By Ramishah Maruf, CNN

New York (CNN) — Gennadiy Tsygan knows how expensive it is to build a home in the United States. That’s why he imported almost everything for his dream house from China.

Most of his home fixtures were imported directly from over two dozen factories, and Tsygan — an engineer in Baltimore — flew halfway around the world in 2024 to choose some of those products.

His home is cozy but industrial, standing out in a sea of Baltimore’s colonials and ranches. It’s made out of gray fiber cement but has welcoming floor-to-ceiling windows and an open kitchen. Tsygan is proud of even the smallest features, such as doors with a magnetic lock to achieve a silent click and European-style windows. The home is on track for LEED certification, he adds.

“Building home is a project of a lifetime, and I treat it as an adventure and try to have fun with it,” Tsygan said. “That’s how I came to trying to import some building materials from China.”

With the high cost of home construction, more Americans are becoming curious about working with Chinese suppliers on their renovations. The price of home construction materials in the United States increased by 3% from last year, according to the National Association of Home Builders. And since 27% of those materials came from China in 2023, some US homebuilders are thinking of skipping the middleman like Home Depot and local contractors.

The China renovation hack is also all over American homeowners’ social media feeds. A woman who said she allegedly turned down a $50,000 cabinet quote locally to import from China got more than 165,000 likes, and others share vendor lists. Chinese manufacturers also advertise directly to social media users, saying they can deliver cabinets, tiles and any other materials to your front door.

The curiosity is reminiscent of manufacturers encouraging Americans to buy designer handbags directly from China or the recent trend of “Chinamaxxing.”

But it isn’t for the faint of heart: The initial smaller price tag comes with its own set of issues, such as fluctuating tariffs that can go sky high, specialized labor costs, language barriers and delivery delays.

Importing from China paid off for Tsygan, who estimated that he saved up to $100,000 with this method. But he emphasized the process is far from “cheap,” saying he paid an average of $13,000 for shipping per container of custom goods from China.

‘Outrageous’ materials costs

Constructing a home comes with a hefty price tag in the United States.

Metal molding and trim is up 45% year-over-year, upping the price of windows, Robert Dietz, NAHB’s chief economist, told CNN. Lumber prices have risen 8% over the last year, and aluminum has gone up “due to trade and tariff policy.”

“Material prices are definitely getting a little outrageous,” Will Mueller, Tsygan’s builder from IronGate Builders, told CNN. Materials can make up two-thirds of the total cost of a custom home, Mueller said, with the rest primarily being labor.

Tsygan said the brown siding on his home was sold at a 150% markup on Amazon and “mostly imported from China anyways.” The floor-to-ceiling windows were unaffordable domestically, and the sound-proof, magnetic-locked doors were almost four times more expensive in the

By Jeremy Herb, Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — As undersecretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain and former Republican Senate candidate in Virginia, was supposed to have a broad portfolio as the service’s No. 2 civilian, which included personnel issues and safeguarding the Navy’s “warfighter ethos.”

But in reality, Cao was often cut out of decision-making by his boss, Navy Secretary John Phelan, one source familiar with the situation told CNN, who said Phelan put Cao “in a box”

Cao was isolated from Navy decision making and wasn’t allowed to represent Phelan in official meetings that Phelan didn’t attend, something a typical undersecretary would do, the source said.

That all changed following Pehlan’s sudden ouster as Navy secretary by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week. Cao is now in the job on an acting basis. He learned about his promotion from the Pentagon front office, which called him in and said, “Ok, you’re it — we made a change,” according to the source.

“He’s quickly coming up to speed on all the things he wasn’t allowed to be involved in,” the source added.

A decorated special operations officer, Cao takes over as the Navy’s top civilian at a time when the service is playing a critical role in stopping Iranian ships from traversing the Strait of Hormuz. As the 2024 Republican nominee against Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Cao championed Trump and Hegseth’s attacks on social issues and opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Cao immigrated to the US as a child after his family fled Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

After retiring from the Navy in 2021, he ran for Congress as a Republican in 2022 and challenged Kaine in 2024, where he had a penchant for making controversial statements.

“When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want,” Cao said at a 2024 debate with Kaine in response to a question about military recruiting. “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat ’em and ask for seconds. Those are young men and women that are going to win wars.”

In a statement after his appointment as acting secretary, Cao said that he would focus on advancing the Navy’s shipbuilding priorities — the very issue that contributed to Phelan’s firing.

“I remain fully committed to accomplishing the core mission of the Department of the Navy as a premier warfighting organization and providing unwavering support to our warriors downrange,” Cao said.

Phelan, a businessman and friend of Trump’s who fundraised for his campaign, was removed as Navy secretary following tensions with Hegseth that had stretched on for months. Hegseth believed Phelan was moving too slowly on implementing shipbuilding reforms and was also irked by Phelan’s direct communication with Trump, which Hegseth viewed as an attempt to bypass him, CNN previously reported.

It’s unclear whether Cao will be nominated to take over as Navy secretary permanently.

In a statement to CNN, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Cao “brings battle-tested leadership to the Navy’s highest office” and that he “embodies the relentless grit and America First vision required to maintain America’s maritime superiority.”

After immigrating to the US in 1975, Cao and his family then moved to West Africa, where his father served as a USAID agricultural specialist, according to his Navy biography. Cao returned to Virginia when he was 12.

