Análisis de Ronald Brownstein, CNN

Las guerras por elección propia, en casa y en el extranjero, se han convertido en la característica definitoria del tumultuoso segundo mandato del presidente de EE.UU., Donald Trump.

De Minneapolis y Los Ángeles a Caracas y Teherán, instigar conflictos con adversarios percibidos se ha convertido en el principal medio de Trump para perseguir sus objetivos internos e internacionales. Ha desplegado fuerza militar en Irán, Venezuela y al menos otros cinco países; lanzó guerras comerciales contra naciones de todo el mundo; ordenó redadas de control inmigratorio militarizadas en grandes ciudades gobernadas por demácratas; presionó al Departamento de Justicia para iniciar procesamientos penales federales contra individuos e instituciones que considera sus adversarios; y apoyó desafíos en las primarias contra republicanos del Congreso que se le han enfrentado.

De todas estas maneras, Trump ha puesto de cabeza el famoso consejo del politólogo Richard Neustadt, quien escribió en un libro clásico de 1960 que el poder presidencial central “es el poder de persuadir”. Trump ha gobernado como si creyera que el poder presidencial central, y quizá el único relevante, es el poder de coaccionar.

Quienes simpatizan con el enfoque de Trump creen que simplemente está aprovechando todos los enormes poderes de la presidencia de maneras que sus predecesores no lo harían, en particular para defender los intereses de Estados Unidos en todo el mundo.

“Nadie puede leer la mente del presidente, eso está claro”, dijo Nadia Schadlow, una asesora adjunta de Seguridad Nacional durante el primer mandato de Trump que ahora es investigadora sénior en el Hudson Institute. “Pero ciertamente parece que está absolutamente dispuesto a utilizar todas las formas de influencia de todas las maneras diferentes, incluidas maneras asimétricas, y no está limitado por procesos que a menudo han restringido a presidentes anteriores”.

Pero los críticos de Trump creen que los límites de su estrategia confrontacional se están volviendo más evidentes a medida que enfrenta una resistencia inesperadamente eficaz de objetivos tan diversos como el Gobierno de Irán y los ciudadanos comunes de Minneapolis que se opusieron a su ofensiva de control inmigratorio. Trump está aprendiendo que incluso con el martillo más grande del mundo, a veces los clavos pueden responder.

“A primera vista, parece una fuerza dominante, titánica […] está en el puente del barco y está dando órdenes, y la respuesta inicial parece ser que está logrando acción”, dijo el politólogo Lawrence Jacobs, director del Centro de Estudios sobre Política y Gobernanza en la Universidad de Minnesota. “Pero ahora estamos en un punto en el que podemos mirar cuáles son los efectos y resultados de lo que está haciendo. Y lo que estoy viendo ahora son mucho más las limitaciones de su enfoque”.

Escriba la frase “Trump amenaza” en cualquier motor de búsqueda y los resultados se desbordan. En el léxico de Trump, rara vez pide; en cambio, exige. Y esas exigencias casi siempre están respaldadas por amenazas de consecuencias catastróficas para cualquier individuo o institución que se resista. Cada día en la administración Trump se siente un poco como la icónica escena del bautismo en “El padrino” cuando Michael Corleone entona: “Hoy arreglo todos los asuntos de la familia”. En apenas las últimas semanas, Trump ha señalado que Estados Unidos reconsiderará su papel en la OTAN si los miembros de la alianza no brindan el apoyo que él exige para reabrir el estrecho de Ormuz; se comprometió a “cortar todo comercio” con España por negarse a permitir el uso de sus bases militares en la guerra; advirtió a Cuba que pretende reemplazar a su Gobierno mediante presión militar o económica; elogió a su combativo presidente de la FCC, Brendan Carr, por amenazar las licencias de radiodifusión de medios que cubren la guerra con Irán de maneras que

By Dan Heching, CNN

(CNN) — “The Comeback” was by no means the first series to hold a funhouse mirror up to the entertainment industry, but the comedy starring co-creator Lisa Kudrow, which returns for its final season on Sunday, has certainly always done it in its own navel-gazing yet endearing way.

