By Dana O’Neil, CNN

(CNN) — The World Cup in the US is a once-in-a-generation moment, a chance for the country to welcome the world to its shores for the greatest spectacle in sports.

Try selling that line to a New York Knicks fan trying to make it into the city from New Jersey on June 16.

Once in a generation? How about the Knicks in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999? How about maybe a chance to win a title for the first time in 53 friggin’ years on that day?

Please.

And you want spectacle? Keep an eye on that June date, when desperately hungry and insanely passionate New York basketball fans might be trying to get to Madison Square Garden for Game 6 at the same time visiting World Cup fans are forcing an end-around.

Welcome to New York, indeed.

The complicated situation boils down to this:

In what they say is an effort to relieve what would be too taxing of a crowd on its railways and double-down on security, NJ Transit officials elected to stop all outbound trains from New York four hours prior to the eight World Cup games being played in MetLife Stadium across the Hudson in New Jersey. They’ll hold them again for three hours after the conclusion of each match.

On June 16, France plays Senegal at 3 p.m. ET in what will be one of the more highly anticipated group stage matches. From 11 a.m. ET until the start of the match, only fans holding special World Cup tickets will be permitted to access NJ Transit areas at Penn Station and travel out of New York.

That is not great, but not the worst.

Here’s where it gets ugly: The same rules are in place from about 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET in reverse. Specifically, as NJ Transit explained to CNN Sports via email, the last train to arrive at New York Penn Station from Newark Penn Station will pull in at 5:43 and the last from Newark Broad Street gets in at 5:31.

If there is a Game 6, tipoff is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. ET.

Way back in 1963, the city took a wrecking ball to Penn Station, turning the beautiful Beaux Arts station into rubble. Folks were not happy. An architectural historian from Yale wrote of the end of the Beaux Arts original, “One entered the city like a God.’’ As for the new version, Vincent Scully added, “One now scuttles in like a rat.’’

But rebuilding Penn Station also allowed developers to relocate Madison Square Garden from Eighth Avenue and 50th to its present-day spot, between 31st and 33rd and 7th and 8th, and plop it directly above the railway. While the station lacked the grandeur of its predecessors, the rats could sure scuttle in conveniently. Fans holding tickets to anything in the Garden needn’t so much as head outside.

Now, Knicks fans – who have waited for an NBA title nearly as long as the Garden has been reopened (it reopened in 1968, the Knicks’ last title came in 1973) – will be diverted by, of all people, the French! Two of the crankiest cultures in the world coming together in a commuting catastrophe.

There is a plan in place.

“For Knicks fans traveling during that time, PATH will accept NJ Transit train tickets with a New York destination at Newark Penn Station and Hoboken Terminal for travel to 33rd Street Station in New York at no additional cost,’’ NJ Transit said in an email to CNN Sports. “Knicks fans who wish to travel on NJ Transit directly into PSNY will need to plan accordingly.’’

So yes, this is merely an inconvenience and not the end of the world. The 33rd St. Station is maybe a five-minute walk to the

By T.M. Brown, CNN

(CNN) — When Jason was 17 and “trying to get swole,” he said he and a friend started noticing they were getting served Instagram videos from gym influencers promoting a drug called MK-677. Intrigued by the promise that the drug would make them hungrier, so that they could eat more for muscle building without getting full, the teens “started sending the videos back and forth to one another,” said Jason, who is using a pseudonym to protect his privacy.

After seeking out more information on YouTube and Reddit, they eventually ordered capsules billed as MK-677 directly from a Chinese manufacturer. Jason, who is now 19, said the pills seemed to make him “insanely” hungry, as advertised, and his sleep improved. But the apparent side effects scared him off. “Both of us were constantly bloated,” he said, “and I ended up having high blood pressure.”

Young men in America, bombarded with images, advertisements and peer pressure telling them they need to enlarge themselves, have an unprecedented and largely untested assortment of substances waiting to drop-ship straight into their bodies. Those pursuing more muscle can draw on a wide-ranging and ever-growing gray market for performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), beyond the better-established and more widely known anabolic steroids.

In addition to MK-677 — also known as ibutamoren — there’s turkesterone, a plant-based alternative to synthetic steroids, and ostarine, a selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM), promoted for its ability to build muscle in targeted parts of the body. These compounds are often positioned and sold as “nutritional supplements,” and can be bought with a few clicks from unregulated online sources. Users on social media platforms are swapping WhatsApp numbers for the best providers, and influencers across the internet are encouraging young men to inject or ingest these products in the pursuit of a “better” body.

