CNN

By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — On the surface, the Supreme Court’s massive decision shutting down Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs was a case about the president’s power to pursue a global economic agenda and levy what the majority said amounted to a $134 billion tax on American consumers.

But just below the court’s bottom-line repudiation of Trump’s tariffs, a testy debate unfolded among the court’s conservative justices about a little understood — and often criticized — legal theory known as the “major questions doctrine.” It is a fight that could have enormous consequences for the remainder of Trump’s term, and beyond.

In an opinion running more than twice as long as the 21 pages Chief Justice John Roberts used to resolve the case, Justice Neil Gorsuch took his colleagues on the left and the right to task for their views of the doctrine, which stipulates that Congress “speak clearly” when it is granting a president power to deal with matters of “major” economic or political significance.

The Supreme Court, therefore, may say that presidents can’t find a specific and significant power in an ambiguous law.

Roberts also pushed back on an idea raised by Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas that Congress intended to give presidents flexibility with broad language. It is precisely in cases dealing with major issues, the chief justice wrote, that the court should be skeptical of sweeping claims of presidential power.

“There is,” Roberts wrote, “no major questions exception to the major questions doctrine.”

The spirited back-and-forth may explain why the tariffs case took months for the court to resolve, and it exposed rifts that could prove meaningful for Trump and for future presidents.

Conservatives seemed united about how the major questions doctrine worked when they were applying it to a Democratic president. They cited it to invalidate President Joe Biden’s policies — including his student loan forgiveness program, environmental policies and his responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But those same justices were nevertheless deeply divided Friday about its use when it came to Trump’s tariffs.

Three conservatives in dissent claimed it didn’t apply, three liberals in the majority said it wasn’t needed and two conservatives spent dozens of pages debating what, exactly, it is.

“Past critics of the major questions doctrine do not object to its application in this case,” Gorsuch, who was Trump’s first nominee to the high court yet voted against the president Friday, wrote of the three-justice liberal wing that also declared the tariffs illegal.

“Still others who have joined major questions decisions in the past dissent from today’s application of the doctrine,” he wrote of the three conservative justices who would have allowed Trump to continue his tariffs. “It is an interesting turn of events.”

In the end, a combination of

By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — On the surface, the Supreme Court’s massive decision shutting down Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs was a case about the president’s power to pursue a global economic agenda and levy what the majority said amounted to a $134 billion tax on American consumers.

But just below the court’s bottom-line repudiation of Trump’s tariffs, a testy debate unfolded among the court’s conservative justices about a little understood — and often criticized — legal theory known as the “major questions doctrine.” It is a fight that could have enormous consequences for the remainder of Trump’s term, and beyond.

In an opinion running more than twice as long as the 21 pages Chief Justice John Roberts used to resolve the case, Justice Neil Gorsuch took his colleagues on the left and the right to task for their views of the doctrine, which stipulates that Congress “speak clearly” when it is granting a president power to deal with matters of “major” economic or political significance.

The Supreme Court, therefore, may say that presidents can’t find a specific and significant power in an ambiguous law.

Roberts also pushed back on an idea raised by Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas that Congress intended to give presidents flexibility with broad language. It is precisely in cases dealing with major issues, the chief justice wrote, that the court should be skeptical of sweeping claims of presidential power.

“There is,” Roberts wrote, “no major questions exception to the major questions doctrine.”

The spirited back-and-forth may explain why the tariffs case took months for the court to resolve, and it exposed rifts that could prove meaningful for Trump and for future presidents.

Conservatives seemed united about how the major questions doctrine worked when they were applying it to a Democratic president. They cited it to invalidate President Joe Biden’s policies — including his student loan forgiveness program, environmental policies and his responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But those same justices were nevertheless deeply divided Friday about its use when it came to Trump’s tariffs.

Three conservatives in dissent claimed it didn’t apply, three liberals in the majority said it wasn’t needed and two conservatives spent dozens of pages debating what, exactly, it is.

“Past critics of the major questions doctrine do not object to its application in this case,” Gorsuch, who was Trump’s first nominee to the high court yet voted against the president Friday, wrote of the three-justice liberal wing that also declared the tariffs illegal.

“Still others who have joined major questions decisions in the past dissent from today’s application of the doctrine,” he wrote of the three conservative justices who would have allowed Trump to continue his tariffs. “It is an interesting turn of events.”

