By Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — Sharply rising gas prices drove inflation to 3.3% in March, the highest rate in nearly two years.

Inflation is expected to accelerate in the coming months as aftershocks from the US-Israeli war with Iran spread beyond gas prices.

Ripple effects from the Iran war, which began in late February, have swiftly set back progress on inflation and added more pressure for Americans struggling with affordability.

With inflation running well above normal for more than five years, we’d love to hear how your household finances are holding up.

How much longer can your household budget withstand higher-than-typical price hikes before you have to make severe changes? What would those changes look like?

If you’d be willing to share your experience with a CNN reporter for possible inclusion in an upcoming article, we’d like to hear from you.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The post Tell us: How much inflation can your budget take? appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Maureen O’Hare, CNN

(CNN) — In our roundup of travel stories this week: how Paris’ first female mayor transformed the city, Japan’s iconic vending machines hit troubled times, plus why more and more Americans are moving to Central and Eastern Europe.

North Macedonia: beyond the big three

Most visitors to Europe focus their trips on France, Spain and Italy, but there are an impressive 44 UN-recognized countries in the continent to explore.

For example, North Macedonia, a dramatically mountainous destination directly north of Greece, is worthy of more tourist attention. There’s its landscape of lush green slopes and snow-topped crags and its deliciously diverse cuisine, with the array of dishes on a table changing from one valley to the next. It’s blessed with a sunny climate too, which helps make the vegetables fat and juicy and its vineyards’ wines robust and plentiful.

Immigration experts are reporting a growing interest from American clients in relocating to lesser-trodden European destinations such as Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland, Albania and Estonia.

While perennially popular countries such as Italy and Portugal are tightening immigration regulations, many other places still offer enticing options for relocation. People who’ve made the leap told CNN how it’s going.

Now ‘Searching for France’

She’s tasted Mexico’s finest dishes and now her eyes are set on France.

The CNN Original Series, “Eva Longoria: Searching for France,” begins Sunday, April 12 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, with episodes streaming on the CNN app the next day.

Longoria will journey through France exploring the rich history of the country’s cuisine and how it became the global standard for fine dining.

In our food and drink coverage here at CNN Travel, pan bagnat and croque monsieur are two of the French masterpieces to make it into our list of the world’s best sandwiches, alongside worthy contenders from Vietnam, Mexico, South Africa and New Orleans.

Sandwiches, burgers and pizza are the most popular take-out foods in France, which, despite being the birthplace of haute gastronomy, is also in the middle of a fast food boom. The switch is being led by Gen Z, one industry expert tells CNN. “When you’re 25 today, you’ve been immersed in McDonald’s since you were a baby.”

La vie Française

During her 12 years as mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo transformed the French capital, pedestrianizing streets, cleaning up the Seine and making boulevard cafes fume-free.

It’s a notably improved experience for tourists, although Parisians themselves are divided on the complex legacy of the city’s first female mayor, who bowed out of office last month.

Deep in France’s rural south, far from the hubbub of the capital, artist MB Boissonnault tells CNN she’s enjoying a tranquil existence far from the “escalating insanity” of her previous life in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Venice Beach.

Priced out of her rented home and studios and exhausted by what she describes as the “gentrification” of her longtime neighborhood, she and her husband moved to the tiny village of Saissac, near the Pyrenees, and Boissonnault became a first-time homeowner in her late 50s.

Ja

Por Eric Bradner, CNN

La candidatura del representante Eric Swalwell a la gobernación de California se tambaleaba este viernes, después de que su campaña fue retirada de la principal plataforma de recaudación de fondos del Partido Demócrata y destacados miembros de la formación política le retiraron su apoyo y le instaron a abandonar la contienda tras las acusaciones de conducta sexual inapropiada.

La expresidenta de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, declaró haberle pedido a Swalwell que abandonara su candidatura, y el líder de la minoría demócrata en la Cámara, Hakeem Jeffries, le instó a retirarse.

