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Análisis de Aaron Blake

Fue fortuito que la decisión de la Corte Suprema se diera a conocer la misma mañana en que recibíamos un informe económico decepcionante, que mostraba tan solo un 1,4 % de crecimiento anualizado del PIB en el cuarto trimestre.

Esto se debe a que la corte posiblemente salvó a Trump de sí mismo y les hizo un gran favor a muchos republicanos escépticos sobre los aranceles.

Puede que los aranceles no hayan resultado ser el lastre económico que algunos predijeron, al menos no todavía. Pero había muchas señales de que perjudicaban una economía que se perfilaba como el mayor problema del Partido Republicano para las elecciones intermedias de 2026.

Es discutible cuánto de esos problemas económicos se deben a los aranceles de Trump. Tampoco está claro que la eliminación de los aranceles mejore rápidamente la situación. (Y Trump puede probar otros métodos para imponer aranceles).

Pero al menos por ahora, la corte ha eliminado una variable significativa en una ecuación que no funcionaba para Trump ni para el Partido Republicano.

El problema político de su iniciativa arancelaria era que, si funcionaba, eso iba a llevar tiempo. Se trata de un proceso para devolver la fabricación a territorio estadounidense. Pero los problemas políticos del Partido Republicano son aquí y ahora.

Los republicanos han pasado el último año prácticamente sin hacer nada mientras Trump imponía impuestos masivos a las importaciones que contradecían la arraigada ortodoxia republicana de libre comercio.

Pero a partir de mayo pasado, quienes detestaban estos aranceles tenían motivos para creer que los tribunales podrían hacerles el trabajo sucio. Fue entonces cuando el poco conocido Tribunal de Comercio Internacional de Estados Unidos anuló por primera vez los aranceles de Trump.

Esa apuesta finalmente dio sus frutos. Si lo hizo lo suficientemente pronto como para salvar al Partido Republicano en 2026 es otra cuestión.

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The post Puede que la Corte Suprema le haya hecho un favor a Trump y los republicanos con su fallo sobre los aranceles appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Lauren Kent, CNN

London (CNN) — Most days, the country’s top newspapers have a wide range of photos gracing their front pages. But on Friday, every image topping the British front pages was identical:

A snap of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, slouched in the back of a car, looking shell-shocked on his 66th birthday as he left the police station.

On Thursday, Mountbatten-Windsor became the first member of the UK royal family to be arrested in modern history, spending more than 10 hours in police custody at a station in the small town of Aylsham, England, about an hour away from his new home on the royal Sandringham Estate.

“The photo gods were on my side yesterday,” said Phil Noble, a senior photographer at Reuters news agency who captured the incredible image.

Noble, based in northern England, drove roughly five hours south to Norfolk on Thursday morning – racing to get there after the news of the arrest broke.

Through guesswork and some well-placed sources, his two-person team zeroed in what they thought might be the correct police station, maybe. There are roughly 20 Thames Valley Police stations where the former prince could have been taken, so they had to wait to see.

“This was probably the fourth or fifth police station that Reuters had visited that night,” Noble said. “When I arrived, it didn’t look anything out of the ordinary. There was no cars. There was no increased activity.”

“To be honest, just before he arrived, I’d left to go back to the hotel… and my colleague Marissa messaged me and said, ‘Look, two cars have just arrived I think you should come back,’” Nobel said candidly in a video explaining how he got the shot.

Then the race really began. The Reuters photographer said he “spun the car around, got back, and within a minute of arriving back, the shutters on the garage at the police station came up and two cars left. And one of them, he (Mountbatten-Windsor) was in.”

Stakeout photography has a lot of variables, Noble explained. Part of the job is preparation, skill and experience. It also requires a willingness to stand on the side of a British country road in the dark for hours at a time, without knowing if it will lead to anything noteworthy.

“Probably half an hour before I took the photo, I’d done some test shots of other cars leaving the police station, so I had a rough idea of… the camera settings maybe,” explained Noble, who has been working at Reuters for more than 20 years. Before that, he worked in photography at the UK’s Press Association and the Manchester Evening News.

“But it’s still, you know, more than luck than judgment when the car comes out. You’ve got to try and guess where he’s sitting, which side of the car is he? Is he in the front? Is he in the back? Will the flash recycle in time?”

He took six frames in all, according to Reuters. Two were blank, one was out of focus and two showed police officers. But one captured the extraordinary moment.

“For every car shot that you do, the hit rate is really, really low,” he added. “So last night was, it was one of those, kind of, pinch-me moments where you look at the back of the camera, you’re tired, it’s been a long day… you can’t believe that you’ve got him.”

Mountbatten-Windsor was Read more

By Avery Schmitz, Annette Choi, CNN

(CNN) — The US military has assembled a massive collection of weapons systems in the Middle East amid diplomatic negotiations between the US and Iran, flooding ships and aircraft to nearby waters and the constellation of US bases in the region.

