By Leila Gharagozlou, CNN

(CNN) — Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is a time of family, renewal, and the promise of fresh beginnings. Falling on the spring equinox, it is a celebration of a “new day” for millions in Iran and around the globe. But for many Iranians, there’s little enthusiasm for festivities this year.

Caught between a wounded, angry but deeply entrenched regime and incessant US and Israeli attacks that have left thousands of dead and wounded and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, Iranians have been preparing for a very different Nowruz.

“I have no energy to set my haft sin and prepare my home for the spring, said Nazanin, a 36-year-old Tehran resident, referring to the traditional spread that families put out to symbolize renewal, harmony and prosperity. “How can I celebrate when I can’t see my family? We can’t all get together.”

For her and many other Iranians who spoke to CNN – their surnames withheld to protect their identities – the past three weeks have been filled with a sense of hopelessness and fear.

“Time feels suspended in some ways. We are on the precipice of something, on the edge every day but we never fall over and the usual markers of time like (Persian Fire Festival) Chaharshanbe Suri and Nowruz have come along and mean so little,” Nazanin said.

Despite the war, Tehran has continued to prepare for the Nowruz celebrations. The bazaar has plenty of goods, and the smell of hyacinths, a traditional Nowruz flower, permeates the narrow alleys, a visceral reminder of springtime in the city.

But while some like Nazanin feel a despondency heading into the new year, for others, hope springs eternal.

“Ever since this war began, it feels as though the city is lighter, even though we are getting bombarded. The weather has been perfect, the skies blue, the smog lifted. It is perfect spring weather in every sense, like the city knows we’ll be free,” said Mehrdad, a longtime resident of the capital.

In a divided society, some Iranians see a particular resonance in Nowruz this year, with the occasion’s focus on cleansing and rebirth.

“I don’t believe in signs but perhaps there is a reason that this has all happened on the eve of Nowruz,” said Ahmad, a 45-year-old living in Iran.

He and his wife are planning to celebrate Nowruz as they always do, he said, explaining “These traditions are moments of happiness. We have seen so much death in the last few months of this year I feel that it’s necessary to honor life, not let them take this away from us.”

This year’s Nowruz celebrations have not only been blighted by war. Prior to the start of the conflict, the country was already facing a dire economic situation. High inflation and unemployment – a result of government mismanagement and decades of sanctions – triggered nationwide protests against the regime in late December last year, an outpouring of public anger that ended in a bloody crackdown by security forces.

The economic conditions that lit the fire of protest have not changed. For average Iranians, even basic goods have become unaffordable. The additional cost of Nowruz celebrations is exorbitant for many.

One Tehran resident said that while they were going to mark the New Year, they could not justify the expenditure of buying flowers and preparing traditional foods. “Markets are well stocked, but a shortage is not the issue for me right now. Buying fresh herbs, buying fish, even buying flowers, are luxuries especially when w

By Kara Scannell, CNN

(CNN) — The co-founder of Super Micro Computer and two others were charged with diverting $2.5 billion worth of servers with Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips to China, in violation of US laws barring exports to that country without a license.

Yih-Shyan Liaw, known as Wally; Ruei-Tsang Chang, known as Steven; and Ting-Wei Sun, known as Willy, were charged with conspiring to violate export control laws, smuggling goods from the US and conspiring to defraud the US.

Liaw, who co-founded Super Micro Computer and served on its board of directors, was arrested Thursday in California and released on bail. Sun, a contractor, is held awaiting a detention hearing. Chang, who worked in the Taiwan office of Super Micro, remains at large.

Super Micro Computer is not named in the indictment.

The company released a statement Thursday saying it has placed Liaw and Chang on administrative leave and terminated its relationship with Sun.

“The conduct by these individuals alleged in the indictment is a contravention of the Company’s policies and compliance controls, including efforts to circumvent applicable export control laws and regulations. Supermicro maintains a robust compliance program and is committed to full adherence to all applicable U.S. export and re-export control laws and regulations,” the statement said.

The company said it is cooperating fully with the investigation.

CNN has reached out to Liaw and Chang for comment. CNN has not identified an attorney for Sun.

“Diversion schemes like those disrupted today generate billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains and pose a direct threat to U.S. national security,” said Jay Clayton, US attorney for the Southern District of New York. “Crimes involving sensitive technology must be met with swift action otherwise the law is meaningless.”

According to the indictment, the men used a pass-through company based in Southeast Asia to place orders to obscure that the servers would end up in China.

The men worked with executives at the pass-through company to provide false documents to the server manufacturer to further the deception, the indictment said. They used a shipping and logistic company to repackage the servers into unmarked boxes to conceal their contents before they were shipped to China.