El senador de California, Adam Schiff, y el de Arizona, Ruben Gallego, ambos aliados de larga data, anunciaron que le retiraban su apoyo Swalwell.

El copresidente de la campaña de Swalwell, el representante Jimmy Gomez, anunció su renuncia al cargo.

Courtni Pugh, una de las principales asesoras y enlace de Swalwell con los sindicatos, declaró a CNN que había abandonado la campaña “en cuanto supe la gravedad de las acusaciones”.

Varios otros miembros del personal renunciaron a la campaña el viernes, y los que permanecen están buscando otros empleos, según una fuente con conocimiento del asunto.

Un portavoz de Californians for a Fighter, un grupo de gasto independiente que apoya a Swalwell, declaró: “Ante las graves acusaciones, el grupo suspende inmediatamente su actividad de campaña”.

Además, ActBlue, la plataforma de recaudación de fondos fundamental para las campañas demócratas, publicó en línea que su campaña no aceptaba donaciones.

El gobernador de California, Gavin Newsom, no pidió de inmediato a Swalwell que se retirara, pero declaró: “A medida que seguimos conociendo más detalles, estas acusaciones de múltiples fuentes son profundamente preocupantes y deben tomarse en serio”.

Mientras tanto, varios de los rivales de Swalwell en la contienda por la gobernación le pidieron que se retirara tras los informes de CNN y el San Francisco Chronicle en los que varias mujeres acusan a Swalwell de conducta sexual inapropiada.

La presión sobre Swalwell, con la rápida sucesión de nuevas declaraciones que lo denuncian, aumenta a medida que las acusaciones agitan una contienda electoral muy abierta a pocas semanas de que los votantes comiencen a emitir sus votos.

Los candidatos compiten en unas primarias no partidistas en las que participan media docena de demócratas prominentes y dos republicanos destacados.

Solo los dos candidatos más votados, independientemente de su partido, pasarán a las elecciones generales.

Swalwell publicó un video el viernes por la noche en el que afirmaba que las acusaciones de agresión sexual en su contra son “completamente falsas”.

“No pretendo en absoluto que sea perfecto ni un santo. Ciertamente he cometido errores de juicio en el pasado, pero esos errores son asunto mío y de mi esposa, y a ella le pido disculpas sinceramente por haberla puesto en esta situación”, manifestó. “También les pido disculpas si en algún momento les he hecho dudar de su apoyo, pero creo que saben quién soy”.

Swalwell no se pronunció directamente sobre el estado de su campaña.

“Este fin de semana voy a pasar tiempo con mi familia y amigos”, agregó, “y agradezco a quienes se han puesto en contacto conmigo

By Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — As Todd Blanche takes the reins at the Justice Department, a federal judge is set to decide whether controversial remarks made last year by the now-acting attorney general should lead to the unravelling of one of the Trump administration’s marquee criminal cases.

Blanche’s public statements about human smuggling charges brought against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the US wrongly deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, have for months frustrated prosecutors’ ability to bring the case to trial as Abrego Garcia has asserted that he’s being vindictively targeted.

A judge is poised to decide at any time whether to use those comments to dismiss the charges. But if doesn’t toss out the charges, he could decide to summon Blanche to his courtroom in Nashville, Tennessee, to answer questions under oath about the department’s motivation for criminally pursuing Abrego Garcia.

The situation underscores how public missteps by the Justice Department’s top brass have the potential to lead to major real-world consequences for an agency that is of particular interest to President Donald Trump.

When Pam Bondi was attorney general, her inaccurate comments on Epstein landed her in hot water more than once – most notably when she suggested on Fox News she had a list of names of men who were clients of Jeffrey Epstein.

“The judge’s determination as to the truthfulness of Blanche’s statements takes on extra importance now that Blanche is the acting attorney general and, potentially, a candidate for the permanent job,” said Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor.

