By Reagan Yip, CNN

(CNN) — As the World Cup grips North America this summer, China will again watch from the sidelines.

But an unlikely story is bubbling up in the nation as Chinese fans cheer on unlikely amateur soccer players – from delivery drivers to villagers – now playing in packed stadiums back home in a rare sign, some believe, that the Beautiful Game may finally be taking root in the nation.

For years, qualifying for soccer’s most prestigious competition has been a national goal for the world’s second-largest economy. It’s one of the “three wishes” President Xi Jinping once famously set out for the sport, alongside hosting and ultimately winning the tournament.

In April 2016, the Chinese Football Association unveiled a landmark blueprint for global dominance by mid-century. Among the sweeping targets: 70,000 pitches nationwide and 30 million schoolchildren taking up the game by 2020.

But a decade on, the results are thin.

The men’s team has slipped from 82nd in the world in 2016 to 94th out of 211 national teams. Even with the World Cup expanding from 32 to 48 sides, China’s hopes were shattered after a crushing 1-0 defeat to Indonesia last June. Its 2002 debut, which ended in a goalless group-stage exit, remains the country’s only appearance.

Can soccer culture be manufactured at all? In China, the attempt to do so has run up against forces far beyond the pitch.

Scoring political points

It was late November 2012 and Xi had taken the party’s helm just two weeks earlier. Touring an exhibition, he uttered two words that would come to define modern China: the “Chinese dream.” It was a vision of national “rejuvenation.” The phrase soon became a centerpiece of official rhetoric.

Soccer was no exception. The landmark 2016 blueprint pledged not only sporting successes, but also a dream to “rejuvenate the nation.”

What followed was a splurge on foreign stars in the Chinese Super League (CSL). Between 2015 and 2017, CSL clubs spent $1.12 billion in the transfer market, racking up a net deficit of more than $818 million, Transfermarkt figures show. At the start of 2016, the domestic transfer record was broken four times in a single month, as well-known players including Oscar, Paulinho, Carlos Tévez and Hulk swapped Europe for China.

Bankrolling the boom were predominantly real-estate developers; by 2018, owners of all 16 top-flight clubs had stakes in the property market.

“It was never about football. It was always about establishing a closer relationship with the local government,” Dr. Tobias Ross – who interviewed 200 insiders in China’s soccer scene for his upcoming book, “Football, Business and State Power in Contemporary China” – tells CNN Sports.

This back-scratching reflected guanxi and renqing, informal networks of relationships built on favors and obligations in Chinese culture. For property conglomerates, those ties unlocked two prized state-controlled resources: land and bank loans. Officials, unable to run clubs

Por Fredreka Schouten, CNN

Las elecciones en California nunca terminan del todo el día de las elecciones, y este año no es diferente.

La gran población del estado y su sistema universal de voto por correo aumentan el tiempo necesario para contar el gran volumen de papeletas que recibirán los condados.

En las elecciones generales de 2024, por ejemplo, los votos por correo representaron algo más del 80 % de los 16,1 millones de papeletas contadas ese noviembre.

Normalmente, los funcionarios electorales de los condados procesan primero los votos recibidos antes del día de las elecciones a medida que llegan y publican los resultados rápidamente.

Sin embargo, según la ley estatal, las papeletas de voto por correo pueden recibirse en las oficinas electorales locales hasta siete días después de las elecciones, siempre y cuando tengan el matasellos del día de las elecciones o anterior.

Además, los funcionarios deben verificar las papeletas antes de que puedan ser contabilizadas.

Es habitual que los votos por correo que se cuentan en los días posteriores a las elecciones tiendan a favorecer al Partido Demócrata.

En estas elecciones, los votantes demócratas parecían estar devolviendo sus papeletas a un ritmo más lento que en elecciones anteriores, según datos de Political Data, Inc., una empresa de análisis de datos alineada con el Partido Demócrata, lo que sugiere que la tendencia podría ser aún más pronunciada.

En la contienda por la gobernación de California, el demócrata Xavier Becerra, exsecretario de Salud y Servicios Humanos de EE.UU., se encuentra en una posición ventajosa para obtener uno de los dos puestos en las elecciones de noviembre, dado que los votos contabilizados después del día de las elecciones en California suelen favorecer a los demócratas.

El otro puesto probablemente será para el republicano Steve Hilton, expresentador de Fox News, o para el multimillonario inversor demócrata Tom Steyer.

