Florida Republican Matt Gaetz has tendered his resignation from Congress “effective immediately,” House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed Wednesday. Matt Gaetz has already resigned from congress after President-elect Trump selected him for attorney general, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson. The shock announcement comes on the same day Gaetz was surprisingly selected by President-elect Donald Trump...

The game is played on a 200 feet by 85 feet surface of ice, but for Mika Zibanejad, the battle is contested almost entirely within his cerebrum.

Investigators accused four suspects of staging bear attacks using a costume to damage vehicles in a San Bernardino County mountain community in order to receive payouts totaling more than $140,000.

Colorado superfan Peggy Coppom turns 100 next week, and coach Deion Sanders is hoping to deliver her what might be the best birthday gift ever.

Rep. Matt Gaetz is out of Congress, Speaker Johnson said, after he was tapped to be the next Attorney General.

Reaction among Republicans on Capitol Hill to President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Matt Gaetz for attorney general ranged from shock to support to outright dismissal.

"She didn't want to talk about marijuana legalization, which I thought was hilarious," said Rogan.

Special counsel Jack Smith asked a federal appellate court on Wednesday to halt his appeal in President-elect Donald Trump’s classified documents case, citing the results of the 2024 election.

The City Council overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday that would largely shift the cost of broker fees to landlords, in a hit to the real estate industry. The controversial bill — dubbed the Fairness in Apartment Rentals Act (FARE) — passed with a veto-proof majority of 42-8. New York City is unique in that it...

"I'm doing everything. Not because I don't want to age but because I do want to age," the actress said.

It’s often said that nice guys finish last, and it seems Bears’ receiver Keenan Allen may subscribe to that theory. 

Kenneth Elwood Smith, 55, was convicted of fatally stabbing Desmond Thomas at a park in Fort Washington.

The Rangers are likely nearing a short-term roster decision on Victor Mancini, the 22-year-old defenseman who is staring at his fifth straight healthy scratch.

"Our community is trying to process last Friday's crime alert that involved a deeply disturbing report of drugging and sexual violence."

WWE legend John Cena will compete in the 2025 Royal Rumble, he said on Wednesday. It is set to be the final year of his pro wrestling career.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Will the last Florida Republican who leaves Congress for the Trump administration please turn out the lights? That’s one takeaway from President-elect Donald Trump’s slam-dunk selection of Panhandle Rep. Matt Gaetz for his second-term attorney general. As opposed to his first-term AGs, Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, there is no doubt where the...

The Oscar-winning director, 81, is known for his male-dominated filmography — such as "The Godfather," "Goodfellas" and "The Irishman."

Donald Trump was elected with a mandate last week. He's now using it to challenge Republican senators to confirm his Cabinet picks.

Truancy in D.C.’s public schools has returned to pre-pandemic levels while chronic absenteeism is at its lowest since schools closed nearly five years ago, new data show.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) said he made a ‘poor decision’ to mix alcohol and Ambien.

