Por Brian Stelter, CNN

The New York Times informó que el FBI “inició una investigación” contra su reportera Elizabeth Williamson después de que ésta publicara un artículo sobre el director del FBI, Kash Patel, titulado “La novia de Patel busca fama y fortuna, escoltada por un equipo SWAT del FBI”.

El editor ejecutivo del Times, Joe Kahn, calificó la investigación como un intento “alarmante” del FBI de “criminalizar el periodismo de rutina”.

El Times se enteró de la investigación gracias a una fuente confidencial que alertó al colega de Williamson, Michael Schmidt. Éste publicó un artículo al respecto el miércoles por la noche, lo que provocó que grupos defensores de la Primera Enmienda denunciaran la investigación del FBI.

Clayton Weimers, director para América del Norte de Reporteros Sin Fronteras, declaró: “La misma semana en que Kash Patel presentó una demanda endeble contra The Atlantic por un artículo que no le gustó, también supimos que su FBI rastreó desesperadamente sus bases de datos para encontrar información comprometedora sobre una periodista de The New York Times cuyo reportaje lo avergonzó”.

“Este acoso continuo y antiestadounidense a los periodistas recuerda inquietantemente a los peores momentos del FBI”, afirmó Weimers. “Es hora de que Patel se retire y renuncie”.

Patel ha estado a la defensiva desde que The Atlantic publicó la semana pasada acusaciones sobre su “consumo excesivo de alcohol y ausencias injustificadas”. Negó las acusaciones y está demandando a The Atlantic por difamación.

En medio de la especulación sobre la posible pérdida de su puesto, ha salido repetidamente en Fox News, quizás intentando congraciarse con el presidente Donald Trump apareciendo en sus programas de televisión favoritos.

En su aparición del miércoles por la noche en el programa “Hannity”, calificó la historia de Williamson del 28 de febrero como “infundada” y luego elogió a Trump.

La investigación del FBI no avanzó mucho, pero los agentes “revisaron minuciosamente las bases de datos de la agencia” en busca de información sobre Williamson, según la fuente de Schmidt. Luego, “los agentes del FBI recomendaron proceder con una investigación preliminar”, pero aparentemente se toparon con “obstáculos en el Departamento de Justicia, donde los funcionarios determinaron que no había base legal para proceder”, informó.

En respuesta al Times, el FBI negó que Williamson hubiera sido “investigada personalmente”, pero confirmó los aspectos generales de la información, insistiendo en que se trataba de un caso de amenazas de muerte contra la novia de Patel, Alexis Wilkins.

“Esto fue lo que realmente sucedió: un hombre amenazó con que le ‘golpearían la cara con un rifle de asalto’ a Alexis Wilkins tras leer el artículo de Williamson”, escribió Erica Knight, estratega de relaciones públicas cercana a Patel, en X.

“Agentes del FBI entrevistaron a Alexis sobre la amenaza. Le preguntaron sobre Williamson porque el reportaje de Williamson fue lo que provocó la reacción del acusado. Esto es parte del trabajo básico de entrevista a la víctima en un caso de amenazas”, escribió Knight.

En su aparición en Fox, Patel dijo que la persona que hizo la amenaza de muerte ha sido arrestada y acusada.

Un portavoz del FBI dijo que a los investigadores “les preocupaba cómo las técnicas agresivas de reportaje cruzaban los límites del acoso”, y agregó: “El FBI no tomó ninguna otra medida con respecto a Williamson ni al reportaje”.

Hablar de “acoso”, que es un delito federal, generó preocupación entre los editores y abogados del Time

By Christopher Lamb, CNN

(CNN) — Pope Leo XIV on Thursday denounced the Iranian regime’s killing of protesters but stressed that, “as a pastor,” he cannot support the US-Israeli war with Iran.

The pope’s remarks, made to reporters on board the papal plane returning from his trip to Africa, follow President Donald Trump’s attacks on the pontiff for his stance on the Middle East conflict.

During an in-flight press conference, the pope also addressed the topic of immigration, saying that in some cases immigrants are being treated “worse than pets.”

The first American pope told CNN last month that he hoped Trump would find an “off-ramp” to end the war in Iran, and he spoke out against justifying conflict on religious grounds. But in the hours before the pope took off for Africa on April 13, the US president sharply criticized the pope.

“As a pastor, I cannot be in favor of war,” Leo told reporters flying with him from Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. “I would like to encourage all to make efforts to look for answers that come from a culture of peace and not from a place of hate and division.”

Leo said the US and Israeli bombing of Iran has created a “chaotic situation for the global economy,” along with “a whole population in Iran, of innocent people, which is suffering because of this war.” Highlighting the human cost of conflict, the pope revealed that he carries a photo of a Lebanese Muslim boy, who had carried a sign welcoming the pontiff to the country at the end of last year and who was killed in the war.