“If the judge finds that Blanche’s statements support a finding of vindictive prosecution, that’ll be a black eye for Blanche, and for DOJ, and will impact his credibility,” Honig added.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The Abrego Garcia case has been a sore spot for the Trump administration since he was deported in error last March to his home country of El Salvador. Courts at every level of the federal judiciary said the mistake needed to be corrected, yet officials spent months resisting demands that they bring back to Maryland the father of three whom the US government claims is a dangerous member of the MS-13 gang.

He was finally flown back to the US in June after federal prosecutors in Tennessee secured a pair of human smuggling charges against him that stemmed from a traffic stop in the state years earlier.

The day officials announced Abrego Garcia’s return, Blanche told Fox News that the Justice Department started probing Abrego Garcia after a judge in Maryland both concluded that the administration “had no right to deport him” and accused officials “of doing something wrong” in its approach to him.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers seized on those words as they pressed the judge overseeing his case, Waverly Crenshaw, to dismiss the two charges based on their contention that the charges were brought as a vindictive prosecution. A pair of rulings from the judge last year showed that he was leaning toward doing just that.

The appointee of former President Barack Obama said in October that the burden was on the government to fend off a presumption that officials only reopened a years-old probe into Abrego Garcia, and subsequently asked a gr

By Jake McGowan, CNN

(CNN) — For the price of a dinner in Paris, somebody will soon walk away with a Picasso valued at more than $1 million.

The “1 Picasso for 100 euros” raffle offers entrants the chance to take home the artist’s 1941 gouache “Tête de Femme.” The price of a ticket is — as the name of the contest suggests — 100 euros, or about $116.

A total of 120,000 tickets are available for the drawing on April 14. Proceeds will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, which supports clinical research into the disease across Europe.

This is the third edition of the campaign. The first “1 Picasso for 100 euros” was held in 2013, with funds donated to the preservation of Tyre, a historic city in Southern Lebanon. A second edition in 2020 supported clean water and hygiene programs during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Olivier Widmaier Picasso, grandson of the legendary Spanish artist, told CNN’s Paula Newton that his grandfather created “Tête de Femme” in the same studio where he painted his masterpiece “Guernica.”

He said he believed the work is being undervalued. “It’s worth much more than $1 million,” Widmaier Picasso said, “so it will be really a big prize.”

Picassos have fetched staggering sums at auction in the past. “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)” sold for more than $179 million in 2015.

The Opera Gallery, which donated the painting, says Pablo Picasso was in Paris when he painted “Tête de Femme.” World War II was raging across Europe and much of France was under German occupation.

“Tête de Femme” is about 15 inches tall and 10 inches wide. The woman’s expression, painted in different shades of gray, is intentionally distorted in Picasso’s signature Cubist style. The Opera Gallery says the gouache reflects a moment of introspection and concentrated studio work for the artist.

Widmaier Picasso says that a friend of his came up with the “1 Picasso for 100 euros” initiative.

“She thought it was a modern vision of charity by offering people the option to get a real artwork of my grandfather and to participate in humanitarian operations,” he said.

Widmaier Picasso believes his grandfather would support “1 Picasso for 100 euros.”

“My grandfather was a pioneer in many ways,” he said. “I think that he was always very interested in participating in new things. I would say that today he would have been interested in video or maybe in artificial intelligence.”

Widmaier Picasso says whoever wins “Tête de Femme” is free to do whatever they would like with it. The winner of the first contest, for example, decided to display their prize in a museum.

“Anyone can do what they want,” he said. “They can keep it in the living room, they can show it in an exhibition — or they can resell it.”

Widmaier Picasso said his grandfather would agree with letting the winner decide, because that’s how he operated.

He said his grandmother, Marie-Thérèse Walter, who was only 17 years old when Picasso began a romantic relationship with her, was showered with art. The artist was in his mid-forties at the time, married with a young son.

Marie-Thérèse Walter’s features appeared in Picasso’s work over the next decade. Widmaier Picasso says his grandfather repaid her for the years of inspiration.

“When my grandfather was giving artworks, it was forever,” he said. “It was a decision – you do what you want with it. Pablo gave a lot of artworks to his lady, and she kept everything until she died. So I’m offering all options.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The post Read more