Por Tim Lister y Svitlana Vlasova, CNN

El presidente Volodymyr Zelensky afirma que Estados Unidos quiere un acuerdo de paz entre Ucrania y Rusia a principios del verano, a pesar de que repetidas rondas de conversaciones no han logrado avances en las cuestiones de territorio y garantías de seguridad.

“Dicen que quieren tenerlo todo listo para junio”, declaró Zelensky en declaraciones publicadas el sábado por la Presidencia. “Y harán todo lo posible para poner fin a la guerra. Quieren un calendario claro de acciones”.

“Si los rusos están realmente dispuestos a poner fin a la guerra, entonces es muy importante establecer una fecha límite”, añadió.

Zelensky afirmó que Washington había propuesto que las delegaciones ucraniana y rusa se reunieran en Estados Unidos, probablemente en Miami, dentro de una semana. “Hemos confirmado nuestra participación”.

CNN ha solicitado comentarios del Gobierno estadounidense sobre las declaraciones de Zelensky.

El Kremlin ha insistido en que Kyiv ceda toda la región del Donbás, de la cual aproximadamente una cuarta parte aún está en manos de las fuerzas ucranianas. Ucrania se ha negado a ceder el territorio.

Los comentarios de Zelensky se produjeron mientras Rusia llevaba a cabo otro ataque a gran escala contra la infraestructura eléctrica de Ucrania, con varias regiones bombardeadas por cientos de drones y misiles durante la noche.

Los ataques nocturnos se producen tras una reciente pausa en los golpes militares a la infraestructura energética por parte de ambas partes, propuesta por Estados Unidos.

Zelensky afirmó que Washington había propuesto que ambas partes apoyaran nuevamente la iniciativa de desescalada energética del presidente estadounidense. Ucrania ha accedido, pero Rusia aún no ha respondido.

Según Zelensky, los últimos ataques rusos involucraron “más de 400 drones y alrededor de 40 misiles de diversos tipos. Los principales objetivos fueron la red eléctrica, las centrales eléctricas y las subestaciones de distribución”.

Muchos de los objetivos se encontraban en el centro y oeste de Ucrania, incluidas las regiones de Lviv y Rivne, afirmó Zelenski, pero las de Kyiv y Járkiv también fueron alcanzadas. Gran parte de Ucrania se enfrenta a temperaturas muy por debajo del punto de congelación durante los próximos días.

El ministro de Energía de Ucrania, Denys Shmyal, informó que los rusos habían atacado la columna vertebral de la red energética del país, incluidas líneas aéreas de alto voltaje de 750 kV y 330 kV y dos plantas de energía térmica.

Se han implementado apagones de emergencia en toda Ucrania, añadió Shmyhal.

“Los trabajadores del sector energético están listos para iniciar la restauración tan pronto como la situación de seguridad lo permita”, afirmó.

Más de 600.000 abonados en toda la región de Lviv se quedaron sin electricidad el sábado por la mañana, según Maksym Kozytskyi, jefe de la administración militar de la región de Lviv.

La empresa eléctrica ucraniana DTEK afirmó que los ataques a las centrales térmicas constituyeron el décimo bombardeo masivo contra las instalaciones de la compañía desde octubre.

Las centrales térmicas de DTEK han sido atacadas por el enemigo más de 220 veces desde el inicio de la invasión rusa a gran escala, de acuerdo con la compañía.

“Todos los días Rusia podría optar por la diplomacia real, pero elige nuevos ataques”, afirmó Zelensky.

Y agregó: “Hay que privar a Moscú de la posibilidad de usar el frío como palanca contra Ucrania. Esto requiere misiles para Patriot, NASAMS y otros sistemas de defensa aérea. Cada envío nos ayuda a superar este invierno”.

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By Maureen O’Hare, CNN

(CNN) — In travel news this week: the world’s most expensive rice, trouble at Rome’s Trevi Fountain, plus how the hotel bathroom door situation has gotten out of hand.

World-class rice

Kinmemai Premium has been certified by Guinness World Records as the most expensive rice on the planet, but what is it that makes it so special?

Only 1,000 boxes of the Japanese grains are made each year, selling for around $73 each. Top-class, award-winning rice varieties are selected for flavor and texture, before their enzyme levels are tested for vitality and “life force,” explains Keiji Saika, the 91-year-old president of Toyo Rice Corporation.

One chef told CNN the rice grains were shiny like “diamonds,” but read the story to find out how it did on the taste test.

Another unusual item is on the menu at Les KaneKIYOs restaurant in Hokkaido, Japan. With fatal bear attacks an increasing problem in the country, Chef Kiyoshi Fujimoto started specializing in bear meat cuisine. He tells CNN that diners find it “less gamey than expected,” with a “refreshing taste.” Watch here.

La dolce vita

There’s a new $2 fee to throw coins in Rome’s famous Trevi Fountain, but when the new system started on Monday, not everyone was playing nice. Paying visitors were forced to take cover when some tourists stood behind the barriers and flung coins down on them from above.

