By Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — The Defense Department has been aggressively pursuing laser weapons and defense systems, a push that gained significant attention this week when the use of an anti-drone laser system led to the temporary shutdown of airspace over El Paso, Texas.

The interest in high-energy systems has only accelerated as military planners look to grapple with the rise of commercially available drones and as the defense industry has jumped to develop laser-based weapons systems for ground, sea and air forces.

CNN reported that Customs and Border Protection was using a new counter-drone laser technology in El Paso which caused the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down airspace over the west Texas city. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed off on loaning the laser technology to CBP from the Defense Department in recent weeks, one of the sources told CNN.

It’s just the latest in the Pentagon’s long-running efforts to harness lasers for the military. The Defense Department has been researching directed energy weapons since at least the 1960s, according to a Congressional Research Service report, though only in roughly the last decade has the department made significant progress. The first directed energy weapon was deployed in 2014, the reports says, aboard the USS Ponce, a now-decommissioned amphibious transport dock.

But the last several years, with the surge in the use of drones in the war in Ukraine along with persistent concerns about protecting US troops stationed in the Middle East, has driven a surge of interest in the technology.

In November, the head of research at the Pentagon whittled down the list of technology priorities for the agency, with directed energy making the cut as one of six areas the military would push resources towards.

Directed energy weapons, such as high-energy lasers, could be used to shoot down drones, complete short-range air defense missions, and defend against rockets, artillery and mortar attacks, CRS said.

In 2017, the Army demonstrated the Mobile Expeditionary High Energy Laser 2.0 at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The system was used to take down small drones and quad copters, which the lead of the Army’s SMDC High Energy Laser Division, called “highly successful.”

“We look forward to working with industry and continue to mature the technology because we believe this technology is critical to the Army and will be very beneficial once we are able to get the technology mature enough to transition it and field it one day,” Adam Aberle said in the release.

And just last fall, the Army put out a request for information to defense industry partners specifically on an Enduring-High Energy Laser (E-HEL) production request. The RFI says the weapon system will be used against drones classified in groups 1-3, meaning smaller drones that weigh under 1,320 pounds.

But it’s not just the Army. The Air Force deployed a High-Energy Laser Weapon System Read more

By Meg Tirrell, CNN

(CNN) — “Our public health system has squandered the trust of our citizens,” President Donald Trump said on February 13, 2025, the day his nominee to run the nation’s health agencies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was sworn in. “They don’t trust us. They don’t trust anybody, frankly. They’ve gone through hell.”

Trump promised that Kennedy would “lead our campaign of historic reforms and restore faith in American health care.”

A year later, polling shows that RFK Jr.’s tenure atop the US Department of Health and Human Services has had the opposite effect. Trust in government health agencies has plummeted, according to health policy and research group KFF, with declines across the political spectrum. And experts told CNN that they fear things could get worse.

“Today, the federal government’s public health agencies and leaders represent the greatest threat to efforts to prevent measles, whooping cough and other vaccine-preventable diseases,” said Dr. Jason Schwartz, an associate professor at Yale School of Public Health. It’s “a scenario that would have been inconceivable a few years ago.”

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said that trust in public health was damaged by the Biden administration’s “inconsistent guidance and a message to Americans to ‘trust the experts’ without showing the evidence.”

“Secretary Kennedy’s mandate is to restore transparency, scientific rigor, and accountability to restore the trust the Biden administration squandered,” Nixon continued. “Secretary Kennedy is leading the most transparent HHS in history, with unprecedented disclosure and openness aimed at restoring public trust in federal health agencies.”

Kennedy’s strategy has at times involved gutting organizations; after he fired all 17 experts on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel in June, he published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal headlined, “HHS Moves to Restore Public Trust in Vaccines.”

And he’s moved to dramatically reshape the makeup of HHS.

The day after Kennedy’s swearing-in, Valentine’s Day, thousands of employees were fired from their jobs at the CDC, the US Food and Drug Administration, the US National Institutes of Health and other health agencies, part of a Department of Government Efficiency purge. It would precede an even bigger reorganization of HHS just six weeks later that aimed to shrink its ranks by nearly a quarter – a total of about 20,000 employees.

Meanwhile, public health emergencies were already on his doorstep.

Two weeks after Kennedy was sworn in, health officials in Texas announced that a school-age child had died in the fast-growing measles outbreak centered in the western part of the state. Kennedy, asked about it in a Cabinet meeting later that day, called measles outbreaks “not unusual.” It was the first death in the US from measles in a decade.

The year that followed would bring two

By Mostafa Salem, Sana Noor Haq, CNN

(CNN) — The head of one of the world’s largest port operators has been replaced following revelations of ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, who had led the Dubai-based DP World for decades, is facing intense scrutiny after the release of Epstein-related documents that revealed correspondence between the two men, including lewd exchanges.

Without naming bin Sulayem, Dubai’s Government Media Office announced that DP World had appointed a new chairman and group CEO, positions previously held by bin Sulayem. DP World confirmed the new appointments to CNN.

The company declined to comment on bin Sulayem’s relationship with Epstein when contacted by CNN before his removal.

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Análisis por Rey Rodríguez, CNN en Español

De niños, no eran pocos los cubanos que, hace algunas décadas, acompañaban a sus padres en los paseos en coche hasta el malecón de La Habana. A orillas del mar, pasaban horas observando los barcos que entraban a la bahía. Aquel espectáculo trasmitía paz y, también, una sensación de esperanza, que ahora ya no logran encontrar.

