By Kaanita Iyer, CNN

(CNN) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that the US military will no longer require the annual flu vaccine for troops.

“Our new policy is simple. If you, an American warrior entrusted to defend this nation, believe that the flu vaccine is in your best interest, then you’re free to take it. You should,” Hegseth said in a video posted on X, adding, “But we will not force you.”

The move, which takes effect immediately, comes as the flu season has largely ended with cases on the decline, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Annual flu vaccines are available for people age six months and older and are widely recommended by doctors to reduce the risk of severe illness, hospitalization or death from the flu.

Richard Ricciardi, a veteran and a professor at the George Washington University School of Nursing, said Hegseth’s move “is a serious lapse in judgment.”

“The policy ignores warnings that more flu illness will mean more missed duty days, more hospitalizations and more preventable readiness losses,” Ricciardi said in a statement. He added: “In the military, vaccination is not political theater. It is force protection. Troops live and work in close quarters, where influenza can spread quickly and sideline otherwise healthy service members.”

In the video, Hegseth claimed “absurd, overreaching” medical mandates, like the military’s flu vaccine requirement, “only weaken our war-fighting capabilities.”

“The notion that a flu vaccine must be mandatory for every service member everywhere in every circumstance at all times is just overly broad and not rational,” the defense secretary said.

The military’s first flu vaccine mandate dates back to 1945, according to a 2022 analysis of military vaccine mandates in the United States, due in part to the flu’s “historic damage and threat as a bioweapon.” It was withdrawn in 1949 but later mandated again in the early 1950s.

Hegseth in the video also criticized the Covid-19 vaccine requirement for troops put in place during the Biden administration, which was rescinded in 2023. Shortly after returning to the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reinstate, with back pay, service members, who were discharged for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

Of the nearly 9,000 service members who were pushed out of the military because they declined to get the vaccine under the prior mandate, about 150 had rejoined as of earlier this year.

Last year, the Pentagon exempted reservists from the flu vaccine requirement. In a memo obtained by the Associated Press, Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg said there are only some circumstances in which the flu shot is required for all service members.

More broadly, the Trump administration, particularly Health and Human Services Sec

Análisis de Lisa Eadicicco, CNN

El anuncio realizado el lunes por Apple —de que su presidente ejecutivo, Tim Cook, dejará el cargo y John Ternus asumirá el mando— señala un cambio significativo para la compañía: Apple está apostando su futuro a la tecnología que evoluciona con mayor rapidez en la historia de la informática.

Apple sigue gozando de un éxito rotundo gracias al iPhone, dispositivo que le ayudó a convertirse el año pasado en una de las pocas empresas que cotizan en bolsa en alcanzar un valor de mercado de US$ 4 billones. Cook expandió el concepto del iPhone, transformándolo de un mero producto en el pilar fundamental de nuevos segmentos de negocio, tales como los dispositivos vestibles (wearables), los servicios digitales y la salud.

Ternus tendrá la tarea de trazar el próximo rumbo de Apple, y deberá hacerlo en un momento en que la inteligencia artificial (IA) está reconfigurando la tecnología y la manera en que las personas la utilizan en su día a día. El listón está especialmente alto para Apple, dado su historial de productos que han definido su categoría, entre los que se incluyen los teléfonos inteligentes, los relojes inteligentes y las tabletas.

Apple ha lanzado un conjunto de funciones impulsadas por IA para el iPhone, la Mac y el iPad, capaces de realizar tareas como eliminar objetos no deseados de las fotografías, resumir mensajes, generar imágenes y traducir idiomas.

No obstante, Apple aún no ha presentado una estrategia de IA más amplia; por ejemplo, no ha detallado de qué manera la inteligencia artificial dará forma a sus nuevos productos ni cómo generará beneficios económicos para la empresa.

A primera vista, Ternus podría parecer una elección inusual para liderar ese futuro basado en la IA. Su trayectoria profesional se centra principalmente en el hardware, habiéndose incorporado al equipo de diseño de productos en 2001 para, con el tiempo, ascender hasta ocupar el cargo de vicepresidente sénior de Ingeniería de Hardware, en 2021.