In a formerly quiet village in the Italian Dolomites, the Instagram-famous church of Santa Maddalena attracts up to 600 visitors per day in high season. Now, authorities are stepping in to slow the flow, introducing new restrictions aimed at curbing day-trip tourism.

The Winter Olympics got underway this week in the Dolomites and across northern Italy. One Italian ritual is essential for visitors to understand, be they athletes or tourists: the unwritten rules of Italian coffee. Here’s our video guide.

CNN Sports has the latest chatter from inside the Winter Olympic Village and incredible stories of athletic achievement. Click here to sign up for the Milano Memo newsletter – it’s free!

Great escapes

In the latest installment from our new “Great Escapes” series, we bring you the story of two American sisters who found themselves trapped in a Scottish castle.

Niki Ghofranian and Ritta Nielsen visited Dunstaffnage in 2019, but never planned to put the 14th-century building’s fortress skills to the test. They found themselves there past closing time, with the gates padlocked shut and their one cell phone with a dying battery.

Ghofranian climbed to the top of the castle walls and spotted a child running out of some nearby woods.“Tell your mom we’re locked in the castle,” she cried out. “Go get your mom!”

​​Here’s what happened next.

The sisters’ story wasn’t the only dramatic rescue CNN covered recently.

Last week, a 13-year-old boy swam for hours to shore to get help for his mother and siblings after the family was swept out to sea. The group had been kayaking and paddleboarding while on vacation in Western Australia. See Read more

By Paula Reid, Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, CNN

(CNN) — A rift between two of President Donald Trump’s favorite prosecutors came to a head at the start of the year, when Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the president’s former personal lawyer, removed MAGA firebrand Ed Martin from a key post investigating the president’s political enemies.

The move to bench Martin — perhaps the official most publicly committed to targeting Trump’s political foes in the courts — has revealed a schism between two distinct factions within the administration.

One is a group that celebrates Blanche for what they consider as honoring guardrails around the rule of law. The other believes Martin is a martyr to the MAGA movement and the only one who is willing to do what it takes to deliver on Trump’s priorities.

In recent weeks, disagreements over how aggressively prosecutors pursue Trump’s political adversaries have become more acute — as the president has made it clear he is not happy with the Justice Department’s progress in bringing criminal prosecutions against people he believed wrongly targeted him in investigations dating back to 2016.

In the first Trump Administration, disputes between officials regularly played out in public view and on social media. But Trump’s current chief of staff, Susie Wiles, has made a point to tamp town public disagreement and drama in the second term.

“It’s not helping the president’s agenda to have these things play out in public,” one Trump ally who knows both men told CNN. “You can understand the frustration that Blanche’s office is where things go to die, because things move so slow. But Ed’s ways ultimately don’t help get what the president wants.”

Two paths to Justice Department

Blanche and Martin came to work for Trump through different paths.

Blanche, formerly of big law in New York, founded a namesake firm in 2023 and represented Trump in three of his four criminal cases. He earned a reputation for deftly managing the inside politics of Trump-world and was later appointed to the number two spot at the Justice Department when Trump returned to office.

Martin — a former Missouri politician — won his MAGA accolades as an organizer with the “Stop the Steal” movement, a staunch defender of Trump’s unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, and as an attorney for January 6, 2021, Capitol riot defendants.

At the start of Trump’s second administration, he was tapped to serve as the US attorney in Washington, DC, immediately getting to work implementing Trump’s agenda, including demoting senior prosecutors who worked on cases related to January 6 and vowing to protect employees of the Department of Government Efficiency.

“Let me be clear: this change is not temporary,” Martin wrote of demoting the prosecutors in a memo that was obtained at the time by CNN.

After a 15-week tenure marked by chaotic management and social media posts that included threats against the president’s critics, he failed to secure confirmation.

His nomination was pulled in May 2025 and Trump then put him in two new positions at the Justice Department, including the director of the Working Weaponization Working Group and pardon attorney, which all fall under Blanche’s chain-of-command.

Martin’s expected Justice Department departure

Martin is expected to depart from the Justice Department in the coming weeks, CNN previously reported.Read more

Por Andy Rose, CNN

La muerte de los manifestantes anti-ICE Renee Good y Alex Pretti provocaron indignación en Minneapolis, tanto por sus circunstancias como por la respuesta inmediata de los funcionarios federales que calificaron a ambos de “terroristas”.

La reacción política resultante bajó la temperatura de la administración Trump (incluso el propio presidente dijo: “Tal vez podríamos usar un toque un poco más suave”) junto con promesas vacilantes de las autoridades federales sobre la investigación de esos hechos.

Pero se avecina la pregunta de si los agentes de inmigración que apretaron el gatillo en ambos casos realmente infringieron la ley, una cuestión que se reducirá a cuestiones complejas, mucho más difíciles de definir que la indignación que provocó los llamados a la rendición de cuentas.

Cualquier caso penal o civil girará en torno a los estándares legales sobre el uso de la fuerza y ​​lo que tenían en mente esos agentes al apretar el gatillo.