“The question of Iran is evidently very complex,” he told reporters flying with him from Malabo, Equatorial Guinea to Rome. “The negotiations they are trying to do — one day Iran says yes, and the United States says no, and vice versa, and we don’t know where it goes.”

Regardless of whether “there is regime change or no regime change,” the emphasis should be on preventing the “death of so many innocents,” Leo said. He cited a letter from the families of school children who died on the first day of the Iran war.

“For me, if there is regime change or not, it’s not clear what the regime is at this moment after the first days of the … attacks of Israel and the United States against Iran,” he said.

The pope, who alternated between English, Spanish and Italian when answering questions, also criticized the Iranian regime’s killing of protesters in his first remarks on the topic.

Asked if he condemned Tehran’s deadly crackdown on protests in January, Leo said: “I condemn all actions that are unjust. I condemn the taking of people’s lives. I condemn capital punishment. I believe that human life is to be respected,” Leo, 70, said. “When a regime, when a country, takes decisions which take away the lives of people unjustly, then obviously that is something that should be condemned.”

The pope, who has just completed the longest foreign visit since his election last May, also addressed another issue on which he has been at odds with the Trump administration: the treatment of immigrants.

“They are human beings, and we must treat human beings in a humanitarian way and not treat them often times worse than pets at home or animals,” the pope said in response to a question about the immigration debate in Spain.

The pope pointed out that countries have “the right to implement rules for their borders.” But he said people should not “enter without order, creating situations which then can sometimes be even more unjust in the places they are arriving to than from where they just left.”

But Leo, who spent years as a missionary

PASO ROBLES, Calif. (KEYT) – An Uber driver and a Paso Robles resident were unknowingly involved in a scam involving the loss of over $10,000 that was successfully thwarted by local police Wednesday.

On April 22, officers responded to a report of suspicious activity at a Paso Robles home that involved an Uber driver stated a press release from the Paso Robles Police Department Thursday.

Officers learned from the resident that they had been scammed out of more than $10,000 and investigators quickly identified the third-party Uber driver and gave them a call shared the Paso Robles Police Department.

The money was returned to the local resident and it was determined that the Uber driver did not know about the scam, but the identity of the perpetrator of the scam remains under investigation explained the Paso Robles Police Department.

The incident remains under investigation and anyone with more information or experiencing a similar crime is asked to contact their local police department.

The Paso Robles Police Department noted that debt collectors and government organizations will never send a courier to your home to collect or settle a debt and the use of non-traditional forms of payment, such as gift cards or cash, should not be used through a third party as payment.

The post Paso Robles Police return over $10,000 to scam victim after stopping uninvolved Uber driver appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Jack Guy, CNN

(CNN) — Giant octopuses measuring up to 62 feet (19 meters) in length were among the top ocean predators around 100 million years ago, according to new research that uncovered rare fossils hidden within solid rock.

Remarkably well-preserved specimens of the octopuses’ powerful jaws show signs of intense wear from crushing hard prey including shells and bones, a study published in the journal Science on Thursday reports.

“This suggests that these giant octopuses may have functioned as apex predators in the Cretaceous sea,” study coauthor Yasuhiro Iba, an associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Japan’s Hokkaido University, told CNN.

“We were surprised. The fossil record of octopuses is extremely limited, so finding animals this large and ecologically important in the Cretaceous ocean was beyond our expectations,” he added.

The extinct animals, scientifically named Nanaimoteuthis, were about 23 to 62 feet (7 to 19 meters) in length. The researchers estimated their overall size by extrapolating from the size of the beak specimens.

The colossal creatures were among the earliest finned octopuses, which have paddle-shaped fins on their heads, in the scientific record, according to the study.

Rare fossil evidence of octopuses

Iba explained that octopuses rarely fossilize because most of their bodies are soft, with only a few hard parts like the jaws likely to be preserved after they die. The scientists conducted a fresh analysis of 15 huge jaw fossils previously found in Japan and Canada’s Vancouver Island. But the researchers didn’t stop there.

The team also unearthed 12 fossilized octopus jaws encased in sedimentary rock from the Cretaceous Period, dating back 100 million to 72 million years. The study authors found the specimens by using a 3D-imaging technique called grinding tomography to create high-resolution datasets, and an AI model, according to the study.

Iba described the method as a “digital fossil mining” approach, which produced 3D models of the jaw fossils.

During the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs including Tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops and velociraptor dominated the land.

And until now, vertebrate predators such as large marine reptiles, sharks and fishes were thought to have commanded the seas, Iba said, but the fossils hint that octopuses may also have occupied the top of the food web.