The enthusiasm has outpaced medical knowledge, or even awareness, of how people are choosing to use these substances and what the effects may be. In 2024, Rohlil Dhaliwal, then an undergraduate powerlifter at Harvard University, said he was talking to his friends on the team about turkesterone. Influencers on social media cited studies to say it would stimulate muscle growth like an anabolic steroid, but without the usual nasty impacts on the liver, heart or hormonal regulation.

Dhaliwal, who was also an undergraduate researcher at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, at the time, reached out for more information to Dr. Harrison Pope, the director of the biological psychiatry lab at McLean and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Pope is one of the world’s foremost authorities on anabolic steroids and has been researching PEDs and their impacts on people’s bodies and minds for decades.

“I’m one of the most widely published people in this field in the world,” Pope said. “I had never heard of turkesterone. And if I hadn’t heard of it, then it was likely a lot of people in the wider medical community hadn’t heard of it either.”

Pope was concerned that the gap between self-directed use of drugs like turkesterone and the limited knowledge about these drugs among medical professionals was creating a public health hazard. “We in the ‘above ground’ medical community are just completely out of touch with this vast underground world,” he said.

He also pointed to the lack of longitudinal studies for any of these drugs as a potential risk. “It is unclear whether they are safer for the long term, or whether they may have unforeseen dangers,” he said. It was only recently, he added, that the medical community developed literature on the impacts of recreational use of more established steroid PEDs, because many users are only now reaching old age.

For a research paper published in March in the journal Performance Enhancement &

Por María Santana, CNN en Español

Desde muy temprano en la mañana, mucho antes de que la ciudad despierte por completo, decenas de personas ya hacen fila afuera de una marqueta móvil gratuita en el Bronx organizada por City Harvest, la organización de rescate de alimentos más grande de la ciudad de Nueva York.

Para las nueve de la mañana, la línea ya le da la vuelta a la manzana. Algunos dejan sus carritos guardando espacio y regresan más tarde para no perder el turno.

Con bolsas reutilizables y mochilas en mano, familias enteras esperan poder llevar suficiente comida para sobrevivir al menos hasta la próxima distribución de alimentos.

Según datos de Feeding America, más de 48 millones de personas en Estados Unidos enfrentan inseguridad alimentaria. De ellas, cerca de 14 millones son latinas.

Entre ellas está Martina Santos, voluntaria de City Harvest desde hace 13 años y también beneficiaria de la ayuda alimentaria. “Soy diabética, tengo presión alta y he tenido que saltarme comidas”, dijo Santos a CNN.

La dominicana, residente del Bronx desde hace cinco décadas, asegura que el aumento en el costo de vida la ha obligado a hacer sacrificios peligrosos para su salud.

“Si desayuno no puedo almorzar, porque no tengo bastante. Y espero a cenar para no irme a la cama con el estómago vacío”, explicó Santos de 67 años. “Antes me desayunaba algo, comía algo en el almuerzo y mantenía mi azúcar bajo control en 98 o 99. Ahora me sube hasta 175”.

Aunque recibe cupones de alimentos, conocidos como SNAP, Santos dice que no le alcanza para mantener la dieta saludable que necesita.

“La inflación que estamos viviendo me ha forzado a llevar este ritmo de vida y el SNAP ya no me es suficiente”, dijo mientras repartía vasos de ensalada de maíz a familias que salían de la marqueta cargando bolsas y carritos llenos de zanahorias, guineos y batatas, entre otras frutas y vegetales frescos.

La inflación anual en Estados Unidos subió al 3,8 % en abril, por encima de los salarios. Los efectos acumulativos de más de cinco años de alta inflación, impactan fuertemente en las personas que viven en el país, y también suman presión con se enfrentan con la crisis de costos derivada de la guerra en Medio Oriente.

En Nueva York, City Harvest calcula que más de un millón de neoyorquinos viven en hogares donde no siempre alcanza la comida, incluyendo uno de cada cuatro niños.

“Una de cada cuatro familias con hijos necesita ayuda alimenticia y últimamente estamos viendo filas más largas aquí en nuestras marquetas móviles”, dijo Pedro Urbaez, director de distribución comunitaria de City Harvest.

Urbaez afirma que muchas familias ahora enfrentan situaciones imposibles.

