Análisis de Aaron Blake, CNN

Si existe un grupo demográfico sinónimo del ascenso político del presidente Donald Trump y de su posterior resurgimiento es el del votante blanco sin título universitario.

La política estadounidense se encuentra cada vez más dividida por el nivel educativo: los votantes con mayor formación académica tienden a inclinarse por los demócratas, mientras que aquellos con menor educación formal optan por los republicanos. Y los votantes blancos pertenecientes a este último grupo han constituido la columna vertebral de la coalición de Trump: según las encuestas a pie de urna de CNN, cerca de dos tercios de ellos votaron por él en cada una de sus tres candidaturas presidenciales.

Sin embargo, a medida que el índice de aprobación de Trump cae a nuevos mínimos, surgen cada vez más indicios de que su férreo dominio sobre este grupo se está debilitando.

Y todo apunta a que esta situación podría perjudicar a los republicanos en las elecciones de mitad de mandato de 2026, especialmente a medida que este grupo se muestra cada vez más descontento con la gestión económica del presidente.

A pesar de que Trump obtuvo el 66 % o el 67 % del voto de este grupo en cada una de sus tres campañas, las encuestas más recientes revelan que la mayoría de los estadounidenses blancos sin título universitario desaprueba ahora la figura de Trump.

Esto incluye una encuesta de CNN (51 %), una de Fox News (51 %), una de NPR/PBS/Marist College (52 %), una del Pew Research Center (52 %) y una nueva encuesta de CBS News/YouGov publicada el domingo (54 %).

Existen algunas encuestas recientes que muestran a Trump en una mejor posición entre los votantes blancos sin educación universitaria, incluida una encuesta del New York Times/Siena College realizada el lunes (44 % de desaprobación). Pero, en este momento, esa es la excepción.

El grado de las dificultades que Trump enfrenta con este grupo parece no tener precedentes.

Las encuestas de CNN durante su primer mandato mostraron ocasionalmente que el índice de desaprobación de Trump entre los blancos sin educación universitaria tendía a acercarse a la mitad. Sin embargo, nunca superó el 47 %.

Su caída en popularidad entre este grupo también ha sido bastante pronunciada a lo largo de los últimos 15 meses. Mientras que el 63 % de este grupo aprobaba la gestión de Trump en una encuesta de CNN de febrero de 2025, esa cifra ha caído ahora al 49 %. Trump ha pasado de tener un índice de aprobación neto de +26 a uno de -2 entre estos estadounidenses.

Las encuestas de CBS han mostrado una caída aún mayor: desde un 68 % en febrero del año pasado hasta un 46 % en la actualidad.

Puede resultar difícil reducir el declive de Trump entre este grupo a unos pocos factores específicos. No obstante, está claro que la economía está desempeñando un papel fundamental.

Si bien las encuestas a pie de urna mostraron que solo el 32 % de estos estadounidenses blancos sin educación universitaria votaron por los demócratas en 2022 y por Kamala Harris en 2024:

• El 56% de ellos afirma que las políticas de Trump han empeorado las condiciones económicas del país, según la nueva encuesta de CNN.
• El 67% de los encuestados por CNN sostiene que la guerra en Irán ha afectado negativamente su situación financiera.
• El 56 % de los encuestados por CNN señala que los aranceles de Trump han tenido un impacto negativo en sus finanzas, frente a solo un 20 % que considera que han tenido un impacto positivo.
• El 60% opina que las políticas de Trump están deteriorando la economía a corto plazo, según la encuesta de CBS. El 41 % de los encuestados en el sondeo de CBS afirma que estas medidas también empeorarán la economía a largo plazo, una cifra superior al 35% que cree que, en última instancia, mejorarán la situación económica.
• Una mayoría en la encuesta de CBS sostiene que

By Laura Paddison, CNN

(CNN) — Deep in the ocean is a worm that makes its home inside a “glass castle,” a mysterious “ghost shark” and a carnivorous “death ball” sponge.

These are just three of the 1,121 “previously unknown” species discovered in the world’s oceans over the last year, announced Tuesday by the Ocean Census, a global effort to map marine life involving more than 1,000 researchers across 85 countries.

It marks a 54% increase in annual identifications, according to the three-year-old organization, led by Japan’s Nippon Foundation and Nekton, a UK ocean exploration institute.

The ocean is one of the planet’s least known ecosystems, especially the deep sea. Once it was assumed little life could thrive in its extreme environments, but over recent years, scientists have discovered ecosystems brimming with unusual – and sometimes utterly bizarre – species.

Underwater life faces immense challenges from climate change, as oceans warm, and from human activities, including pollution from industry and agriculture. The quest to mine the ocean for its minerals, which appears to be moving further toward reality, presents another huge risk.

“With many species at risk of disappearing before they are even documented, we are in a race against time to understand and protect ocean life,” said Michelle Taylor, head of science at Ocean Census.

Scientists with the Ocean Census made 13 expeditions to some of the world’s least explored oceans over the last year.

Off the coast of Japan, at around 2,600 feet beneath the ocean’s surface, they discovered a new species of bristle polychaete worm living within a glass sponge, which has a translucent, mesh-like skeleton – known as a glass castle – made of silica, the main component of glass.

The sponge and the worm have a symbiotic relationship, meaning they benefit from each other. The worm is protected by making its home in the glass castle, a stable structure that’s rich in nutrients, and in return, the worm removes potentially damaging debris from the sponge’s surface.

In Australia, scientists found a species of “ghost shark” chimaera at depths of around 2,700 feet. These fish are distant relations of sharks and rays, diverging from these species nearly 400 million years ago.

