Alaa Elassar

Writer, CNN Digital

Alaa Elassar is a general assignment reporter and writer for CNN Digital. She is based in New York City.
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Two helicopters fly over a wildfire in Greenwood Lake, New York, November 13, 2024. Hundreds of brushfires have broken out in New Jersey and Connecticut in recent weeks amid an unseasonably warm and dry fall -- including three blazes that forced evacuations and roads closures, reports said. (Photo by Bryan R. SMITH / AFP) (Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images)
Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images
‘Everything’s getting weird’: New Yorkers have experienced tornadoes, an earthquake, and an extreme fire season this year
Nov 17, 2024
Floods, fires, hurricanes, and a lot more of them. People will lose their homes and possibly loved ones.
Salisbury University in Maryland
Megan Raymond/Salisbury Daily Times/USA Today/Imagn Images
15 Salisbury University students charged with hate crimes after they allegedly beat a man they lured to an apartment
Nov 15, 2024
Fifteen students at Salisbury University in Maryland are facing assault and hate crime charges after they allegedly targeted a man “due to his sexual preferences” and lured him to an off-campus apartment where they beat him, police said.
Plumes of smoke drift off from the Jennings Creek Wildfire along the New York-New Jersey border on Sunday.
Andrew Meher
Volunteer forest ranger, 18, dies responding to New York wildfire that sent smoky haze over NYC
Nov 11, 2024
An 18-year-old New York State Forest Ranger volunteer and state employee died Saturday while responding to a wildfire near the New York-New Jersey border that sent smoke drifting across New York City, officials said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom checks out fire damage.
California Office of the Governor
As California wildfires become more frequent, people will need to fireproof their homes. Here’s what it takes to do it
Nov 10, 2024
Steven Snyder stood by his bedroom window, gazing out as his neighborhood burned. Waves of red and orange flames and plumes of black smoke swallowed everything in sight — yet, remarkably, his house stood unscathed.
Shotgun Fire in Jackson Township, New Jersey.
New Jersey Forest Fire Service
A man has been charged with arson in connection to a New Jersey wildfire sparked by a shotgun round, officials say
Nov 10, 2024
A man has been charged with arson after allegedly firing an illegal shotgun round that sparked a wildfire in New Jersey that burned at least 350 acres of land.
NEW YORK, NY — Henry Thomas and his son Carl Thomas distribute food in the New York City subway system on July 25, 2024. Photo by Julian Rigg/CNN
Julian Rigg/CNN
A man, a cooler of sack lunches and a mission: How a formerly unhoused New Yorker helps combat food insecurity in his city
Nov 7, 2024
He starts off each day with a cooler full of food and drinks, walking the city’s streets and subway system handing them out until it’s empty. Today’s impact, he says, could be great.
An undated photo of Melonie White
From Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
A Las Vegas woman was found strangled to death in 1994. Decades later, a nonprofit group helped identify her killer
Nov 5, 2024
When someone is murdered, they leave behind heartbroken families desperate for answers. As months, years, and decades pass, the heartbreak – and desire for justice – doesn’t fade.
Sgt. Sarah Roque was found dead on her Missouri military base after disappearing.
US Army Fort Leonard Wood
Soldier charged with murder after Fort Leonard Wood sergeant found dead in dumpster
Nov 1, 2024
A 21-year-old soldier stationed in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, has been charged with murder in the death of a sergeant whose body was found in a dumpster on the military base after disappearing.
imagejpeg_0.JPG
Courtesy Joe Kovach
A ring found among the debris of Florida’s recent hurricanes awaits its owner
Oct 26, 2024
A man in Florida is looking for the owner of a ring found inside a black jewelry box with a note after Hurricanes Helene and Milton ravaged the coastal communities.
A truck is seen submerged in flood waters in Hagerman, New Mexico.
Hagerman Police Department
At least 2 dead and hundreds rescued in severe New Mexico flash flooding
Oct 22, 2024
At least two people have died and hundreds have been rescued in Roswell, New Mexico, after extreme overnight rainfall brought severe flooding, stranding motorists and sweeping away cars.
Kahiau Kawai is rescued after getting stranded on his kayak in Hawaii.
U.S. Coast Guard