To deceive the manufacturer’s auditors, who checked the pass-through company for compliance with export laws, the men allegedly used “dummy” nonworking copies of the servers when the actual servers were on their way to China.

Two of the defendants allegedly worked to stage the dummy servers at a warehouse rented by the pass-through company, according to the indictment. Sun took photos and videos of the staged servers to one of the compliance auditors who instead of conducting the audit was “off-site enjoying entertainment paid for” by the pass-through company, according to the indictment.

In another instance, prosecutors said surveillance cameras documented individuals using hair dryers to remove labels and add labels and serial number stickers to the boxes and dummy servers.

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By Sarah Owermohle, Jen Christensen, Meg Tirrell, CNN

(CNN) — The future of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s panel of vaccine advisers is unclear, even among its recently appointed members.

On Monday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the US Department of Health and Human Services’ overhaul of the vaccine schedule and ruled that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to replace the CDC’s panel of independent vaccine experts in June did not follow federal legal procedures.

The ruling has left confusion in its wake. The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP, canceled its planned meeting this week.

Over several social media posts on Thursday, one of the members appointed by Kennedy, Dr. Robert Malone, said that the government will “disband and then recreate a new ACIP committee.” Hours later, Malone posted that information he had shared was a “miscommunication, and in fact the decision about how to proceed has not been made, and dissolving and reforming remains one of options being considered.”

A spokesperson for the Independent Medical Alliance told CNN that ACIP chair Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a former senior fellow with the group, was not available for comment but had also been told by an HHS official that the committee had been disbanded.

Another ACIP member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told CNN that HHS may intend to repopulate the committee with new members, which may be a faster route than waiting out legal appeals. As part of this week’s decision, the judge also suspended the votes the committee has taken, and there are some pressing issues that may need to be acted on, the person said.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said Thursday, “Unless officially announced by us, any assertions about what we are doing next is baseless speculation.”

In his ruling Monday, US District Judge Brian E. Murphy wrote that “of the fifteen members currently on ACIP, even under the most generous reading, only six appear to have any meaningful experience in vaccines,” and he questioned the specific credentials of other members, including Malone.

“ACIP as currently constituted cannot meet, for how can a committee meet without nearly the entirety of its membership?” Murphy wrote.

However, Murphy also noted that the plaintiffs in the suit — professional groups led by the American Academy of Pediatrics – challenged the appointment of 14 ACIP members who do not include more recent appointees. That could mean some members of the panel can continue in their roles during subsequent legal challenges.

The attorney who argued the case for the AAP, Richard Hughes, said Thursday that any committee would have to meet the standards of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which regulates how federal agencies get advice, and the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates how they develop policies.

“Any new iteration of the committee must conform to the laws at issue in our case, including FACA, and its reconstitution must comply with the APA. Anything short of a qualified committee selected through the proper process will meet our challenge,” Hughes said in an email.

The government had argued in court that ACIP was a “purely advisory entity” and that when Kennedy decided to change the vaccine schedule without the advisers’ vote, it was within his purview.

Since 1964, all US vaccine policy has first run through ACIP, an independent panel of vaccine experts who evaluate the latest research to determine how safe and effective a vaccine is and the committee weighs in on who should get the

By Sarah Owermohle, Jen Christensen, Meg Tirrell, CNN

(CNN) — The future of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s panel of vaccine advisers is unclear, even among its recently appointed members.

On Monday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the US Department of Health and Human Services’ overhaul of the vaccine schedule and ruled that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to replace the CDC’s panel of independent vaccine experts in June did not follow federal legal procedures.

The ruling has left confusion in its wake. The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP, canceled its planned meeting this week.

Over several social media posts on Thursday, one of the members appointed by Kennedy, Dr. Robert Malone, said that the government will “disband and then recreate a new ACIP committee.” Hours later, Malone posted that information he had shared was a “miscommunication, and in fact the decision about how to proceed has not been made, and dissolving and reforming remains one of options being considered.”

A spokesperson for the Independent Medical Alliance told CNN that ACIP chair Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a former senior fellow with the group, was not available for comment but had also been told by an HHS official that the committee had been disbanded.

Another ACIP member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told CNN that HHS may intend to repopulate the committee with new members, which may be a faster route than waiting out legal appeals. As part of this week’s decision, the judge also suspended the votes the committee has taken, and there are some pressing issues that may need to be acted on, the person said.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said Thursday, “Unless officially announced by us, any assertions about what we are doing next is baseless speculation.”

In his ruling Monday, US District Judge Brian E. Murphy wrote that “of the fifteen members currently on ACIP, even under the most generous reading, only six appear to have any meaningful experience in vaccines,” and he questioned the specific credentials of other members, including Malone.