“This indicates that Cretaceous marine ecosystems were more complex and included a wider range of top predators than previously thought,” he said.

“Within this ecosystem, Nanaimoteuthis likely used its large body and long arms to capture prey, and its powerful jaws to process hard food,” Iba added. “Like modern octopuses, it may have relied on intelligence to find, capture and consume its prey.”

Iba now plans to expand digital fossil mining, which he believes can help to uncover organisms that were previously undetectable in the fossil record.

“Our goal is to reveal the hidden players of ancient ecosystems and build a much more complete picture of how past ecosystems really worked,” he said.

Tim Coulson, professor of zoology at the University of Oxford, England, who was not involved in the study, told CNN that “the work in the paper is compelling and exciting.”

“These animals would have been feeding on other animals, and they could have crunched through bones of large fish and possibly marine reptiles, as well as shells. Their size suggests they were an apex predator, sat at the top of the food chain,” he said.

“The authors argue tha

Análisis por Ben Church, CNN

Este miércoles surgieron informes de que un enviado del presidente Donald Trump estaba intentando reemplazar a Irán por Italia en la Copa del Mundo de este año. Y, como era de esperar, la noticia acaparó titulares en todo el mundo.

Según el Financial Times, el plan es un intento de reparar la tensa relación entre el presidente y la primera ministra de Italia, Giorgia Meloni. Los mandatarios tuvieron un desencuentro la semana pasada a raíz de los comentarios de Trump sobre el papa León XIV y la guerra con Irán.

Cuando se le pidió que aclarara sus comentarios, el enviado especial de Estados Unidos, Paolo Zampolli, declaró a CNN que le había sugerido la idea a Trump y al presidente de la FIFA, Gianni Infantino, y añadió que, según tenía entendido, Irán no tenía previsto participar.

“Un Mundial sin Messi no es un Mundial”, dijo, en referencia a la estrella del fútbol Lionel Messi. “Italia tiene los mismos méritos tras haber ganado cuatro veces la Copa del Mundo”.

CNN Sports se ha puesto en contacto con la FIFA, la Federación Italiana de Fútbol, ​​la Federación Iraní de Fútbol y la Confederación Asiática de Fútbol (AFC, por sus siglas en inglés), de la que Irán forma parte, para recabar sus comentarios.

Ahora bien, vamos a explicar por qué la mera sugerencia de sustituir a Irán socava la integridad del Mundial, por qué hacerlo causaría un daño duradero al deporte y por qué, en última instancia, probablemente eso no suceda.

Es importante comprender estas declaraciones en su contexto.

Tal como están las cosas, Irán tiene previsto jugar contra Nueva Zelandia, Egipto y Bélgica en la fase de grupos. Dos partidos se disputarán en Los Ángeles y el otro en Seattle.

Si tanto Estados Unidos como Irán terminan segundos en sus respectivos grupos, se enfrentarían en los dieciseisavos de final en Dallas el 3 de julio.

Y si bien la guerra entre las dos naciones está causando complicaciones evidentes, todo indica que Irán quiere participar en el torneo y está trabajando en formas de hacerlo de manera segura.

El mes pasado, el presidente del fútbol iraní, Mehdi Taj, dijo que la federación del país estaba en conversaciones con la FIFA sobre la posibilidad de trasladar sus partidos del Mundial de Estados Unidos a México.

Eso se produjo después de que Trump dijera que el equipo Melli era bienvenido en el torneo, aunque sugirió que jugar en EE.UU. podría no ser apropiado “para su propia vida y seguridad”.

Esta semana, sin embargo, un portavoz del Gobierno iraní declaró que el equipo se estaba preparando para una “participación orgullosa y exitosa” en la Copa del Mundo y que jugaría sus partidos en Estados Unidos, según la agencia Associated Press.

Infantino también confía en que Irán jugará según lo previsto. La semana pasada afirmó que “sin duda” lo hará.

“Esperamos que para entonces, por supuesto, la situación sea pacífica. Como ya dije, eso sin duda ayudaría”, declaró en el foro Invest in America de CNBC.

“Pero Irán tiene que venir. Por supuesto, representan a su pueblo. Se han clasificado. Los jugadores quieren jugar.”

Pero incluso si Irán decidiera no jugar por la razón que sea, no debería importar lo que un enviado especial quiere que suceda.

Italia no logró clasificarse. Tuvo varias oportunidades para hacerlo, pero las desaprovechó todas, hasta quedar fuera tras perder ante Bosnia y Herzegovina, número 65 del mundo, en la final del playoff.

Sí, el país tiene una rica historia en este deporte, pero la selección de fútbol actualmente es solo una sombra de lo que fue. En resumen, los Azzurri no están rindiendo bien en este momento.

Tampoco hay razón para que Italia reemplace a Irán