Sin embargo, si bien los consumidores interactúan con la IA a través del software, Apple mantiene un vínculo sumamente estrecho entre su hardware y sus aplicaciones, servicios y sistemas operativos. Los chips de Apple se fabrican específicamente para productos como el iPhone y la Mac, lo que les confiere una mayor eficiencia energética y permite habilitar ciertas funcionalidades exclusivas de los dispositivos de la marca. Otros fabricantes de dispositivos optan por utilizar chips de proveedores externos —como Qualcomm o Intel—, lo que les otorga un menor control sobre aspectos como la cámara o la gestión del consumo energético, por citar algunos ejemplos.

Esto significa que el profundo conocimiento que Ternus posee del hardware de Apple podría resultar enormemente beneficioso para las ambiciones de la compañía en el ámbito de la IA; especialmente si se tiene en cuenta que, según informa Bloomberg, la empresa estaría trabajando en nuevos tipos de dispositivos basados ​​en inteligencia artificial, tales como unas gafas inteligentes con Siri integrado, un colgante y unos AirPods equipados con cámaras. ¿Qué mejor persona para dirigir Apple en un momento en que podría expandirse hacia nuevos tipos de dispositivos que aquella que ha estado liderando sus esfuerzos de ingeniería de hardware?

De ahora en adelante, la innovación en hardware será “el corazón y los pulmones del éxito de Apple”, y podría definir el legado de Ternus como líder de la compañía, afirmó Dan Ives —quien dirige la investigación tecnológica en Wedbush Securities— en una nota enviada el martes por la mañana.

El hecho de que Ternus se convierta en el próximo CEO “significa que gran parte del camino por recorrer tiene que ver c

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By Mostafa Salem, CNN

(CNN) — More than six weeks after he was announced as their new supreme leader following the assassination of his father, Iranians have still not seen or heard Mojtaba Khamenei.

In the midst of a conflict seen as posing an existential threat to the regime that has ruled their country for nearly half a century, Khamenei has been conspicuously absent. Instead, statements attributed to the 56-year-old cleric have been read out on national television or posted on social media. The regime has even used AI-generated videos to show Khamenei delivering messages, fueling speculation that the new supreme leader is incapacitated or abroad.

It’s in stark contrast to his father, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was for decades the highly visible face of Iranian decision-making. Under him, not a week passed without a speech, a ruling, a carefully timed intervention.

A source told CNN last month that Khamenei had suffered a fractured foot, a bruised left eye and minor lacerations to his face in the same wave of strikes that killed his father and Iran’s top military commanders.

Another report on Reuters cited unnamed sources as saying he is taking part in meetings with senior officials via audio conferencing and is engaged in decision-making on major issues including the war and new negotiations ‌with Washington.

Is Khamenei in the loop? Is he setting the parameters, drawing the red lines his negotiators need? Or is the office of the leadership functionally vacant, and if so, who’s calling the shots?

Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, says it appears that “Mojtaba is not in a state where he can actually make critical decisions or micromanage the talks,” but that “the system is using him to get final approval for key broad decisions and not (for) the tactics for the negotiations.”

“The system does deliberately highlight Mojtaba’s involvement because it provides a protective shield for that against internal criticism… unlike his father who would come out regularly and comment on the state of negotiations,” he added. “Mojtaba is missing in action, so attributing views to him is a good cover for Iranian negotiators to protect themselves from criticism.”

‘Very reasonable people’

US President Donald Trump has boasted since the killing of the elder Khamenei that Iran has undergone regime change and described those now negotiating on behalf of Tehran as “reasonable.”

“We’re dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before,” he said last month.

Iran’s opaque political system makes finding answers all the more difficult. But the longer Khamenei stays out of the public eye, the louder the questions will become.

One survivor of the US-Israeli purge of Iran’s political and military leadership was Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the country’s long-serving parliament speaker, who led the first round of negotiations with the US in Islamabad.

The former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander – who was involved in crushing pro-reform student protests – has emerged as one of Iran’s few politicians capable of dealing with both suit-wearing diplomats and soldiers in battle fatigues.

Ghalibaf was joined in Islamabad by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and a large delegation of Iranian officials in what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to signal unity.

As they negotiate the regime’s survival abroad, at home they must manage a base that has grown even more apprehensive about talks with