As eternally optimistic and entirely self-absorbed actress Valerie Cherish, Kudrow and executive producer Michael Patrick King struck cult classic gold with the first season in 2005, showcasing the ups and downs of the LA actor life, from working with toxic writers to making sure your hair is just right no matter where you are.

Since the show last aired in 2014 — as part of a rare-at-the-time post-cancellation resurrection — Hollywood has found itself at the center of several other biting comedies, like awards season darlings “Hacks” and “The Studio,” from “Comeback” Season 2 guest star Seth Rogen.

Now, 21 years after “The Comeback” first premiered, there is room for all of them, even if the runaway success of Rogen’s blistering takedown of Hollywood prompted Kudrow and Co. to do a little tweaking to the final season behind the scenes.

“We were mindful of, let’s not be running around in golf carts too much,” Kudrow said at a recent press conference, referencing the many frantic golf cart rides Rogen and his cohorts take in the Apple TV series, which is filmed on the same studio lot as “The Comeback.”

King made the distinction that “The Comeback” is “more of a jab at ego than Hollywood.” See: a hilarious bit in this new season during which Kudrow’s Valerie brings her social media curator to a WGA strike and becomes nonplussed when a picketer’s sign blocks her best angle.

“I think it’s a cautionary tale, for me, to be careful about chasing the spotlight,” King said. “Hollywood’s just a great circus arena because so many people want to be in the spotlight.”

A lot has happened in the world since everyone last saw Valerie. The pandemic and the two union strikes that hobbled Hollywood in recent years are humorously addressed at the top of the new season, which largely tackles the arrival of artificial intelligence as Valerie agrees to star in a new sitcom written by AI.

Once the idea was born, it was ostensibly fast-tracked to production because the premise was seen as being in a race against reality, where it’s entirely possible that AI-written shows are not far from coming to fruition — if they haven’t already.

“It was very much as-fast-as-you-can,” King said of the approval process for Season 3. “Our goal was to get on the air before a studio admitted they were using AI.”

Kudrow said it “really had to be an idea like the AI thing” for her to return to this world after so much time had elapsed — even longer than the break between the first two seasons — and likened Valerie taking on this new technology to her “ultimate battle.”

“Just as reality TV was the almost-extinction event at the time for scripted television, it’s the same feeling about AI,” she explained, in a nod back to how the show’s first season came about during the initial aughts-era reality TV explosion, which prompted Read more

By Francesca Street, CNN

(CNN) — Amelie Malmfält opened the message at work. When she saw Kris Brock’s name, her face broke out into a huge smile. She couldn’t believe it.

It was a simple note — he’d bumped into her parents at the airport, he said. He was wondering how she was doing. It’d been a while…

Still smiling, Amelie immediately started composing a reply in her head.

“My colleague across from me said, ‘Did you get some good news or something?’” recalls Amelie. “I was like, ‘Oh, yes … kind of.’”

The colleague looked intrigued, so Amelie continued.

“This boy, who I knew when I was eight … and then we were together when I was 18 … just reached out to me to say he bumped into my parents at the airport,” she said.

“Wait, who is this guy?” asked her colleague, confused.

“This is the person I’m going to marry one day,” replied Amelie, still smiling.

Amelie’s colleague raised an eyebrow. She was surprised. She knew Amelie was dating someone else. Amelie, too, was surprised by her words. But then she doubled down on what she’d just said.

“No, this is the one I’ll definitely marry,” she said, as her mind wandered back to where it all began.

Childhood sweethearts

Amelie and Kris’ story began in 1987. Amelie’s parents were Swedish, and as a kid she attended a Swedish elementary school in London. It was a tiny institution, with only 10 kids in her class.

“So you kind of had to get on with everyone, which was nice,” Amelie tells CNN Travel today. “There was pretty much an even split of boys and girls, and the 10 of us just hung out the whole time and had loads of fun.”

Kris joined the school the year Amelie was eight. From the moment he walked into the classroom for the first time, Amelie was fascinated by him.

