By Alexandra Banner, CNN

AI-generated voice scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with technology that can now mimic the voices of people you know and trust. Experts say a few simple tips can help you spot the warning signs.

Here’s what else you need to know to get up to speed and on with your day.

1⃣ Rocket explodes

A Blue Origin rocket erupted in a fireball on Thursday during a ground test in Cape Canaveral, Florida, creating a dramatic setback for Jeff Bezos’ space company. No one was injured, the company said, and investigators are working to determine what caused the “anomaly,” or mishap. It’s unclear how the incident will impact Blue Origin’s future lunar ambitions. Read more.

WATCH: See the explosion on the launchpad

2⃣ Potential deal

The US and Iran reached a tentative agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and start nuclear talks, according to US officials on Thursday. President Donald Trump still needs to give his approval, though, and the situation in the region remains tense. Read more.

LATEST: A key sticking point in negotiations to end the Iran war

3⃣ Inflation

Elevated gas prices pushed inflation up again last month, according to a new report. As inflation is at a three-year high, US households are also saving at their lowest rate in years, underscoring the growing financial pressure on consumers. Read more.

MORE: The US’ pile of emergency oil is shrinking fast

4⃣ Hawaii manhunt

A manhunt in Hawaii ended on Thursday with the arrest of a 36-year-old suspect in the killings of three elderly men, police said. The suspect was found hiding in a cave – nearly three days after the first victim was discovered. Read more.

5⃣ $250 bill

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is planning to potentially print a commemorative $250 bill with the image of President Donald Trump to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary. But US law generally prohibits living people from appearing on currency, meaning any exception would require congressional approval — and there’s no indication it would pass. Read more.

Happening later

Pam Bondi testifies as part of Epstein probe

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi will appear today before the House Oversight Committee – behind closed doors – amid an ongoing probe into the Epstein files. More on what she may be asked.

Breakfast browse

Trump Accounts app goes live

There’s a new app for parents who set up Trump Accounts for their children. Here’s how it works.

Concerns about TikTok

Four months after the US averted a TikTok ban, some lawmakers say Americans Read more

By Andy Rose, CNN

(CNN) — Anabella Gyasi and her 4-year-old son touched down at Washington Dulles International Airport more than a week ago on tourist visas. They are still there, her attorneys say, confined to “a windowless room with a single bed and toilet.”

A federal judge is set to hear arguments Friday on the future of the pregnant woman, who came to the United States from Ghana for a medical appointment for her child but also acknowledged to authorities she planned to seek asylum, according to court documents.

Her attorneys allege she is being held illegally.

“Ms. Gyasi secured the necessary visas for her son’s medical appointment, and by detaining them in dangerous conditions anyway, (Customs and Border Protection) is breaking the law and putting the Trump administration’s cruel anti-immigrant agenda before basic human dignity and the Constitution,” said attorney Dorna Maryam Movasseghi of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, which filed Gyasi’s court petition for release.

However, the Trump administration said in a court filing Thursday Gyasi “admitted under oath … her intent was not to leave the United States to return to Ghana” and as a result, she was not able to enter the US on the tourist visa.

After an immigration judge denied her asylum request Wednesday, making it virtually impossible for Gyasi and her son to remain in the country, her legal team said its main concern now is her well-being during what has turned into an indefinite layover.

Gyasi’s case is among the latest to be challenged in a federal court system struggling to keep up with the administration’s aggressive moves to maximize the number of immigrants removed from the US and increase vetting of visitors on nonimmigrant visas.

Woman and son came for a medical appointment, attorneys say

Gyasi, 38, came to the United States on a tourist visa after getting an appointment for her son at the Akron Children’s Hospital to be evaluated for possible surgery to address severe physical abnormalities affecting his fingers on both hands, the petition states. They’d traveled to the US for treatment two years earlier, but Gyasi was told her child was too young for surgery at the time. Their tourist visas expire in 2028, the petition states.

Instead of being able to board her connecting flight to Ohio, the Ghanaian citizen – who is four and a half months pregnant – and her son were “locked in a holding room” at the airport and “denied adequate food and medical care,” her petition said.

They were taken into custody after Gyasi “disclosed her fear of returning to Ghana based on the persecution she and her son faced,” when being questioned at US Customs, according to the allegations in the document.

Gyasi, who is a teacher, told authorities her mother “is a traditional priest and when she saw my child as a baby and his disability, she said I should kill him,” according to a government transcript of her statement to an immigration officer.

Gyasi “claimed a fear of returning to Ghana, received a credible fear interview from an asylum officer, and review of that negative credible fear determination by an Immigration Judge, who affirmed the asylum officer’s determination. And thus, her expedited removal order stands ready to be executed through her removal to Ghana,” the government wrote in the court filing.