In the end, a combination of conservative and liberal justices concluded that the 1977 emergency powers law Trump relied on to impose his sweeping tariffs did not give him the authority to do so. The president has other authorities to levy those duties and made

Por Ivana Kottasová y Svitlana Vlasova, CNN

Olena Bilozerska y su esposo siempre supieron que querían tener hijos. Ella tenía 34 años y estaban listos para intentarlo cuando estalló la guerra en el este de Ucrania en 2014. La pareja se unió a la lucha y decidió que un bebé tendría que esperar. Cuando Bilozerska dejó las fuerzas armadas, tenía 41 años y los médicos le dijeron que sus posibilidades de concebir eran prácticamente nulas. Ya era demasiado tarde.

A medida que la guerra en Ucrania entra en su cuarto año, la tasa de natalidad del país se está desplomando, con un número creciente de personas que tienen problemas de fertilidad o posponen la decisión de tener hijos. Al mismo tiempo, las pérdidas en el frente aumentan y millones de personas que huyeron como refugiados ahora se han asentado en el extranjero. El resultado es una de las peores crisis demográficas del mundo.

“Es una catástrofe”, dijo a CNN Ella Libanova, destacada demógrafa ucraniana. “Ningún país puede existir sin gente. Incluso antes de la guerra, la densidad de población de Ucrania era baja (y) muy desigualmente distribuida”.

Libanova señaló que Ucrania ha perdido alrededor de 10 millones de personas desde el inicio de la guerra, entre quienes han muerto, han abandonado el país o viven en zonas bajo ocupación rusa. Y aunque la tasa de natalidad del país venía disminuyendo desde hace años —una tendencia común en Europa—, ahora prácticamente se ha desplomado.

La agresión no provocada de Rusia ha obligado a millones de ucranianos a poner sus vidas en pausa. Pero para muchas mujeres, esta decisión puede tener un costo enorme.

Cuando regresó del frente, a Bilozerska le dijeron que sus posibilidades de tener un hijo propio eran, como mucho, del 5 %. “Los médicos me aconsejaron no perder tiempo y recurrir de inmediato a un óvulo de donante”, contó. No convencida con esa idea, comenzó un tratamiento de fertilidad, aunque las probabilidades estaban claramente en su contra.

“Los soldados viven un día a la vez. Viven para ver la noche, para ver el día siguiente. Tienen necesidades urgentes: de dónde sacar dinero para drones, para reparar autos. No planean nada para el futuro”, dijo Bilozerska a CNN en Kyiv.

“Considero que es mi deber moral decirles a las mujeres (militares) que si quieren tener hijos en el futuro, les aconsejaría que se hagan un chequeo y congelen sus óvulos. Comparto mi historia para que menos mujeres terminen en una situación así”.

Para maximizar las probabilidades de éxito de un procedimiento de fertilización in vitro (FIV), los médicos suelen intentar extraer entre 10 y 15 óvulos en cada ciclo. En el caso de Bilozerska, solo lograron obtener uno, advirtiéndole de inmediato que las posibilidades de que fuera sano eran bajas. Tras fecundarlo con el esperma de su esposo, volvieron a advertirle: el riesgo de que no funcionara era alto.

Los días siguientes fueron una tortura, con la pareja esperando para ver si el embrión sobreviviría. Cuando lo hizo, Bilozerska, entonces de 42 años, estaba lista para aprovechar su única oportunidad de tener un bebé.

Fue entonces cuando Rusia lanzó su invasión a gran escala de Ucrania. Como oficial militar completamente entrenada, Bilozerska fue requerida de inmediato en el frente. El embrión se quedó en Kyiv, congelado y almacenado en un criobanco junto a unos 10.000 más.

“Volví a la guerra y tenía tanto miedo de que la clínica fuera bombardeada, llamé a la clínica, pregunté qué pasaría, si el criobanco sería llevado al extranjero, si era seguro”, contó Bilozerska a CNN. Le aseguraron que la clínica tenía una pared reforzada para proteger los embriones. No resistiría un impacto directo, pero los protegería de la metralla y los escombros.

El Dr. Valery Zukin es uno de los pioneros de la medicina reproductiva en Ucrania y director de la clínica donde se almacenó el embrión de Bilozerska. La clínica s

By Rocío Muñoz-Ledo and Michael Rios

(CNN) — A Colombian congresswoman whose conservative party is closely aligned with the right-wing ideologies of US President Donald Trump says her son was detained last month by ICE agents amid the US crackdown on immigration.

Ángela Vergara says she decided to go public with the case last week in part because her son has not yet been allowed to return to Colombia despite having requested voluntary departure, but also to raise awareness about the harsh conditions Colombian immigrants are facing in the US.

The case has sparked a debate online, with critics questioning why Vergara, a member of a party that often backs Trump, came out in defense of immigrants only after her son’s detention.

Vergara has pushed back against the criticism, insisting that she has never supported immigration policies that she says violate human rights.