La alcaldesa de Los Ángeles, Karen Bass, avanzó a las elecciones de noviembre. El republicano Spencer Pratt, exestrella de telerrealidad, se ubicó en segundo lugar detrás de Bass en los primeros informes, pero actualizaciones posteriores mostraron que estaba perdiendo terreno frente a la concejala progresista Nithya Raman.

Esta tendencia, sumada al esperado cambio a favor de los demócratas tras el recuento de votos posterior al día de las elecciones, significa que aún es demasiado pronto para determinar el resultado final.

Los candidatos a gobernador han advertido a sus seguidores que se preparen para resultados lentos y tendencias atípicas a medida que avance el recuento.

La campaña de Steyer afirmó que se espera que un mayor porcentaje de votos demócratas se contabilicen más tarde que en elecciones anteriores.

Por su parte, Hilton, respaldado por Trump, declaró no haber visto nada que suscite dudas sobre la validez de los resultados, pero criticó la lentitud del proceso en California.

En una entrevista con CNN, Hilton calificó de “ridículo” que el estado tenga “un sistema en el que se pueden tardar días o incluso semanas en obtener los resultados de las elecciones”.

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Con información de Arlette Saenz y David Wright, de CNN.

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By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — The Supreme Court is facing an extraordinary showdown with Donald Trump as the justices scramble to finish more than two dozen opinions before the end of the month — with a president who will lash out if any decisions don’t go his way.

Pending decisions on executive power, immigration, mail ballots and the Second Amendment could all have an outsize influence on the next two years of Trump’s presidency. Of the 26 cases the high court is expected to decide before the end of June, the Trump administration took an active role in all but one.

Topping the list is a series of appeals dealing with Trump’s power to fire officials within the executive branch that Congress tried to insulate from presidential control. The court must also rule on the president’s attempt, via an executive order, to end birthright citizenship as it has been understood in the United States for more than a century.

All of it will play out amid an odd political dynamic with the president, who has made clear he will use his bully pulpit to strike out at the court in unusually harsh terms if he loses. When the court tossed out Trump’s emergency global tariffs in February, the president quickly convened a press conference at the White House to claim the justices who voted against him were an “embarrassment to their families.”

Trump is already reacting to an expected loss on birthright citizenship, after making history as the first siting president to attend an oral argument.

“They will be ruling against us on Birthright Citizenship, making us the only Country in the World that practices this unsustainable, unsafe, and incredibly costly DISASTER,” Trump posted on social media in mid-May. “I don’t want loyalty, but I do want and expect it for our Country.”

At the same time, Trump recently invited the court’s conservatives to a state dinner with King Charles III and boasted in May that “two great justices” turned out for the swearing-in of Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh. Justice Clarence Thomas swore in Warsh and Justice Brett Kavanaugh attended.

The final month of the term will represent a test of the court’s spine in dealing with the new administration, but it may also underscore that some of the appeals the president has served up are in line with where the court’s 6-3 conservative majority was moving long before Trump returned to the White House.

“This court has a long-term ideological project and some of these cases are squarely within it,” said Ben Wizner, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is opposing the administration in several cases. “But I do think the court has lines. And I think we’ve seen some of those already.”

‘You’re fired’

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that “The Apprentice” president made firings a central theme of the Supreme Court’s final weeks before recessing for its summer break.

Trump is attempting to fire Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, over allegations that she committed fraud by claiming two properties as her principal residence. Cook has denied wrongdoing.

When the court heard arguments in January, the justices signaled they

Por Kosta Gak, Anna Chernova y Helen Regan, CNN

Rusia afirmó haber derribado cientos de drones sobre su territorio, incluidos unos 60 sobre la región de San Petersburgo durante la madrugada de este miércoles, en un ataque lanzado por Ucrania mientras se inauguraba un importante foro económico.

El gobernador de San Petersburgo, Aleksandr Beglov, declaró que tres distritos fueron atacados durante un bombardeo nocturno con drones ucranianos que dejó varias personas heridas y daños en infraestructuras.

Según el Ministerio de Defensa ruso, las defensas aéreas interceptaron y destruyeron más de 350 drones ucranianos en territorios cercanos a la frontera, pero también en zonas más alejadas como Moscú, San Petersburgo y Novgorod, en el oeste del país.

En Smolensk, ciudad situada en el oeste de Rusia, cerca de la frontera con Bielorrusia, Ucrania lanzó ataques contra “instalaciones de infraestructura crítica”, declaró el gobernador de Smolensk, Vasiliy Anokhin.