Military planners have told President Donald Trump they will soon be ready to launch a strike, CNN reported Wednesday. However, sources said that Trump still hasn’t indicated a clear preference as to whether to give diplomatic talks, which included a meeting in Geneva Tuesday, more time or to pursue military action, or even what military action might be desirable. Potential strike plans presented to the White House range from quick strikes to more in-depth operations.

Most of the forces ordered to the region as part of Trump’s escalating pressure campaign against Iran’s leadership have already been moved into place, though the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group was still transiting to the region, having been spotted entering the Mediterranean on Friday.

At least 18 US F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters are now stationed at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in northern Jordan. The fifth-generation fighters first appeared at the base on Tuesday and are seen clearly in new satellite imagery captured by Planet Labs.

Satellite imagery also shows several E/A-18 Growlers arrived at the base, capable of waging electronic warfare campaigns against enemy air defenses and communications infrastructure.

Just southwest of the runways, a newly-expanded air defense installation can be seen – one of several defensive positions set up to protect US assets in the event of strikes by Iranian forces. Similar sites have cropped up at key bases across the region, like Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

Nearly 850 miles southeast at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base, new images confirm the arrival of additional US military aircraft. Several E-3 Sentries, critical for warning US commanders of incoming enemy forces or missiles and facilitating battlefield communications, have been positioned at the base.

An E-3 Sentry appears parked at the eastern edge of a ramp. At least four E-3s have moved into the Middle East since Wednesday, according to flight data shared with CNN by research consultant Steffan Watkins.

Two E-11 Battlefield Airborne Communications Nodes can also be seen nearby – another vital link in the US military’s tactical communications network. The modified Bombardier luxury jets enable American assets to communicate in complex environments. Flight data indicates at least two other E-11s are based out of Prince Sultan Air Base, for a total of four.

These aircraft appear alongside nearly a dozen tankers used to refuel smaller planes in midair.

Amid these developments, US forces continue surveillance of the Strait of Hormuz at a near-constant pace, according to data from FlightRadar24, with P-8 Poseidon planes and MQ-4 Triton drones based in the UAE, Bahrain, and elsewhere patrolling the channel.

Another major US asset, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, was moved from the Pacific and arrived in the Arabian Sea last month. On February 15, the aircraft carrier was spotted just 422 miles south of the Iranian coast in satellite imagery published by the European Space Agency.

The deployment was followed by the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group which was making its way to the coast of Israel.

Those carriers travel with a constellation of other ships including destroyers as well as F/A-18E and F-35C fighter jet squadrons.

As the US has collected its military hardware in the area, Iran Read more

By Lauren Said-Moorhouse, James Frater, CNN

London (CNN) — Slouched in the back of a car, wide-eyed and unnerved, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor makes his way home from the police station.

It’s an image that was splashed across pretty much every UK newspaper on Friday morning, a day after the brother of King Charles III was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Police did not say what led to Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest, but he spent a decade as a UK trade envoy. British authorities previously said they were reviewing claims that he shared sensitive information with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during his time as a representative for the British government.

Mountbatten-Windsor has not commented on the recent allegations against him, but he has previously denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein. He has also said that he never witnessed or suspected any of the behavior the sex offender was accused of.

Separately, London’s Metropolitan Police said Friday they had urged Andrew’s serving and former royal protection officers to “consider carefully whether anything they saw or heard” could be relevant to their investigation into Epstein and his associates.

After Thursday’s dramatic developments, what could happen next in the saga surrounding the former prince?

What can we expect now?

After spending his 66^th birthday in the custody of Thames Valley Police, Mountbatten-Windsor was released on Thursday evening and returned home 10 hours later to the Sandringham Estate.

He was released under investigation – meaning he’s not out on bail and therefore is not subject to any conditions.

That’s not to say he couldn’t have further conversations with the authorities. He can be rearrested or asked for follow-up interviews.

While he was detained, he would have been questioned and could have put forward “things that he would like the police to look at,” including potential witnesses or explanations, which the police would then have a duty to explore as evidence, British solicitor Chloe Jay told CNN.

On Friday morning, detectives were seen arriving at Royal Lodge in Berkshire, west of London, to continue their search of Andrew’s former home.

“When you arrest somebody, you are allowed to search the properties they have control of and the properties they own,” former Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Dal Babu explained on Thursday.

Police will be “looking for electronic devices, any information that’s held on those,” added Babu, who served in the Met for 30 years.

This next stage could be a lengthy process as police continue to gather any evidence that might be available. Following the police investigation, it’ll ultimately be up to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to decide whether they have enough to charge and prosecute him.

The CPS has so far not offered “early investigative advice” to Thames Valley Police as part of the force’s misconduct in public office investigation. This means CPS lawyers have not given detectives any formal guidance on how to proceed.

There is no time limit for when charges can be brought.

What about the line of succession?

Andrew may have lost his titles and honors, but he remains eighth in line to the British throne. And as the furor surrounding the former prince continues to snowball, there are mounting calls for him to be removed from the line of succession.

A poll released Friday shows that 82% of Briton