By Karen Esquivel, CNN en Español

(CNN) — In 2021, Héctor Daniel Flores Hernández was reported missing. Two years later, his father, Héctor Flores, saw his son’s image speak again. In a video generated through artificial intelligence technology, which digitally animated a still image and gave it a synthesized voice, the figure of Héctor Daniel Flores Hernández narrated the story of his disappearance — when he was 19 years old from his home in Guadalajara — and demanded that the authorities find him alive. Since then, his father has made the search for a way of life.

“I couldn’t finish watching it the first time,” Héctor Flores said in an interview when the video was first produced. “It took me a while to process it. Seeing them with the last photo you have, saying what you know from investigations, is heartbreaking.”

The video was part of an initiative launched in 2023 by the collectives Luz de Esperanza and Alas de Libertad — groups of relatives of missing persons who organize to carry out searches, raise awareness of cases and demand justice — in the western state of Jalisco, to give a voice to the missing-persons notices about their relatives. Flores, a co-founder of Luz de Esperanza, said that the initiative continues and that “it is a perfect tool not only for the search but also to raise awareness and try to create empathy.”

Disappearances are all too common in Mexico, a country that has recorded more than 132,000 missing people since the National Registry of Disappeared and Unlocated Persons of the Secretariat of the Interior began keeping track in 1964. Human Rights Watch reports that the government has not taken sufficient measures to prevent disappearances or punish those responsible.

President Claudia Sheinbaum has acknowledged that most disappearances are linked to organized crime, and Amnesty International notes that the problem can be attributed to overall violence and insecurity. There is no complete official data set on the specific causes of all disappearances; the national registry includes data on past disappearances committed by the authorities against leftist groups and guerrillas, but the figures are mostly from recent years, when the fight against criminal organizations intensified.

In March 2025, Sheinbaum’s government announced an array of new initiatives to respond more quickly to disappearances, to treat disappearances as seriously as known kidnappings, to make statistics more available and to improve assistance to victims.

The video initiative, meanwhile, is part of a new generation of projects that have turned to AI or machine learning for help with the crisis. Universities, search collectives, other organizations and government authorities have developed and implemented AI to investigate missing persons, using techniques including database analysis, forensic identification or age-progression projections.

“The goal is that these tools be useful for entities that make up the national search system, such as prosecutors’ offices, commissions, and the Semefo (Forensic Medical Services), to assist and facilitate the work of the people,” said Andrea Horcasitas, head of the Human Rights Program at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. The program is part of the Consortium for the Ethical Use of AI in the Search for Disappeared Perso

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By Renée Rigdon, Hanna Ziady, Auzinea Bacon, CNN

The United States and Israel’s strikes on Iran are expected to spark a surge in oil prices when futures trading opens Sunday at 6 p.m. ET, experts warn.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies said early Sunday it would raise its daily output by 206,000 barrels a day after pausing incremental production increases earlier in the year. In the fourth quarter, OPEC boosted production by 137,000 barrels per day.

The production increase may somewhat blunt the expected surge in oil prices when the futures market opens Sunday evening, but energy analysts didn’t expect the production increases to do much to keep prices in check.

Oil prices have been rising in anticipation of an attack on Iran, and on Friday, Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 2.9% to $72.87 a barrel.

But how much oil gains will depend on how long the military campaign might last and the conflict’s potential impact on the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz.

On Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social that “heavy and pinpoint bombing … will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD,” reaffirming earlier comments that the military campaign would be “massive and ongoing.”

Here’s what you need know about the oil market as the military conflict ensues.

Iran has major oil reserves

Iran plays a pivotal role in the global oil market. It is a major producer of oil, controls a vital shipping lane for crude and exports to oil-hungry nations such as China. The country also boasts the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves, according to OPEC.

The Strait of Hormuz

The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off Iran’s southern coast, is the main shipping route for crude from oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the rest of the world. Iran controls the strait’s northern side. About 20 million barrels of oil, or about one-fifth of daily global production, flow through the strait every day, according to the US Energy Information Administration, which calls the channel a “critical oil chokepoint.”

Iran has threatened to close the vital waterway in previous conflicts with the United States and other Western nations. During Iran’s 12-day conflict with Israel last year, Goldman Sachs estimated that oil prices could blow past $100 a barrel if there was an “extended disruption” to the strait.

China relies on Iranian oil

Asian economies, including China and India, would be left particularly exposed if the Strait of Hormuz were closed.

Their scramble to secure oil from other countries could send global prices higher. Even a more benign scenario in which only Iranian oil shipments are affected would have knock-on effects globally.