“Tienen que buscar cómo pagar la renta, la luz, el gas y otros servicios. Entonces, la comida es la última cosa en la que ellos gastan el dinero”, dijo.

La organización estima que cada distribución sirve entre 500 y 600 familias, muchas de ellas con niños pequeños.

“La marqueta móvil es parte de nuestro programa para dar esa comida que rescatamos a personas que viven en los cinco condados de Nueva York”, explicó Urbaez. “No tienen que dar mucha información, solamente decir cuántas personas hay en su familia y pueden recibir comida”.

En la fila esa mañana estaba Mónica López con su bebé de un año y cuatro meses.

“Es necesario para mí venir aquí. La verdad, es una bendición de Dios poder recibir esta ayuda”, dijo López.

La madre de 32 años dice que actualmente se dedica al cuidado de su hijo mientras su esposo intenta sostener el hogar con un solo salario.

“Es difícil, porque todo ha subido de precio y casi no nos alcanza lo que estamos ganando porque las cosas están muy caras”, aseguró López.

A pocos pasos de ella, Edith Soperanes, de 34 años y madre de dos niños, también esperaba llevar comida para su familia.

By Kaanita Iyer, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump has refiled his lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal’s publisher and two of its reporters over a July 2025 report on a lewd birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein bearing Trump’s name.

Tuesday’s defamation lawsuit seeks $10 billion for damages and claims that the story had “glaring failures in journalistic ethics and standards of accurate reporting.”

“President Trump has refiled his powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other Defendants. The President will continue to hold those who mislead the American People with Fake News and smears accountable for their actions,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told CNN.

CNN has reached out to the Wall Street Journal for comment.

The president’s earlier lawsuit was dismissed last month, with a federal judge ruling that Trump failed to plausibly allege the newspaper acted with “actual malice” when it reported the story.

Since returning to office, Trump has gone after media companies through legal pressure and public threats. When the president first filed the lawsuit last summer, legal experts consulted by CNN said they could not recall any past instances of a sitting president suing a news outlet over a story.

He has since filed lawsuits against other outlets including a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times in September, that accuses the outlet of being a “virtual mouthpiece” for the Democratic Party.

In December, Trump sued the BBC for $10 billion, alleging that it defamed him by splicing together two different parts of his January 6, 2021, speech.

The Wall Street Journal story published in July 2025 was about a collection of letters gifted to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. One of the letters, the Wall Street Journal reported, bore Trump’s name and an outline of a naked woman.

Trump has denied writing the letter. In Tuesday’s filing, his legal team said the reporters “falsely pass off as fact that President Trump, in 2003, wrote, drew, and signed this letter” but “failed to show proof.”

A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent company said in a statement when the first lawsuit was filed, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

Trump has previously been under scrutiny for his ties to Epstein, with the administration facing continued backlash for how it handled the release of the Justice Department’s files related to the late sex offender.

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CNN’s Brian Stelter, Paula Reid, Michael Williams, Dan Berman, Adam Cancryn and Andrew Kirell contributed to this report.

The post Trump refiles $10 billion lawsuit over Wall Street Journal report on Epstein birthday letter

Por Alicia Wallace, CNN

El shock del precio del petróleo por la guerra con Irán llevó el indicador de inflación preferido de la Reserva Federal al 3,8 % el mes pasado, su nivel más alto en casi tres años, mostraron nuevos datos publicados este jueves.

El índice de precios de Gastos de Consumo Personal aumentó un 0,4 % en abril respecto del mes anterior, una desaceleración frente al incremento del 0,7 % registrado en marzo. Con esta cifra del 3,8 %, la tasa anual de inflación es la más alta desde mayo de 2023.

El último informe mensual del Departamento de Comercio también mostró que los consumidores levantaron el pie del acelerador: el gasto aumentó un 0,5 % en abril, un retroceso desde un salto del 1 % el mes anterior.

Los precios de la gasolina continuaron subiendo en abril; sin embargo, se esperaba que las billeteras de los estadounidenses —muchas más abultadas por reembolsos de impuestos mayores— eventualmente no pudieran seguir el ritmo de los costos en aumento.

Al tener en cuenta la inflación, el gasto del consumidor aumentó apenas un 0,1 %.

Los economistas esperaban que la inflación aumentara un 0,5 % en términos mensuales y un 3,9 % respecto del año anterior, y que el gasto se desacelerara al 0,3 %, según FactSet.

Esta historia está en desarrollo y será actualizada.

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