A view from above of the newly discovered “mega” coral in the Solomon Islands. | Seve Spence/National Geographic Pristine Seas In the warm blue waters of the Solomon Islands, an island chain in the South Pacific, lies one of the world’s largest sea creatures.  Roughly the size of two basketball courts, it’s neither a whale nor a giant squid. It is a single piece of coral.  On Wednesday, a team of researchers and filmmakers exploring the Solomon Islands revealed that they found what they claim is the world’s largest individual coral colony. The coral, a communal organism comprising millions of animals called polyps, is 34 meters wide and 32 meters long — and so large it can be seen from space. A typical coral reef is made of many different coral colonies, most of which are genetically distinct, whereas this is just one individual. In new photos shared by the research team, the coral, a species known as Pavona clavus, looks like a lumpy brown mound covered in knobs. Closer views reveal bits of yellow, green, and purple. Given its size and the slow speed at which corals grow, this individual is likely several centuries old. “It’s a dream to see something unique like this,” Manu San Félix, an underwater photographer and marine biologist who first saw the coral last month in the Solomon Islands, told Vox. “When Napoleon was alive, this thing was here.”  San Félix discovered the coral while filming near an island called Malaulalo for an ongoing National Geographic expedition. The expedition, a collaboration with the Solomon Islands government, is part of National Geographic’s Pristine Seas project, which aims to help countries establish more marine parks, in part by documenting sea life. Malaulalo is mostly uninhabited and its waters are largely unexplored, according to Dennis Marita, a member of the Po’onapaina Tribe of Ulawa. The tribe oversees Malaulalo’s marine territory.  “This is something huge for our community,” Marita, who’s also the director of culture at the Solomon Islands’s ministry of culture and tourism, said in a press conference Tuesday.  No other coral in the public record is larger than this one, though it’s possible that there are bigger colonies in remote stretches of the ocean that have yet to be discovered. The previous record-holder for the world’s largest coral was a colony in American Samoa that was roughly 22 meters wide.  “Many of the world’s coral reefs are remote and not well explored,” Stacy Jupiter, executive director of marine conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, who was not involved in this expedition, told Vox. Humans have only surveyed about 5 percent of the planet’s marine realm, she mentioned. “So it is not surprising at all that we continue to make new discoveries, even of large creatures,” Jupiter said. “Beacon of hope” The discovery comes at a time when coral reefs around the world are vanishing. Climate change is warming the oceans, and warm water kills corals. Coral gets its color and much of its food from symbiotic algae that live inside polyps. When seawater gets too warm, that algae disappears, and the coral turns white — or “bleaches.” Bleached corals are essentially starving to death.  Coral reefs globally are facing the most extensive bleaching crisis on record. Three-quarters of the world’s coral reefs have experienced enough ocean heat to cause bleaching since early 2023, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Many corals have died.  Meanwhile, new research suggests that more than 40 percent of hard corals — those that build reefs, like the recently discovered colony in the Solomon Islands — are at risk of extinction.  This is a problem, to put it lightly. Reefs dampen waves that hit the shoreline during hurricanes, they are home to a significant portion of commercial fish that people eat, and they are the engine of tourism economies in many coastal regions. Hundreds of millions of people depend on coral reefs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the National Geographic team discovered a lot of dead coral in the shallows of the Solomon Islands, likely due to excessive heat in the ocean, said Molly Timmers, a marine ecologist and the expedition’s lead scientist. That was discouraging, she said.  In the face of that loss, this discovery was a “beacon of hope,” Timmers told Vox. “It’s like, holy crap! This is amazing!” Large coral colonies provide homes for marine critters like crabs, snails, and small fish. More importantly, they seed the ocean with baby corals when they spawn, or reproduce, helping damaged sections of reef recover.  Plus, this particular coral may be resilient to stress, including excessive marine heat. The research team estimates that it’s between 300 and 500 years old, meaning it’s lived through multiple global bleaching events and survived. Unlike some of the coral closer to shore, this individual — which was more than 10 meters deep — appeared healthy, perhaps because it was in deeper, cooler water or because it has some built-in genetic tolerance to heat. So the spawn it produces could be resilient too.  “Anything old is really good at surviving,” said Maria Beger, a marine ecologist at the University of Leeds, who was not involved in the discovery.  Discovering a hulking colony of coral is not, by itself, all that impressive, said Beger. To support marine life and withstand threats like climate change, it’s more important that reefs have a diverse array of coral species in all shapes and sizes, rather than one big one. “At the same time, if a report like this gets people excited about coral reefs,” she said, “maybe that’s a good thing.” The discovery could also help the Solomon Islands conserve their waters more effectively, Marita, of the ministry of culture and tourism, told Vox. While his tribe has been informally conserving Malaulalo for a decade on its own, he said, the island would benefit from an official marine protected area recognized by the Solomon Islands government. Marita has been campaigning to make that happen.  “This will certainly boost the conservation initiative that we have been working on,” he told Vox, referring to the discovery. “This mega coral will help bring much-needed visibility and recognition from the government and other stakeholders. This is really a gain for us.” 

A new satellite police precinct and a drone deployment initiative will cut down on response times on the ground and in the air above the city, city officials said.

Cam Stewart made a poor attempt at a joke that Taylor Swift’s fans didn’t take kindly to while talking about the legitimacy of the Chiefs’ 9-0 record on this week's show.

Longtime Democratic Party strategist James Carville defended his past comments warning that the Democratic Party will lose male voters if it does not change its messaging.

An Australian influencer has gone viral for sharing what a “normal” body looks like in 2024.

Gaetz is currently facing a House ethics investigation over allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

The domestic diva was interviewed at the LitFest on Long Island, where she promoted her 100th cookbook.

Former Jets wideout Mike Williams is adamant that a post on social media that was widely construed as a jab at Aaron Rodgers was not intended to be that way.

Governors in blue states are preparing to push back against the incoming Trump administration's agenda. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called a special session of the legislature to "Trump-proof" the state, and has lobbied President Biden for funding and federal waivers before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. CBS News California investigative correspondent Julie Watts joins "America Decides" with more on the moves.

President-elect Donald Trump has already made picks for key foreign policy roles in his new administration: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for secretary of state, and Fox News host and combat veteran Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. Ravi Agrawal, editor-in-chief of "Foreign Policy" magazine, joins "America Decides" to look at what Trump's potential team indicates about his agenda abroad.

He’s doing exactly what he said he would.

The U.S. government said it is investigating after People's Republic of China hackers targeted commercial telecommunications service providers in the U.S.