“This isn’t a political issue; it’s really a human rights issue,” she told CNN. “Being a conservative politician doesn’t mean I agree with human rights violations in Colombia or anywhere else in the world.”

ICE detention

Vergara says her son Rafael, 23, has been locked up for more than 20 days at the River Correctional Detention Center in Louisiana, in what she describes as “inhumane conditions.” She says he is being held along with a number of Colombians waiting for a repatriation flight home.

“He told me that he was with 70 people in a cell, that they had gone 12 hours the day before without drinking water, (and) everyone was sick,” Vergara recounted to CNN.

The congresswoman said Rafael had been detained by ICE agents after a routine inspection while driving a commercial cargo truck in Louisiana.

She insists Rafael has been living in the US legally with a work permit and paying into social security. She says he applied for asylum a year after arriving in 2022 and was awaiting an asylum hearing scheduled for 2028.

CNN has reached out to the US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, for more information.

After learning of her son’s arrest, Vergara said the family requested his voluntary return to Colombia, thinking it would be the quickest way to resolve the matter. But more than 20 days after his arrest, she says her son remains in detention.

She attributes the delay to a “bottleneck” in the repatriation process that has left thousands of Colombians stranded in the US waiting for a limited number of flights.

Colombia signed an agreement earlier this month to resume repatriation flights from the US. Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio said that approximately one flight per week would be carried out over the next few months.

Vergara says she has asked the Colombian government to expedite transfers and increase the frequency of humanitarian flights.

Controversy over ideology

Vergara’s Conservative Party maintains many positions that are more aligned with the American right than with Colombia’s left-wing government led by President Gustavo Petro and has often expressed support for the Republican Party in the US.

In 2024, the Colombian Conservatives “celebrated” the electoral victories of Trump and his fellow Republicans in the House and Senate.

Last year, when the Trump administration decertified Colombia as a partner in the fight against drug trafficking, the party condemned, not Trump, but Colombia’s president for criticizing the US leader. It issued a statement pledging to support the US drug fighting measures.

In September, after the killing of prominent US conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Vergara expressed condolences and support fo

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — The whole mountain rumbles when an avalanche rolls off it. The swirling, whirling mass approaches like a steam train, picking up thousands of tons of matter on its descent, throwing clouds of snow into the air as its gathers speeds of up to 130 kph (80 mph).

They are one of the most dangerous phenomena in the mountains. An avalanche in California killed nine skiers on Tuesday, including six close friends.

And this winter in Europe has proven particularly deadly.

According to the European Avalanche Warning Services (EAWS), at least 99 people have died since October 2025, mostly in the Alps — the mountain range that serves as the continent’s skiing hub and sprawls across several countries including France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria.

In the French Alps alone, avalanches have killed 28 people since the first fatal accident of the winter on December 26, according to EAWS. That is a huge increase from the average eight deaths typically seen at this point in the season, according to France’s National Association for the Study of Snow and Avalanches (ANENA). In Italy and Switzerland, the avalanche death tolls are also much higher than normal.

And, showcasing their awesome, frightening power, one avalanche derailed a train in Switzerland on Monday, injuring five on board, while another swept through a refuge on a French mountainside earlier this month, shattering windows and dumping snowdrifts inside the building’s kitchen.

‘A conveyer belt’

Avalanches require a combination of three things – snow, a slope steeper than 30 degrees and a trigger, such as fresh or melting snow, a person, an animal or wind.

Of course, these are present in the Alps every winter but specific conditions have made this winter more dangerous than others, explained Stéphane Bornet, director of ANENA.

After the first snowfall in November, he said, there was a long period of atmospheric high pressure where the snow on the ground evolved into “angular grains” — which look a bit like large sugar crystals and don’t bond effectively with surrounding layers.

On its own, this type of snow isn’t dangerous. But, if covered by fresh snow, “these fragile layers can now be triggered and act a bit like ball bearings, like a conveyor belt that allows the avalanche to slide quite easily,” Bornet said.

And, over the last few weeks, several meters of fresh snow have fallen across Europe, part of a weather pattern driven by an unusual southerly jet stream that has dumped huge amounts of precipitation across the continent, causing flooding in lower altitude areas.

At the same time, “the snowpack is being fed by the wind, which means we have a large accumulation of snow on the ground,” Bornet added.

Such conditions prompted several regional avalanche forecast services to issue a severe level 4 warning for much of the last two weeks, with some areas even reaching the most severe level 5 warning, at least for a few days.

Still, these dangerous conditions are unusual, but “not extraordinary,” noted Christine Pielmeier, an avalanche forecaster at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF in Switzerland.

They can occur roughly every five to 15 years, she told CNN, emphasizing that this number is only a statistical guide, so the cond