“I just remember when this really exotic Swedish boy who’d lived in Australia arrived one day with this bright yellow jumper, saying ‘Sydney’ on it,” she says. “He quickly became part of a friendship group.”

For Kris, joining a new school was a bit daunting — even if he was used to new beginnings.

“I’d moved around a lot — to Asia, Hong Kong and Sydney, and then I came to the UK, to the Swedish school,” he tells CNN Travel today. “I was a bit nervous — starting a new school when you’re eight years old.”

But when Kris met Amelie, his nerves quickly turned into excitement. It was love at first sight — kind of, anyway.

“We were only eight, but I remember Amelie was the first person that I thought, ‘Wow.’ You know, whatever you feel when you’re eight years old. It was pretty innocent.”

One lunchtime, the kids were playing tag in the playground. Kris was “it” and was chasing the other kids, trying to tap them on the shoulder and tag them.

“I thought it was really clever to run into the classroom, and then I closed the door, which was this big glass door, but I also locked it, which Kris didn’t realize,” recalls Amelie.

Kris ran after Amelie to tag her, and tried to push the door open.

“But the door was locked, so he flew through the whole glass window, crashed through the whole glass door and flew through it,” recalls Amelie.

Other than a few scratches, Kris was unharmed. But Amelie was left impressed by his commitment to the game.

“And then the next day, there was a little note on my desk, saying, ‘Will you be my girlfriend? Tick yes or no.’ And I was like, ‘He flew through a glass door. I think I should say yes.’”

On their first date, the eight-year-olds went to the cinema to see the rereleased “Herbie goes to Monte Carlo.”

“My father was sitting a couple of rows behind us, so we weren’t alone at the cinema,” says Kris.

He remembers loving the film, starring the Volkswagen Beetle, and loving watching Amelie laugh at

Por Cristopher Ulloa, CNN en Español

Apenas días antes de asumir la presidencia, el ultraderechista José Antonio Kast y el exmandatario Gabriel Boric (de la izquierda progresista) rompieron relaciones y cancelaron reuniones entre ambos equipos. ¿El motivo? El proyecto de construcción de un cable submarino chino de telecomunicaciones que uniría al país austral directamente con Hong Kong.

No es un plan nuevo: tuvo su origen durante el Gobierno de Sebastián Piñera, tras un ofrecimiento de China, y su concesión terminó siendo aprobada vía decreto en la administración de Boric, con la firma de su ministro de Transportes, Juan Muñoz.

El documento -al que accedió el medio local “El Mercurio”- oficializaba la concesión del cable de fibra óptica por al menos 30 años, detallaba que abarcaría más de 19 mil kilómetros y uniría las ciudades de Hong Kong (China) con Concón, en la región chilena de Valparaíso.

Sin embargo, 48 horas después de firmado el decreto, el propio Boric decidió frenar su avance, cuando los documentos ya iban de camino a la Contraloría. Según el exmandatario, el hecho motivó “amenazas explícitas” por parte de Estados Unidos, quien revocó la visa al ministro de Transportes de Boric y otros dos funcionarios públicos. Kast, por su parte, acusó en ese entonces “falta de transparencia” por parte del Gobierno saliente.

“Chile-China Express”, nombre que recibía este proyecto, pertenecía a la empresa china Mobile International y buscaba mejorar la conectividad e intercambio de datos entre ambos países. Días antes de dejar el cargo, Boric afirmó que este era un tema “tan sensible, tan delicado” que “requería una conversación con el presidente electo (ahora actual presidente Kast)”, pero que esto no podía estar “subordinado a las amenazas de un determinado país”.

Posteriormente, el propio embajador de Estados Unidos en Chile, Brandon Judd, sentenció el fin del proyecto chino. “El Gobierno todavía tiene que revisar los permisos, pero yo creo que ya está terminado”, aseguró en una improvisada rueda de prensa el 12 de marzo.

