A 12-year-old girl died after falling from a third-story window at a Massachusetts apartment during a sleepover with friends, news outlets reported.
Arya Lebeau died a day after the incident on May 24, according to reporting from The Miami Herald.
“I cannot express the amount of grief I feel at the loss of my only baby,” the child’s mother, Charlene Cabrera, said in a statement on a public GoFundMe page.
A cruise ship’s captain died after suffering a medical emergency at sea, officials said.
“It is with profound sadness that we share the news of the passing of Captain Michele Bartolomei, who had a sudden medical emergency and died onboard Diamond Princess,” Princess Cruises told reporters with PEOPLE Magazine. “Captain Bartolomei was a respected leader, whose decades of service at sea exemplified professionalism, dedication, and care for both guests and crew.”
The incident happened Monday while the ship was in Taiwan in the middle of a 19-day voyage. Passengers were given the news of the captain’s passing in a letter that was delivered to their cabins that informed them of which captain would be taking over for the rest of their trip.
Cruise ships leaving the U.S. have reached a two-year high, according to data from the Department of Transportation.
Allegations of at least 48 crimes were reported from Jan. 1, 2025, to March 30, 2025, according to numbers reported to authorities and published regularly by the Department of Transportation. Under the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA) of 2010, cruise lines are required to report crimes like physical assaults, rape, and sexual assaults to the FBI. Of these incidents, seven were assaults with serious bodily injury, 10 were sexual assaults and 23 were rapes.
Robert McDonald, a criminal justice lecturer at the University of New Haven and former agent with the secret service, told reporters with Fox News that having a number of people drinking alcohol in confined quarters, “whether that’s at a resort, whether it’s on a cruise ship” there is a potential increase for these incidents to occur.
A skydiving instructor made a daring rescue to save one of his students after a midair parachute malfunction.
No serious injuries were reported in the incident, which left the skydiving instructor dangling from a tree, The Miami Herald reported Monday.
First responders were notified of the incident around 5:30 p.m. on May 2 when a 911 caller reported that a skydiver had gone missing east of Palatka Municipal Airport. When the instructor noticed that the student’s parachute had failed, “he did not pull his own chute in order to reach the student,” officials with the Putnam Sheriff’s Office said via a Facebook news release.
Royal Caribbean has been given the greenlight to buy a 40-acre property that has sat dormant since 2011, according to Cruise News Today.
The Bahamian government authorized the cruise lines to purchase the Xanadu Beach Resort south of Freeport as part of a $348 million project. The companies plan to update the site and turn it into an “entertainment center” for passengers. The property – once the epicenter of grandeur and a playground for some of Hollywood’s elite –has been empty and on the market since at least 2011.
The project contributes to the growing cruising presence in the area, joining Carnival Celebration Key – another resort scheduled to open in summer 2025. These expansions are emblematic of a boom in the cruise sector, which has made an impressive recovery following the industry-wide shut down during the pandemic.
Over a hundred passengers and dozens of crew members across three cruise ships reported symptoms of norovirus as health officials warned of new strain.
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control have warned about a “newly dominant strain” of norovirus, which they said could be driving the uptick in recent cases seen on land and on cruise ships. This comes after significant cuts to the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program’s (VSP) workforce last month. These employees were tasked with investigating outbreaks and conducting routine health inspections on cruise ships before their dismissals, which were a part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to issue layoffs to public health agency employees.
Following these cuts, CDC officials called the move “frustrating” and has exacerbated the already taxing issue of being short-staffed. When the news first broke of the layoffs, the agency was already in the middle of responding to two outbreaks.
A man was sentenced to 20 years in prison and five years of supervised release for a sexual assault that took place on a Baltimore cruise ship, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland said Thursday.
Jalen Kelley, 22, of Abingdon, Maryland, was found guilty in December of aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse and assault while aboard a Baltimore cruise ship.
Kelley raped the victim, a minor, on Jan. 1, 2023, aboard the ship. In reporting from The Miami Herald, the teen allegedly needed to use the restroom, and Kelley allowed the minor to use the bathroom in his cabin. When the minor finished using the restroom, Kelley attacked the teen.
Approximately two dozen people were banned from sailing with Carnival Cruise Line after an all-out brawl broke out as passengers disembarked from a ship over the weekend.
The incident, which was filmed and posted online, happened on April 26, 2025, inside a terminal as passengers disembarked in Galveston, Texas. The footage shows a horde of people pushing at one another, tackling and launching fists as multiple security guards attempted to break up the scuffle.
A spokesperson for Carnival told USA Today reporters Tuesday that police are investigating the incident and that the 24 people involved will no longer be able to sail with the cruise line.
A North Carolina teenager faces a felony charge after raging in a cruise ship elevator in which he allegedly beat another man into unconsciousness.
Michael White, 18, was taken into custody in Fort Lauderdale Friday after the incident aboard Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas. He was charged with felony aggravated battery, causing bodily harm.
At least one other person was listed as a co-defendant, according to reporting from local media, but that person’s name did not appear in Broward court records.
In a year rife with outbreaks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vessel Sanitation Program’s workforce has been entirely slashed.
All full-time employees with the program have been laid off, a move that will greatly impact the agency’s ability to investigate outbreaks and conduct health inspections on cruise ships, according to reporting from CBS Miami. The team inspects large vessels at least twice a year.
The dismissals are a part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to issue layoffs to public health agency employees. This plan includes over 2,400 employees at the CDC. Despite the cuts, officials with the Department of Health and Human Services claims that the cruise ship work “will be able to continue.”
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