The mother was hospitalized twice over the past week, initially for lightheadedness and then for vaginal bleeding, the petition said, which doctors said was due to high st

Por Federico Leiva, CNN en Español

Cuando se acerca un Mundial, hay preguntas que a todo amante del fútbol le gusta contestar, sin importar si es sobre su selección u otra.

¿Quién va a ser campeón? ¿Quiénes son los favoritos? Son interrogantes que, un nombre más o un nombre menos, todos tenemos bastante en claro. Por algo solo un puñado de selecciones se han repartido el trofeo a lo largo de las décadas.

Sin embargo, hay una pregunta mucho más divertida, porque permite un abanico mucho más amplio de posibilidades: ¿quiénes pueden ser la revelación?

¿Quién será la Corea del Sur de Corea y Japón 2002? ¿La Ucrania de 2006? ¿Alguien podrá convertirse en la Paraguay de 2010? O, mejor aún, ¿en la Costa Rica de 2014 (inolvidable, por cierto)?

Lo bueno que trae el formato de 48 selecciones a la Copa Mundial de la FIFA de 2026 es que hasta algunos terceros podrán acceder a la ronda de los mano a mano, y ahí puede pasar cualquier cosa.

Por eso, la posibilidad de tener una sorpresa se multiplica en esta edición, pero aquí tenemos a algunas con buenas probabilidades de asombrar a todos.

Sí, la misma Paraguay que comenzó las eliminatorias sudamericanas dando pena podría llegar bastante lejos en esta Copa del Mundo. ¿La explicación? Gustavo Alfaro.

El entrenador llegó a una selección deshecha y la convirtió en una de las más difíciles de Sudamérica. No por nada le ganó a Argentina en su camino a Norteamérica.

Sin nombres rutilantes, el seleccionado guaraní se refugia en un gran estratega en el banco de suplentes y en el sentido de unidad que ha mostrado el grupo rumbo a la Copa del Mundo.

Desde que está Alfaro, Paraguay perdió apenas cuatro partidos sobre 18, y dos de ellos fueron ante Brasil y Marruecos.

Paraguay tiene, además, un camino inicial que asoma accesible para las herramientas que tiene. Compartirá grupo con Estados Unidos, Australia y Turquía, tres rivales a los que en un buen día podría vencer.

Si logra terminar primero, enfrentaría a un tercero en dieciseisavos de final, y si pasa, podría caerle el líder del Grupo G, que, por lógica, sería Bélgica, un seleccionado que, aún peligroso, no es un “cuco”.

Ya en cuartos si podría tocarle un gigante como España, si la lógica acompaña.

Otra nación Sudamericana. Y no es favoritismo, sino que simplemente nos atenemos a lo que ha mostrado. No tiene brillo, es cierto, pero es efectiva y tiene una defensa que se ha mostrado increíble a lo largo de toda la eliminatoria sudamericana, recibiendo solo cinco goles en 18 partidos.

La falta de experiencia de su entrenador en la Copa del Mundo puede pesarle, pero hasta ahora ha dado la talla ante prácticamente cualquier rival.

De hecho, viene de empatar ante Marruecos y Países Bajos, dos selecciones con serias aspiraciones en Norteamérica. Si sobrevive a los nervios del debut ante Costa de Marfil, tendrá buena parte del camino hecho.

El plantel tiene varios nombres destacados, como Hincapié (Arsenal) y Willian Pacho (PSG), mientras que en el mediocampo tiene a uno de los mejores volantes del mundo, Caicedo (Chelsea).

En la delantera, aguarda un atacante que tiene experiencia y promedia un gol por partido jugado en el Mundial.

Hay talento. Hay jerarquía. Y hay gol. Mucho gol. La selección más goleadora de toda la eliminatoria de la UEFA le meterá miedo a toda defensa que se le cruce, especialmente con el “Androide” Haaland ondeando el estandarte.

Los nórdicos aplastaron a Italia en su camino al Mundial 2026 y tienen con qué plantarle cara a Francia, el Goliat de su grupo.

Tienen jugadores en las principales ligas del mundo y se han mostrado como un equipo sumamente pragmático, donde destacan nombres como Julian Ryerson (Borussia Dortmund), Antonio Nusa (Leipzig), Alexander Sorloth (Atlético de Madrid) y, sobre todo, Martin Odegaard. Si el del Arsenal llega sa

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN

(CNN) — Irish musician CMAT has shared her “deep sadness” about being body shamed after a live appearance last weekend.

The singer-songwriter, whose real name is Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, has said there is “no relief” from how she is treated online because of her body shape and that she has had a “difficult” few days following her appearance at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Sunderland, northern England, on Sunday.

In post she shared on Instagram on Thursday, she said she’d deleted social media apps Instagram, TikTok and X from her phone “for the preservation of my mental health,” but now feels “compelled to wade in and speak for myself.”

