Story highlights
Residents put the 'Oklahoma standard' to work in rebuilding their lives
Tourists visit as the city of Cleveland struggles with the legacy of a captivity house
A Texas firefighter blown out of his boots survives a fertilizer plant explosion
Two brothers share the recovery from right leg amputations in Boston Marathon attacks
Consider the biggest stories in recent weeks: Three women in Cleveland end a decade’s captivity. A Texas fertilizer plant explosion kills 15 people. A monster tornado strikes an Oklahoma suburb. A British soldier is savagely slain on a London street.
Need an update on these important events? Welcome to CNN Reset, a new feature revisiting news that’s been unforgettable.
Here’s the latest on video and online.
Oklahoma twister
Science calls it an EF5. The people of Moore, Oklahoma, know it as the most powerful category of tornadoes.
The twister’s destruction was merciless: it struck the Plaza Towers Elementary School, killing seven children there. In all, 24 people perished, including 10 children.
The human response to the catastrophe has been powerful too. Locals call it the “Oklahoma standard” – “persistence and a great positive attitude by the people to never give in,” as University of Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops puts it.
Cleveland captivity
It was a horror worthy of Stephen King’s imagination: three young women allegedly held captive in a house for roughly 10 years beginning at ages 21, 16 and 14.
They were allegedly abducted off the street in a Cleveland neighborhood by the homeowner, Ariel Castro, 52, who’s now facing four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. Alleged violence and threats made the captive women afraid to seek an escape.
But one of the women – the one who bore a child by Castro – finally shouted for help after Castro left the house and forgot to lock a big inside door. Neighbors responded. The women and a 6-year-old girl were freed.
Now tourists visit the neighborhood. And as the city seeks donations to support the women, it struggles with a dark legacy.
Texas explosion
The explosion of a fertilizer plant shook the Earth like an earthquake. In fact, the blast in West, Texas, registered a 2.1 on the Richter scale, and people felt it 50 miles away.
The first responders experienced a scene for which no training could ever prepare them: a mushroom-cloud fireball lay waste to 37 blocks, including a nursing home, the local high and middle school, and many houses.
Fifteen people – including 12 first responders – were killed.
Volunteer firefighter Robert Payne was blown out of his boots and knocked senseless. He woke up in intensive care wondering what happened. Now recovering from several injuries, he’s thankful he’s alive.
As the town of 2,800 rebuilds, will it want the fertilizer plant back? The mayor doubts it.
Boston Marathon bombings
Among those injured in the Boston Marathon bombings were two brothers.
Paul and JP Norden have shared much in life. Now they are together in recovery: Each brother lost a right leg in the attack.
As hard as the limb loss was for the brothers, equally difficult was not seeing other each for weeks as they underwent 12 surgeries in all.
The siblings finally saw each other about two weeks ago for the first time since the marathon. They want the public to know their uncommon brotherhood is lifting them through an arduous recuperation.
London slaying
The British soldier was well-liked by many. He was even a military recruiter and played the drum outside the Royal Palaces on behalf of his regiment, the Fusiliers.
But the life of Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, came to a grisly end on a London street at the hands of a man with a meat cleaver and knife.
What has shocked the world is how the alleged attacker – Michael Adebolajo, 28, a British national of Nigerian descent – made a video of the gory scene and spoke to the camera about the killing, saying it was “an eye for an eye” and “because Muslims are dying daily.”
A total of five men have been arrested in the slaying. Now far-right activists are calling upon Muslims to leave the country.
Capital calamities
The second term of President Barack Obama was supposed to be about immigration reform, gun control and the economy.
Instead, it’s seemingly been one scandal after another.
The Justice Department secretly collected two months of telephone records from the Associated Press.
Questions resurfaced about whether the administration downplayed the role of terrorism in the attack against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
And the IRS allegedly targeted politically conservative groups.
The president says he’s angry about it, too.