“ACIP as currently constituted cannot meet, for how can a committee meet without nearly the entirety of its membership?” Murphy wrote.

However, Murphy also noted that the plaintiffs in the suit — professional groups led by the American Academy of Pediatrics – challenged the appointment of 14 ACIP members who do not include more recent appointees. That could mean some members of the panel can continue in their roles during subsequent legal challenges.

The attorney who argued the case for the AAP, Richard Hughes, said Thursday that any committee would have to meet the standards of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which regulates how federal agencies get advice, and the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates how they develop policies.

“Any new iteration of the committee must conform to the laws at issue in our case, including FACA, and its reconstitution must comply with the APA. Anything short of a qualified committee selected through the proper process will meet our challenge,” Hughes said in an email.

The government had argued in court that ACIP was a “purely advisory entity” and that when Kennedy decided to change the vaccine schedule without the advisers’ vote, it was within his purview.

Since 1964, all US vaccine policy has first run through ACIP, an independent panel of vaccine experts who evaluate the latest research to determine how safe and effective a vaccine is and the committee weighs in on who should get the

Análisis de Allison Morrow, CNN

La pregunta que parece estar en la mente de todos esta semana parece ser alguna variación de “¿cuándo terminará la guerra con Irán?”. Los estadounidenses no le ven el sentido, y su enojo no hace más que crecer a medida que aumenta el número de muertos y se profundiza el daño económico.

Es una pregunta justa, especialmente porque la Casa Blanca y el Pentágono han sido totalmente incapaces de articular su objetivo final. Pero la pregunta que más les importa a los estadounidenses de a pie es una más acotada, y sobre la cual la Casa Blanca tiene aún menos control: ¿cuándo se reabrirá el estrecho de Ormuz?

La vía marítima entre Irán y Omán ha estado efectivamente cerrada durante 19 días, estrangulando el 20 % del suministro mundial de petróleo y ayudando a empujar los precios de la gasolina en Estados Unidos 86 centavos hacia arriba, un salto del 29 %, uno de los picos más pronunciados registrados.

La única manera de controlar los precios del petróleo es lograr que cientos de petroleros inactivos vuelvan a moverse por el estrecho. Eso es algo con lo que la mayoría de los aliados estadounidenses hasta ahora se han negado a ayudar.

Y los comentarios del presidente Donald Trump sobre el estrecho sugieren que quizá no comprende del todo cómo funcionan los mercados globales de materias primas. El miércoles, el presidente reflexionó en redes sociales sobre abandonar el estrecho de Ormuz y dejar que los “países que lo usan” sean responsables de protegerlo. Es una sugerencia extraña, considerando que el presidente ha estado presionando a los aliados para que envíen buques de guerra en una gestión por calmar los mercados petroleros globales.

La publicación decía: “Me pregunto qué pasaría si ‘acabáramos’ con lo que queda del Estado terrorista iraní, y dejáramos que los países que lo usan, nosotros no, sean responsables del llamado ‘estrecho’. ¡Eso pondría a algunos de nuestros ‘aliados’ que no responden a moverse, y rápido!”

Si bien es cierto que la mayor parte del petróleo consumido en Estados Unidos no pasa por el estrecho, la Marina estadounidense históricamente ha asegurado el paso seguro allí, no solo para ayudar a los aliados que dependen del petróleo del golfo Pérsico, sino para estabilizar los precios en todo el mundo, incluso dentro de Estados Unidos.

Aunque Estados Unidos es “independiente” energéticamente, tras haberse convertido en exportador neto de petróleo en 2019, eso no es lo mismo que estar “aislado”, señala Katie Klingensmith, estratega jefe de inversiones en Edelman Financial Engines.

“Aun así, importamos ciertos tipos de crudo porque las refinerías estadounidenses están construidas para mezclas específicas, y el comercio global a menudo hace que sea más barato importar algunos tipos y exportar otros”.

En otras palabras: el petróleo se vende en el mercado global, y al ritmo que van los precios en todo el mundo, así van los precios que los estadounidenses pagan en la gasolinera. No hay un trato especial solo para nosotros.

Es imposible saber si Trump hablaba en serio con la idea, pero fue solo lo último de una serie de mensajes inconsistentes del presidente a casi tres semanas de iniciada la guerra. La Casa Blanca remitió las preguntas sobre la publicación a la declaración anterior de la secretaria de prensa, Karoline Leavitt, de que el presidente continúa trabajando con aliados en Europa y el Golfo para reabrir el estrecho.

Sin embargo, esa incertidumbre se está traduciendo en un dolor económi