“It is literally so boring for me, a gorgeous genius, to keep having to yap on about how horribly i am treated because of my body,” she wrote.

She said she would “love to stop” but cannot as the abuse continues “at an accelerating and worsening pace” as she becomes more famous.

CMAT shared screen grabs of a post written by a fan of hers called Front Row Feels, which the singer said “summed up a lot of what is causing my deep sadness.”

CMAT released a song called “Take a Sexy Picture of Me” last year in which she called out the criticism women face over their appearances.

The blogger behind Front Row Feels wrote of CMAT’s performance: “She wrote the song about the cruelty. She explained the cruelty. She stood on stage singing directly about the cruelty. And the machine just kept going anyway.”

The anonymous writer described the “glaring disparity” in how social media users responded to other female artists such as Olivia Dean and Zara Larsson who also both performed in Sunderland.

“Their comment sections were not warzones,” the writer said. “They were granted a level of grace and basic humanity that was completely denied to CMAT.”

CMAT said on Instagram that, contrary to what some “very well-meaning people” might think, her appearance is not a result of her “being defiant.”

“I simply have a body, one that i would of course like to change in order to fit in and avoid all of this abuse, but i have had extreme difficulty in doing so. i dont get a say in whether or not i want to be brave, i simply have to sit here and take it,” she said.

CMAT added that she is “very very happy and grateful” for her job but that her “success is increasingly becoming tarnished by the fact that i would be allowed to enjoy it so much more if i was thin.”

The post has been liked more than 60,000 times. Among those to respond was BBC radio presenter Lauren Laverne, who said: “Sometimes it feels like so little has changed in the past 20 years. It’s infuriating. You are brave – not because of anything to do with how you look, but for how you use your voice.”

Meanwhile, singer Sophie Ellis Bextor commented that she hadn’t realized “how little things have changed.” She added: “You are blazing a brilliant trail and young girls (and old women like me) look to you as someone being brilliant and completely true to themselves).”

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By Patrick Svitek, CNN

(CNN) — At James Talarico’s first rally after Ken Paxton became his opponent in their US Senate race, one of Texas’ most prominent Black leaders, Rodney Ellis, acknowledged he had supported Talarico’s opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, in their hard-fought Democratic primary.

“That was then, this is now,” Ellis said on Wednesday. “There’s too much at stake to be petty.”

It was a notable vote of confidence from Ellis, a Harris County commissioner and former state senator from Houston. Yet it also showed how Talarico is still building inroads with Black voters nearly three months after they overwhelmingly favored Crockett, a bloc that the state representative desperately needs if he wants to have any chance at a historic breakthrough for his party in Texas.

After losing to Talarico, Crockett called on Democrats to unite behind all their nominees. But she has not campaigned with Talarico yet, and her team made clear in a new statement to CNN that she believes Texas Democrats have considerable progress to make if they want to end Republican rule.

The statement, from Crockett spokesperson Karrol Rimal, said it would be “foolish to underestimate” Paxton and that there is “still a long road ahead to November.”

“Tough decisions will need to be made about where Democrats are prioritizing their spending – do they invest in a Texas longshot or double down in states where they’ve won statewide such as Alaska and Georgia?” the statement said. “Texas Democrats have nominated a slate of candidates where the top three spots are filled with lawmakers from Austin. They’ll have to do a lot of work outside of Central Texas and to resonate with constituencies across our state which is one of the largest and diverse in the world.”

The statement added that Crockett still believes turning Texas blue “lies in energizing the Democratic base,” including voters of color. Democrats “can chase disaffected Republicans all day but there simply is not enough of them to change the outcome,” the statement said.

While Crockett’s spokesperson said her team isn’t directing criticism at any specific candidate, Talarico has long said he wants to win over Democrats, independents and Republicans fed up with their party. On Tuesday night, after Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in their party’s runoff, Talarico made an explicit appeal to Cornyn supporters, telling them in an X post that they “have a place in our campaign.”

No Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994.

“I’m proud of the work we’ve been doing all across Texas to bring our coalition together — because our state deserves a Senator that will deliver for Black Texans,” Talarico said in a statement to CNN. “As the candidate at the top of the ticket, it’s on me to earn the trust and support of Black voters that have been taken for granted by the national Democratic party for far too long.”

‘Doing everything that he can do’

Talarico emerged from his contentious primary well aware that he needed to mend fences with Black voters who backed Crockett.

Since the primary, Talarico has given the commencement address at Paul Quinn College in Dallas, the oldest historically Black college in the state; visited another HBCU, Prairie View A&M University outside Houston; and rolled out a plan to combat maternal mortality, which disproportionately impacts Black women.

He’s held meetings with groups of Black leaders in the Dallas area, Houston and Austin;