Hoy, ya adultos, siguen yendo al malecón, aunque no en automóvil. El trayecto lo hacen a pie, pese a que deben recorrer varios kilómetros para llegar al emblemático muro que se extiende por la costa norte de la capital cubana. No hay transporte ni gasolina, las calles están vacías.

La escasez se ha vuelto parte del paisaje diario, aseguran en diálogo con CNN desde La Habana. Todos piden mantener el anonimato, temerosos de represalias por parte del gobierno de Miguel Díaz-Canel que, aún bajo presión extrema de Estados Unidos, mantiene a los cubanos bajo completo control.

La crisis en Cuba se ha agudizado luego de que la administración Trump anunciara recientemente nuevas medidas de presión contra la isla. En un período corto, la isla se quedó sin su principal proveedor de petróleo, Venezuela, tras la captura del derrocado presidente Nicolás Maduro, en un operativo de fuerzas especiales estadounidenses el pasado 3 de enero.

A los pesares por la ausencia del petróleo venezolano, el presidente Donald Trump sumó otro desafío. El 30 de enero, Trump firmó un decreto que autoriza a su administración para imponer aranceles a aquellos países que suministren petróleo a la isla, bajo el argumento de que Cuba representa una amenaza para su seguridad nacional.

Varios expertos en Cuba, entre ellos el abogado constitucionalista Rafael Peñalver, coinciden en que el verdadero interés de Washington es asfixiar económicamente a la isla para provocar la caída del gobierno de Díaz-Canel.

El gobierno estadounidense ha señalado que apuesta por una salida diplomática con La Habana, aunque considera que el gobierno del presidente cubano está en “sus últimos momentos” y que el país atraviesa “una etapa crítica”. Así lo afirmó la portavoz de la Casa Blanca, Karoline Leavitt, al referirse a la situación cubana durante una conferencia de prensa el 5 de febrero, cuando fue consultada sobre si, después de Venezuela, seguía Cuba.

La Habana ha condenado las medidas impulsadas por Trump. Sin embargo, tal como están las cosas, su margen de maniobra es estrecho, señala Peñalver a CNN. El experto se fue de Cuba a los 10 años y desde entonces radica en Miami. Como ejemplo, cita el anuncio de Díaz-Canel de que Cuba está dispuesta a dialogar con Washington, pero “sin presiones”.

La propuesta de La Habana incluye la discusión de varios temas de la agenda bilateral —como migración, lavado de dinero, terrorismo, combate al narcotráfico y medio ambiente—, pero sin aludir a reformas del sistema político.

Este jueves arribaron a Cuba dos buques de la Armada de México cargados con cientos de toneladas de alimentos y productos de higiene personal. Una ayuda valiosa para el momento que vive la isla, pero insuficiente frente a la magnitud de la crisis que atraviesa, dicen los cubanos. Es quizás la más grave desde la llamada “crisis de los misiles”, de octubre de 1962, el episodio más tenso de la Guerra Fría, según Peñalver.

El miércoles, durante su conferencia matutina, la presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum adelantó que la ayuda humanitaria a Cuba seguirá y aseguró q

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN

(CNN) — The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been criticized for selling merchandise commemorating the 1936 Berlin games, which Adolf Hitler used to showcase his Nazi ideology.

The website for the Olympics — currently in the spotlight due to the ongoing Milan Cortina Winter Olympics — features a men’s T-shirt marking the controversial Nazi games. The garment, which is showing as “out of stock,” is part of the IOC’s “Heritage Collection.”

The T-shirt features the original poster for the 1936 games, designed by Franz Würbel. It depicts an athletic male figure crowned with a laurel wreath and with the Olympic rings in the background. The Brandenburg Gate sits beneath him, with the caption: “Germany Berlin 1936 Olympic Games.”

The landing page for the Heritage Collection on the Olympics website states: “Each edition of the Games reflects a unique time and place in history when the world came together to celebrate humanity.”

Hitler used the games, held three and a half years after the Nazis came to power, as a spectacle of Nazi propaganda. He set out to showcase the racial superiority of so-called Aryan athletes and openly denigrated African-American participants as “non-humans.”

Nevertheless, African-American athlete Jesse Owens emerged as the star of the games, taking to the podium to collect four gold medals, surrounded by people giving the Nazi salute.

Christine Schmidt is the co-director of the Wiener Holocaust Library in London, the world’s oldest archive of Holocaust materials.

She told CNN: “The Nazis used the 1936 Olympics to showcase their oppressive regime to the world, aiming to smooth over international relations while at the same time preventing almost all German-Jewish athletes from competing, rounding up the 800 Roma who lived in Berlin, and concealing signs of virulent antisemitic violence and propaganda from the world’s visitors.

“The Nazis’ fascist and antisemitic propaganda infiltrated their promotion of the games, and many international Jewish athletes chose not to compete. The IOC would be minded to consider whether any aesthetic appreciation of these games can be comfortably separated from the horror that followed.”

The decision to sell the T-shirt was also criticised by Scott Saunders, CEO of International March of the Living, an annual educational program that will this year see around 8,000 people gathered at the former Auschwitz death camp to commemorate the Holocaust.

He told CNN: “As the world reflects on this latest controversy, it is impossible not to recall that we are approaching 90 years since the 1936 Berlin Olympics — an event the Nazi regime used to legitimize itself on the global stage while persecution of Jews was already well underway.

“Sport has the power to unite, to inspire, and to elevate the very best of humanity. But history reminds us that it can also be manipulated to sanitize hatred and normalize exclusion. The lesson of Berlin is urgent. When antisemitism resurfaces in public life, whether in stadiums, streets, or online, silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.”

The IOC defended its decision to produce and sell the T-shirt. In a statement sent to CNN, an IO