In Timor-Leste, scientists found a species of ribbon worm an inch long and with stripes of bright orange, a symbol of its potent chemical defenses. The toxins that ribbon worms produce have been investigated as potential treatments for Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia.

In the North Trench of the South Sandwich Islands, a collection of uninhabited islands in the south Atlantic Ocean, scientists found a carnivorous “death ball” sponge at depths of nearly 12,000 feet.

This species is covered in microscopic velcro-like hooks which ensnare crustaceans floating by on ocean currents. The sponge then envelops and ingests them.

Whether all the species are completely new to science may take time to unravel. Typically, it takes an average of 13.5 years between discovery of a species and its formal description in scientific literature, Ocean Census said in a press release.

To speed this up, Ocean Census is recognizing “discovered” as a scientific status that can be immediately recorded in its marine species database. As soon as an expert validates a discovery, they can log it into an open-access platform, said an Ocean Census spokesperson, explaining, “this makes the species immediately visible to the scientif

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By Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — Gasoline prices are up more than 50% since the start of the war in Iran. Can average Americans protect themselves from those higher costs?

Not completely – oil is far too embedded into everyday life. For example, diesel-burning truck companies have imposed fuel surcharges to transport the goods Americans buy every day. Oil is also used to make the plastic containers for many of those items, as well as disposable cutlery, drink bottles and garbage bags.

But experts agree there are many ways, large and small, to reduce your oil and gasoline consumption – some of them surprisingly simple.

Slow down

This is the simplest thing most people can do, and the one that produces significant savings. Slowing down when you drive uses less gas and saves you money.

Reducing your driving speed on the highway from 75 mph to 55 mph leads the average gasoline-powered car to use 40% less gas, according to the Department of Energy. Exact savings can vary, but generally being a lead foot is costly.

Driving smarter on local streets rather than highways also improves fuel economy, as can avoiding “aggressive driving” such as rapid accelerations and hard braking, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for gas-shopping app GasBuddy.

Lastly, the simple act of making sure that your tires are full of air can save gas along with wear and tear. The Department of Energy estimates that drivers can reduce fuel use up to 3% by keeping tires properly inflated. Staying current on vehicle maintenance also improves fuel economy, De Haan said.

Plan ahead and take the bus

Reducing the number of weekly trips you make in a car obviously reduces the amount of fuel used, thus saving money.

That means planning ahead, combining errands and making fewer trips out to the same store during the course of week.

Bigger lifestyle changes can also reduce car trips. Carpooling, working from home and using public transit can all save what you spend on fuel, De Haan said.

Only about 4% of US commuters use public transit to commute to work, according to the Census Bureau. That’s less than the 9% who carpool and 13% who work from home.

Price shop

Shopping around for the best fuel price can also produce significant savings.

Hundreds of stations nationwide are selling gas for more than 50 cents above the average price in their county, often even $1 a gallon more, according to GasBuddy, which provides price data from nearby stations.

“Station prices can vary significantly even within a few miles,” De Haan said.

For drivers, it’s worth comparison shopping local stations to find the lowest price.

Buying a more fuel-efficient car

Buying an electric vehicle is the most extreme way to save on gas costs, even if it’s not an immediate option for everyone.

Millions of Americans buy cars every month. The current energy spike is making fuel economy a greater factor in those decisions, said Kathy Harris, director of clean vehicles, climate and energy for the National Resources Defense Council.

“We’re seeing Americans across the country really understand the benefits of transitioning to cleaner vehicles writ large. We are seeing tra

By Brenda Goodman, CNN

(CNN) — The hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius arrived at its last stop Monday. Now the waiting begins.

The diagnosis of a strain of the Andes strain of hantavirus — an infection that’s fatal in about 40% of cases — on a ship carrying people from roughly two dozen countries has given public health officials around the globe their first major test in controlling contagion since the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries are choosing different strategies to monitor potentially exposed passengers and stop the spread of the disease and to communicate with a nervous public anxious that the virus may have come closer to home.

Passengers on board the ship since early May are now entering the window when they will be most likely to develop symptoms, according to infectious disease experts.

Indeed, a Hondius passenger who had been quarantined in Canada and developed symptoms has been confirmed to be positive for the Andes strain of the hantavirus, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

“No one would be surprised if there are others that test positive this upcoming week,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and professor at the University of Toronto.

Bogoch recently partnered with Dr. Jason Andrews, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Stanford University, to model the incubation periods and secondary spread in two past outbreaks of this virus in Argentina: one from 1996 and one from 2018, which were both well-documented. Their work was recently posted as a preprint, ahead of peer review.

Their analysis found that the average incubation period for the virus — the time between when a person is infected and when they develop symptoms — is roughly three weeks.

The last person to fall ill on the ship was a German passenger who died May 2, the same day researchers identified the cause of the infections. Until then, passengers had not known they needed to take precautions.

Though not everyone on board may have been exposed – or exposed at the same time – the May 2 date is a rough marker for the edge of the danger zone. It can take as long as six weeks for symptoms to appear, which is why most countries are monitoring passengers for a minimum of 42 days counted from the day they got off the ship, May 10.

‘Relying on everyone doing the right thing’

In the past, Bogoch notes, Argentina has stopped the spread of Andes hantavirus through tried-and-true public health measures such as regular testing and quarantines.

“So now you’re relying on everyone doing the right thing, rather than just one country doing the right thing, and I think that just adds an element where error could be introduced more readily,” Bogoch said.

Different countries are using a variety of approaches to monitor returned passengers.

Mandatory quarantines are in place in Spain and France, whereas Great Britain and the United States are asking passengers to voluntarily isolate themselves, with regular check-ins with public health authorities.

Some passengers are