Anokhin declaró que dos bomberos murieron “mientras combatían un incendio provocado por los restos de un dron enemigo derribado”, y añadió que otros dos bomberos y un civil sufrieron heridas leves.

El presidente de Ucrania, Volodymyr Zelensky, afirmó que los “ataques de largo alcance” alcanzaron “objetivos clave”, entre ellos la terminal petrolera de San Petersburgo, uno de los mayores complejos de transbordo de petróleo del noroeste de Rusia.

Otros objetivos incluían “objetivos militares en la base de Kronstadt”, un puerto naval insular cerca de San Petersburgo, y una instalación en la región de Tambov que, según Ucrania, estaba involucrada en la producción de armas rusas, añadió Zelensky.

Zelensky también publicó imágenes que mostraban explosiones y varios incendios en una instalación rusa, así como una enorme columna de humo negro y denso que se elevaba detrás de un rascacielos.

Ucrania ha desarrollado rápidamente este año sus drones de medio y largo alcance para atacar objetivos rusos, incluidas las instalaciones petroleras de Moscú y otros lugares mucho más allá de las líneas del frente.

“El plan de Ucrania para realizar ataques de largo alcance se está llevando a cabo exactamente como es necesario para acercar la paz”, dijo Zelensky.

Los ataques se produjeron cuando el Foro Económico Internacional de San Petersburgo, o SPIEF, un importante evento empresarial conocido como la versión rusa del Foro de Davos del presidente Vladimir Putin, daba comienzo en la ciudad el miércoles.

El espacio aéreo alrededor del aeropuerto internacional de San Petersburgo fue restringido el miércoles por la mañana, lo que provocó retrasos en alrededor de dos docenas de vuelos, según informó el aeropuerto en un comunicado.

Esto ocurre además un día después de que Rusia lanzara una ofensiva letal contra Ucrania a primera hora del martes, atacando la capital, Kyiv, y la ciudad central de Dnipro en una ofensiva de amplio alcance que infligió uno de los ataques más mortíferos de los últimos meses.

Según las autoridades ucranianas, al menos 23 personas murieron en el ataque nocturno, siete de ellas en Kyiv y otras 16 en Dnipro.

El secretario general de las Naciones Unidas, António Guterres, declaró que condenaba “enérgicamente” los ataques, en los que, según los militares, se dispararon más de 600 drones y decenas de misiles contra Ucrania, alcanzando infraestructuras civiles clave.

Esta noticia está en desarrollo y se actualizará.

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By Fredreka Schouten, CNN

(CNN) — California’s elections are never quite over on Election Day, and this year is no different.

The state’s big population and its universal vote-by-mail system add to the time it takes to count the large volume of ballots counties will receive.

In the 2024 general election, for instance, mail ballots accounted for a little more than 80% of the 16.1 million ballots cast that November. Typically, county election officials first process ballots received before Election Day as they roll in and post those results quickly.

But, under state law, mail ballots can be received at local election offices up to seven days after the election, as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day. And officials must verify ballots before they can be counted.

It’s typical for mail ballots counted in the days after the election to skew Democratic.

And in this election, Democratic voters appeared to be returning their ballots at a slower pace than in past elections, according to data from Political Data, Inc., a Democratic-aligned data firm, suggesting that the trend could be even more pronounced.

Where things stand

In the California governor’s race, Democratic former US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is in strong position to get one of the two slots in the November election given how votes counted after Election Day in California are typically more Democratic. The other slot is likely to go either Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton or Democratic billionaire investor Tom Steyer.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass advanced to the November election. Republican former reality TV star Spencer Pratt landed in second place behind Bass in the first reports, but later updates found him losing ground to progressive city councilmember Nithya Raman. That trend, coupled with the expected Democratic shift from ballots counted after Election Day, means the second spot remains too early to call.

Gubernatorial candidates have told their supporters to prepare for slow results and less-than-typical trends as the count goes on.

Steyer’s campaign said a larger share of Democratic votes are expected to be counted later in the process than in previous elections. Meanwhile, the Trump-endorsed Hilton said he hasn’t “seen anything” that would raise concerns about the validity of the results but criticized the slow process in California.

In an interview with CNN, Hilton called it “ridiculous” that the state has “a system where it could take days or even weeks to get election results.”

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CNN’s Arlette Saenz and David Wright contributed to this report.

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