“Since oil is a global, fungible commodity, a disruption anywhere affects prices everywhere,” Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Relations, a Washington, DC-based think tank, wrote in a recent resear

Por Chris Boyette y Karina Tsui, CNN

Al menos dos personas murieron y otras 14 resultaron heridas cuando se produjeron disparos, alrededor de las 2 a.m. del domingo, en el concurrido distrito de entretenimiento de Austin, mientras los bares cerraban, informaron las autoridades. La Policía respondió a reportes de un tiroteo en un bar popular y mató a tiros al sospechoso.

Tres de las personas hospitalizadas se encuentran en estado crítico, dijeron funcionarios.

Las autoridades recibieron una llamada sobre un hombre que disparaba en Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden, en las calles West Sixth y Rio Grande, en el centro de Austin, dijo la jefa de la Policía Lisa Davis.

“Los agentes se desplazaron de inmediato, llegaron desde East Sixth hacia West Sixth Street y se encontraron con la persona con un arma. Tres de nuestros agentes respondieron con disparos y mataron al sospechoso”, dijo Davis durante una conferencia de prensa, el domingo por la mañana.

CNN se comunicó con la Policía de Austin para obtener más información.

“Este es un incidente trágico, muy trágico”, dijo Davis. “Nuestros socios federales están aquí, al igual que otros, y esta será una escena que tomará varias horas procesar”.

Davis no detalló cómo están involucrados los agentes federales. CNN solicitó detalles a la división de San Antonio del FBI, que cubre el área de Austin.

Paramédicos que trabajan junto con el Departamento de Policía de Austin en el distrito de entretenimiento durante los fines de semana respondieron rápidamente, según Robert Luckritz, jefe del Servicio de Emergencias Médicas del Condado Austin-Travis.

“Nuestro corazón está con las personas que son víctimas de esto. Y quiero reiterar mi agradecimiento a nuestros agentes y funcionarios de seguridad pública que llegaron tan rápido al lugar de los hechos”, dijo el alcalde de Austin, Kirk Watson, en la conferencia de prensa. “Definitivamente salvaron vidas”.

Esta es una noticia en desarrollo y será actualizada.

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By Mick Krever, Isobel Yeung, CNN

(CNN) — Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have issued a draconian decree that makes sodomy punishable by death and allows men to beat their wives so long as they don’t break bones or leave visible, lasting wounds.

Human rights campaigners have decried the move as “devastating” and warned that women’s recourse to justice would be further curtailed.

“The men have the right to rule completely the women,” rights activist Mahbouba Seraj told CNN from Kabul. “His word is the word of law – that’s it.”

The decree was issued last month but has only recently come to international attention after it was leaked to the Afghan rights group Rawadari, which published it in the original Pashto. The Afghan Analysts Network then translated the document into English.

The punishments it details have already been widespread in Afghanistan, but this is the first time that they have been so clearly codified since the United States and its allies withdrew from the country in August 2021, allowing the Taliban to return to power.

The Taliban insists that all its rulings are in line with Islamic Sharia law and have religious legitimacy.

“If a husband beats his wife so severely that it results in a broken bone, or an open wound, or a black and blue wound appears on her body, and the wife appeals to a judge, then the husband will be considered an offender,” the code says, according to the Afghan Analysts Network’s translation. “A judge should sentence him to 15 days’ imprisonment.”

The punishment for animal abuse is more severe. The decree says that anyone who forces animals like dogs or cockerels to fight should be sentenced to five months in prison.

The decree also permits a father to punish their child for, among another things, failing to pray. The punishment for a teacher who so severely beats a student that a bone is broken is to be removed from their job.

Given that women in Afghanistan are prohibited from leaving the home without a male guardian, activists say the new law will prevent women from seeking justice even in cases of severe physical violence. Afghanistan’s Sharia Law also dictates that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man.

Women have seen their rights steadily degraded since the Taliban returned to power. Women are banned from almost all work outside the home. UNICEF estimates that more than two million girls and women have been shut out of education by the Taliban’s ban on them attending secondary school and university.

The UN’s top human rights official, Volker Türk, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva Thursday that the decree was “legitimizing violence against women and children, and warned that “Afghanistan is a graveyard for human rights.

“Afghanistan’s women and girls face extreme gender-based discrimination and oppression that amounts to persecution,” Türk said. “The system of segregation is reminiscent of apartheid, based on gender rather than race.”

The decree also clamps down on dissent. Anyone who insults Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada must receive 39 lashes and a year in prison, while anyone who “humiliates senior officials” is subject to six months’ imprisonment and 20 lashes.

Rawadari, the activist group that first circulated the decree, said it was “incompatible with even the m