Ryan Chatelain

Ryan Chatelain is an experienced, versatile and digitally minded communications professional. He currently leads Spectrum News' national digital team. He has previously covered news and sports for CBS, WFAN, Newsday, The New Orleans Times-Picayune and amNewYork.

Founding Fathers' presence still felt at NYC's Fraunces Tavern 250 years later

Near the southern tip of Manhattan sits Fraunces Tavern, a 300-year-old gem of a building teeming with history tied to the birth of a nation. 
Today, its patrons can enjoy food and drinks in the same spot George Washington and other Founding Fathers once did. Upstairs is a museum where they can learn more about America’s fight for independence and the small role the New York watering hole played in it.
“It never gets old. I pinch myself when I think about what we have here,” said Eddie Travers,...

AI boom brings misinformation concerns for 2024 elections

In recent months, generative artificial intelligence has exploded in the mainstream, allowing people to create images, audio, and essays or other text using nothing more than an idea and a command.
But with the groundbreaking technology comes concerns that it could be exploited to push disinformation that might influence elections, including in the 2024 presidential race. 
“People should be concerned about AI in the upcoming election because it's going to blur the line between fake and real,” sa...

Companies set sights on removing troublesome CO2 from air

Climate change, along with the growing problems it’s creating around the globe, is being fueled by greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere. But what if those gases could be erased? 

Emerging technologies that essentially vacuum carbon dioxide out of the air are being heralded by some as a game-changing weapon in the fight against climate change. But the industry still has a long way to go, and it has its share of detractors.

While decades old, direct air capture, or DAC, is very much still...

Trump says federal worker protections must go. Critics say that'd be dangerous

If Donald Trump returns to the White House, he is expected to try to shake up the federal workforce by making it easier to replace career civil servants — many of whom have worked through both Democratic and Republican administrations — with conservative loyalists.
But critics say such reform could inflict considerable, lasting damage on the federal government. 
In October 2020, with three months left in his presidency, Trump signed an executive order reclassifying employees “in confidential, po...

Ex-intel office: U.S. has retrieved non-human aircraft wreckage

A former senior intelligence officer made a series of jaw-dropping claims Wednesday during a House subcommittee hearing on UFOs, or what the federal government officially refers to as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).
David Grusch, who worked for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was a senior technical adviser on UAP issues, told the National Security, the Border and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee he learned of a secret “multi-decade UAP crash, retrieval and reverse engineering pr...

Johnny Cash becomes first musician honored with statue at U.S. Capitol

Johnny Cash walked the line all the way to the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall.
The Capitol unveiled a statue Tuesday of the “Man in Black,” making Cash the first professional musician ever to be depicted among the 100 monuments there.
“Johnny Cash is the perfect person to be honored in that way,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. “He was a man who embodied the American spirit in a way that few could. He was an everyday man.
“Americans related to Johnny Cash, so families across the co...

Researchers pinpoint reason common cold spreads more in winter

A team of researchers say they’ve discovered the reason why people tend to catch the common cold more in winter months. 
Colds are the results of ever-present germs invading our bodies, and it’s long been believed that the illnesses are more likely to occur when colder weather drives people indoors, where viruses can spread more easily.
But in a study published Tuesday in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, researchers say the answer is actually in our noses because their innate immu...

Louisiana may require Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms

Louisiana could soon become the first state to require the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms after its Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill Thursday. 
The legislation, introduced in the House by Republican Rep. Dodie Horton, would mandate the Ten Commandments appear in every classroom at every public K-12 school as well as colleges and universities.
The Senate approved the measure 30-8. Because the Senate made changes to the bill, the House must approve it again before it can be sent to...

Afghanistan, long wait for justice hang over 9/11 20th anniversary

Every year around this time, Sujo John remembers, even more than usual, the heroes from 9/11, including the ones who helped usher him out of the ash and soot raining down from the crumbling twin towers.
There were the firefighters he passed in the stairwell of the north tower as he raced down from his office on the 81st floor, which one of the wings from American Airlines Flight 11 sliced through. 
There was also the FBI agent who led him out of the blinding fog just after the south tower, where...