He then enlisted in the Navy in 1989 and became an officer after graduating from the US Naval Academy in 19

By Jeremy Herb, Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — As undersecretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain and former Republican Senate candidate in Virginia, was supposed to have a broad portfolio as the service’s No. 2 civilian, which included personnel issues and safeguarding the Navy’s “warfighter ethos.”

But in reality, Cao was often cut out of decision-making by his boss, Navy Secretary John Phelan, one source familiar with the situation told CNN, who said Phelan put Cao “in a box”

Cao was isolated from Navy decision making and wasn’t allowed to represent Phelan in official meetings that Phelan didn’t attend, something a typical undersecretary would do, the source said.

That all changed following Pehlan’s sudden ouster as Navy secretary by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week. Cao is now in the job on an acting basis. He learned about his promotion from the Pentagon front office, which called him in and said, “Ok, you’re it — we made a change,” according to the source.

“He’s quickly coming up to speed on all the things he wasn’t allowed to be involved in,” the source added.

A decorated special operations officer, Cao takes over as the Navy’s top civilian at a time when the service is playing a critical role in stopping Iranian ships from traversing the Strait of Hormuz. As the 2024 Republican nominee against Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Cao championed Trump and Hegseth’s attacks on social issues and opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Cao immigrated to the US as a child after his family fled Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

After retiring from the Navy in 2021, he ran for Congress as a Republican in 2022 and challenged Kaine in 2024, where he had a penchant for making controversial statements.

“When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want,” Cao said at a 2024 debate with Kaine in response to a question about military recruiting. “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat ’em and ask for seconds. Those are young men and women that are going to win wars.”

In a statement after his appointment as acting secretary, Cao said that he would focus on advancing the Navy’s shipbuilding priorities — the very issue that contributed to Phelan’s firing.

“I remain fully committed to accomplishing the core mission of the Department of the Navy as a premier warfighting organization and providing unwavering support to our warriors downrange,” Cao said.

Phelan, a businessman and friend of Trump’s who fundraised for his campaign, was removed as Navy secretary following tensions with Hegseth that had stretched on for months. Hegseth believed Phelan was moving too slowly on implementing shipbuilding reforms and was also irked by Phelan’s direct communication with Trump, which Hegseth viewed as an attempt to bypass him, CNN previously reported.

It’s unclear whether Cao will be nominated to take over as Navy secretary permanently.

In a statement to CNN, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Cao “brings battle-tested leadership to the Navy’s highest office” and that he “embodies the relentless grit and America First vision required to maintain America’s maritime superiority.”

After immigrating to the US in 1975, Cao and his family then moved to West Africa, where his father served as a USAID agricultural specialist, according to his Navy biography. Cao returned to Virginia when he was 12.

He then enlisted in the Navy in 1989 and became an officer after graduating from the US Naval Academy in 19

By Hira Humayun, CNN

(CNN) — In the hyper-masculine world of Latin-American drug cartels, it is sometimes the women you need to watch.

That’s how the Mexican military hunted down one of the world’s most-wanted traffickers – Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes – in a daring operation earlier this year that included special forces storming his hideout in Jalisco state.

Among the eye-catching details of that raid – which provoked a wave of retaliatory violence across the country that left several American tourists stranded – is how the military finally tracked down a man who had been on the run for years, was wanted by both Mexican and US authorities, and had a $15 million bounty on his head.

They simply tracked one of his lovers, who inadvertently led them to a cabin in the mountains of Tapalpa in western Mexico, where one of the most notorious criminals of his generation was hiding out.

While authorities have kept the details surrounding the mystery woman deliberately sparse, her involvement in one of Mexico’s most significant anti-drug operations in recent years underscores the role of women in the inner circles of Latin America’s drug cartels.

It is an underworld that, though colored by a strong culture of machismo, has women carving out roles at all levels of the hierarchy – from trophy wives to smuggling operatives to criminal masterminds.

And while hitmen and foot soldiers still tend to be men, it is often women who are best-suited to the logistical and financial sides of cartel operations, experts say – especially if they are married to bosses and have front-row seats to the action.

“If you are the wife of a senior cartel boss, you are likely read into their logistics, their operations, their strategies,” said Henry Ziemer, an expert on organized crime at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “So, when your husband is captured or killed, it’s possible that you’re able to take over a large chunk of the business.”

The ‘Queen of Cocaine’

One of Latin America’s most colorful female crime bosses was Colombia’s “Queen of Cocaine” Griselda Blanco, the focus of Netflix’s series “Griselda,” who had no fewer than three husbands (all partners in her criminal enterprises) during her ascent to notoriety in the Miami drug wars of the 1970s and 80s.

At the height of her power, Blanco, also known as “the godmother,” was responsible for shipping multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Colombia to Miami, according to authorities. Linked to the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel, she was the mastermind of dozens of killings, according to Miami-Dade investigators – and was reputedly every bit as violent, if not more so, than her male counterparts. Infamous for running a network of gunmen known as the Pistoleros, she had a penchant for drive-by shootings – one of which killed a toddler.

“Even by the context of how hits were taken out in the cartels across the Americas in the 70s and 80s, she’s still pretty ruthless,” Claire White, director of education at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas, told CNN.

But violence wasn’t Blanco’s only way of wielding power. Like other female crime bosses, her real prowess was organizing the logistics and financial aspects of her cartel’s empire, reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Adept at money laundering and overseeing distribution ope