How an off-duty lifeguard found a missing 17-year-old in the ocean
Oct 21, 2024
It was a typical Wednesday evening for Noland Keaulana, who was fixing his truck at his grandparents’ house, when he received an alert on his phone about a 17-year-old missing off the Honolulu coast.
ENGLEWOOD, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 11: An aerial view of vehicles lined up to wait for gas at a Circle K station on October 11, 2024, in Englewood, Florida. Florida gas stations are out of fuel following the storm that made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane in the Siesta Key area of Florida, causing damage and flooding throughout Central Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Floridians return home to clean up from two hurricanes, with gas and power in short supply
Oct 16, 2024
Surrounded by the damage left behind by hurricanes Helene and Milton, people across Florida are facing the daunting task of cleaning up, but many lack the electricity and fuel to do it.
An aerial view shows destruction at the Spanish Lakes country club in Fort Pierce, Florida, in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton on October 10, 2024. At least 10 people were dead after Hurricane Milton smashed into Florida, US authorities said, after the monster weather system sent tornados spinning across the state and flooded swaths of the Tampa Bay area. (Photo by John Falchetto / AFP) (Photo by JOHN FALCHETTO/AFP via Getty Images)
John Falchetto/AFP/Getty Images
Floods, blackouts and gas shortages: Florida faces headwinds in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton
Oct 14, 2024
On a dark night, a fierce storm gave Florida a sharp blow to the head. Less than two weeks later, another tore through its heart.
Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad is seen in a photo posted by his family to social medcia.
From Nadine Jawad/Facebook
Lebanese American killed by Israeli airstrike while caring for those who were displaced, family says
Oct 13, 2024
When Israeli airstrikes began raining down on southern Lebanon, Kamel Ahmad Jawad’s first instinct wasn’t to seek safety or return to the US. Instead, he volunteered at a hospital to help those who couldn’t run – even if they wanted to.
TARPON SPRINGS, FLORIDA - SEPTEMBER 27: Flood waters inundate the main street after Hurricane Helene passed offshore on September 27, 2024 in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night in Florida's Big Bend with winds up to 140 mph and storm surges. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Live Updates September 27, 2024 news on Tropical Depression Helene
Sep 29, 2024
Helene is now a tropical depression after making landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane.
OceanGate Titan submarine
From OceanGate/File
Diving in the Titan ‘was never supposed to be safe,’ mission specialist says of the experimental submersible
Sep 21, 2024
Four days of hearings on the 2023 implosion of the Titan submersible which killed all five people on board concluded this week with more damning testimony recounting multiple safety incidents over the years.

About

Alaa Elassar is a general assignment reporter and writer for CNN Digital. She is based in New York City.

Elassar joined CNN in 2016 and was a three-time intern and freelance writer before enlisting with the National team, where she splits her time between breaking news, explanatory articles and in-depth features.

As an Arab and Muslim American journalist, Elassar is interested in stories about culture, identity and representation, especially those from minority and marginalized communities. Her reporting has spanned topics across Native-American affairs, the Black Lives Matter movement, Asian-American hate, Islamophobia, women’s rights, and more.

Whether she’s reporting breaking news or writing features, Elassar strives to center the human experience — pulling in powerful voices, vivid color and sharp photography to bring her stories to life. She has reported from the scene of multiple mass shootings, including the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, and the subway shooting in Brooklyn.

Before joining CNN, Elassar reported for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s politics bureau, where she wrote numerous front-page stories, including a feature on how a Georgia law helped expose and bring down former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar for sexual abuse.

Elassar is Egyptian Palestinian and was born in Alexandria, Egypt before immigrating to the United States from with her family. She is a graduate of Georgia State University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.