“Cuando hablamos en temas de seguridad, siempre vamos a pensar que nosotros (Chile y Estados Unidos) somos socios, y compartimos información e inteligencia. Y si aún queremos compartir todo eso, nosotros tenemos que tener la confianza de que esta información que compartimos será guardada. Con este proyecto, Chile no será dueño de este cable, entonces no podemos tener la confianza de que esta información será guardada. Si Chile fuera el dueño, podría ser. Pero hasta ahora los únicos que serían dueños serían empresas chinas”, afirmó Judd, y reiteró que el cable “ya se acabó” y que la permanencia de Chile en el programa visa waiver “no está en duda”.

Según expertos, en Chile quien construye proyectos de esta envergadura no siempre es el mismo que termina operándolas, y ahí es clave la forma en que se negocian las concesiones. Pero el cable submarino chino “ya parece ser cosa del pasado”. El problema, advierten, es lo que está por venir.

Para el analista internacional Gilberto Aranda, Chile está entrando en una posición incómoda: por un lado, tiene a China, su principal socio comercial -y principal comprador de cobre-, y por el otro a Estados Unidos, con la administración Trump, donde Kast coincide en varios puntos políticos y busca referencias, como la actual construcción de un muro para frenar la migración irregular en la frontera norte con Perú y Bolivia.

“Tengo la impresión de que el proyecto Cable Submarino Chino ya ha sido dejado de lado, pero la pregunta es: ¿qué viene después?”, señala Aranda, quien recuerda la importancia del rol de Chile como productor mundial de “minerales críticos” como el cobre y el litio, los cuales adquieren esta denominación al ser clasificados como esenciales en industrias de transición energética y electromovilidad.

“Se hizo una declaración conjunta (entre Chile y Estados Unidos

By David Wright, CNN

(CNN) — “It’s disgusting,” says one woman in the ad. “Disqualifying,” says another.

They’re shown reacting to old social media posts from Graham Platner, the Maine Democratic Senate candidate who’s been endorsed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, in a new ad from his rival, Maine Gov. Janet Mills.

The now-deleted posts surfaced last fall, after CNN’s KFile and then the Washington Post reported on online commentary from Platner stretching back years. Mills’ new ad features 2013 comments from Platner downplaying incidents of sexual assault in the military by suggesting victims avoid getting drunk “around people you aren’t comfortable with.”

Hours after the ad was released, Platner addressed the media and appeared with women who support his campaign. Then his campaign launched its own TV ad directly responding to Mills’ attack.

“If I saw these ads, I’d have questions,” Platner says, appearing on camera. “So, Maine, I’m asking you not to judge me for the worst thing I said on the internet on my worst day 14 years ago, but who I am today.”

Mills and her allies are counting on a gender gap to narrow Platner’s wide lead ahead of the June 9 primary to decide who will face incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins. They are betting that the unfiltered style that has brought Platner widespread attention as someone who could help Democrats reach young men will backfire with women.

In 2020 — the last year with available exit poll data — the state’s electorate was 59% female. A February survey from the University of New Hampshire, which found Platner substantially ahead among voters of both genders, showed his lead is broader among men than women.

“I was really on board for him up until, you know, the controversy that happened a few months ago, is when I kind of started questioning,” said Emma Bagby, a substance abuse therapist from Scarborough, Maine. “Making the comments about women being sexually assaulted, and that they need to take responsibility for themselves in that aspect, you know, that kind of rhetoric, just is scary right now.”

Speaking to CNN’s Manu Raju, Platner said, “I’ve gone all over the state of Maine and allowed people to ask me about it all directly for months now.”

“I think, for a lot of folks in the state to see this get kind of dragged back up months and months after we’d already talked about it — I will just say the feedback we have received statewide is that people find all of this to be everything they hate about politics,” Platner said.

‘I don’t have any tattoos’

Platner’s campaign launch last August was greeted by a burst of Democratic enthusiasm about the oyster farmer and Marine veteran. Soon after Mills joined the race in October, reports began emerging that sparked a series of controversies. Stories about the Reddit posts were followed by the revelation that Platner had a tattoo on his chest of an image widely recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he has since had covered. Platner attributes his missteps to youthful ignorance.

“I as a person have transformed over time and changed, which actually I think a lot of folks can identify with,” he told CNN.

Sanders endorsed Platner last August, shortly after he launched his campaign, imparting his progressive, anti-