“Cuando hablamos del uso de la fuerza, no aplicamos una sola regla”, declaró Seth Stoughton, profesor de justicia penal en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Carolina del Sur y expolicía. “Existen diversas reglas”.

Según una norma establecida por la Corte Suprema hace casi cuatro décadas, dispararle a un sospechoso, incluso si está desarmado, no viola la Constitución si el agente pensó razonablemente que las acciones del sospechoso presentaban “peligro inminente de muerte o lesiones físicas graves”.

“La ‘razonabilidad’ de un uso particular de la fuerza debe juzgarse desde la perspectiva de un agente razonable en el lugar de los hechos, en lugar de con la visión 20/20 que da el tiempo”, escribió el juez William Rehnquist en la decisión Graham v. Connor en 1989.

Para determinar cuánto peligro percibió el oficial en el momento de un tiroteo se necesitan pruebas, apunta Alex Reinert, director del Centro de Derechos y Justicia de la Facultad de Derecho Cardozo.

“Necesitarán todas las pruebas posibles sobre lo que sucedió en ese espacio y tiempo”, declaró Reinert a CNN. “Necesitarán videos, declaraciones de testigos presenciales, cualquier cosa que pueda ilustrar mejor la perspectiva del agente en ese momento”.

Si bien ese es el estándar que se consideraría en un caso civil, los investigadores locales también están investigando si se violó alguna ley estatal.

Inmediatamente después del tiroteo de Good, el director de la Oficina de Aprehensión Criminal de Minnesota indicó que quedarse sin ese tipo de información podría ser fatal para su propia investigación de Jonathan Ross, el funcionario de ICE que le disparó.

“El acceso completo a la evidencia, los testigos y la información es necesario para cumplir con el estándar de investigación que la ley de Minnesota y el público exigen; sin él, no podemos hacerlo”, señaló el superintendente de BCA, Drew Evans.

Pero en el momento de la muerte de Pretti –y con la ira pública aumentando– el tono de los funcionarios estatales se endureció y prometieron una investigación seria, cualesquiera que fueran los desafíos.

“El sistema de justicia de Minnesota tendrá la última palabra en este asunto”, declaró el gobernador Tim Walz el 24 de enero. “Debe tener la última palabra”.

Los investigadores y fiscales locales no han indicado qué cargos estatales podrían considerar en estos casos. El vicepresidente J.D.

By Tim Lister, CNN and Svitlana Vlasova

(CNN) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the United States wants a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia by early summer, despite repeated rounds of talks failing to reach a breakthrough over the issues of territory and security guarantees.

“They say they want to get everything done by June,” Zelensky said in remarks published Saturday by the Presidency. “And they will do everything to end the war. They want a clear schedule of events.”

“If the Russians are really ready to end the war, then it is really important to set a deadline,” he added.

Zelensky said that Washington had proposed that Ukrainian and Russian delegations meet in the United States, probably in Miami, in a week’s time. “We have confirmed our participation.”

CNN has sought comment from the US government on Zelensky’s remarks.

The Kremlin has insisted that Kyiv gives up all of the Donbas region, about a quarter of which is still held by Ukrainian forces. Ukraine has refused to cede the territory.

Zelensky’s remarks came as Russia carried out another large-scale attack on Ukraine’s power infrastructure, with several regions targeted by hundreds of drones and missiles overnight.

The overnight attacks follow a recent lull in strikes on energy infrastructure by both sides, which was proposed by the US. Zelensky said Washington had proposed “that both sides once again support the US President’s energy de-escalation initiative. Ukraine has agreed, but Russia has not yet responded.”

Zelensky said the latest Russian strikes involved “more than 400 drones and around 40 missiles of various types. The main targets were the energy grid, generation facilities, and distribution substations.”

Many of the targeted sites were in central and western Ukraine, including the Lviv and Rivne regions, Zelensky said, but the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions had also been hit. Much of Ukraine faces temperatures well below freezing for the next few days.

Ukrainian energy minister Denys Shmyal said the Russians had attacked the backbone of the country’s energy grid, including high voltage 750 kV and 330 kV overhead lines and two thermal power plants.

Emergency blackouts had been implemented throughout Ukraine, Shmyhal said.

“Energy workers are ready to begin restoration as soon as the security situation allows.”

More than 600,000 subscribers throughout the Lviv region were without electricity on Saturday morning, according to Maksym Kozytskyi, head of Lviv region military administration.

Ukrainian power provider DTEK said the strikes on the thermal plants were the 10th massive attack on the company’s facilities since October. DTEK’s thermal power plants “have been attacked by the enemy more than 220 times” since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the company said.

“Every day, Russia could choose real diplomacy, but it chooses new strikes,” Zelensky said.

“Moscow must be deprived of the ability to use the cold as leverage against Ukraine. This requires missiles for Patriot, NASAMS, and other (air defense) systems. Every shipment helps us get through this winter.”

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