By Matt Egan, CNN

New York (CNN) — When he launched his presidential campaign in late 2022, then-candidate Donald Trump blasted his successor for aggressively releasing oil from America’s emergency stockpile ahead of the midterm elections.

“The strategic national reserves, which I filled up, have been virtually drained in order to keep gasoline prices lower, just prior to the election,” Trump said during his 2024 campaign launch at Mar-a-Lago, referring to President Joe Biden’s record-setting releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

But now, as voter frustration over high gas prices mounts, President Trump is draining the nation’s pile of emergency oil at an even faster pace than Joe Biden ahead of this year’s midterms.

Not only has the magnitude of SPR releases under Trump surpassed records, but the amount of crude left in the reserve is approaching the lowest levels since the early 1980s. Back then, the United States had a far smaller economy that consumed less energy.

The emergency steps taken this spring underscore the scale of the oil crisis set off by the war with Iran and the scramble around the world to replace crude trapped in the Persian Gulf.

The shrinking pile of emergency oil also serves as a reminder of how US officials will need to refill the SPR afterwards, an endeavor that will keep both demand and prices high.

“This isn’t like a cookie jar. Those barrels have got to be put back at some point and that will lead to higher prices,” said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst at energy intelligence firm Kpler.

SPR is 10% smaller than pre-war

Of course, moments like this are exactly what the SPR is designed for.

Located in a series of underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana, the SPR is the world’s largest stockpile of emergency crude. It’s been used by Republican and Democratic presidents alike during wars, hurricanes and other supply disruptions.

For example, Biden aggressively tapped the SPR after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, spiking gasoline prices above $5 a gallon for the first time ever. The amount of oil in the SPR plunged from about 638 million barrels in January 2021 to a 40-year low of 347 million barrels by July 2023, according to federal data.

The effective shutdown in late February of the Strait of Hormuz, the most critical chokepoint for energy in the world, has derailed more than 1.2 billion barrels of crude, according to S&P Global Energy.

To help fill the gap, the SPR released a record 9.9 million barrels (or 2.6%) during the week ending May 15 alone, according to federal data. That marked the second-straight week where SPR balances declined by the most on record.

Since the war with Iran started, the amount of oil in the SPR has dropped by 10% to 374 million barrels – the lowest since July 2024, according to the US Energy Information Administration

Notably, that emergency crude isn’t just supply for US refineries. About half of the crude released in April and May have been exported, according to Kpler estimates.

“The US is basically the supplier of last resort. The rest of the world needs that crude,” Smith said.

Countries in Asia and Europe have been hit particularly hard by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, leading them to turn to US crude as a replacement.

It’s a trend that w

Por Fredreka Schouten, CNN

La batalla que se libra de costa a costa para obtener ventaja en las elecciones de noviembre mediante la manipulación partidista de los distritos electorales está llegando a su fin, y los republicanos están a punto de terminar con hasta 10 escaños de ventaja sobre los demócratas solo gracias a la redistribución de distritos.

El Partido Republicano inició la contienda el año pasado en Texas, modificando los límites de los distritos electorales de la Cámara de Representantes con la esperanza de mejorar sus posibilidades de sobrevivir a una posible victoria demócrata este otoño, a lo que los demócratas respondieron.

La trascendental decisión de la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos el mes pasado, que debilitó uno de los pilares restantes de la Ley de Derechos Electorales de 1965, impulsó aún más los esfuerzos de redistribución de distritos en todo el Sur.

El fallo llevó a varios estados controlados por los republicanos a cambiar las fechas de las elecciones y eliminar distritos con una importante población afroamericana.

Estas medidas podrían ser una gran ventaja para proteger la escasa mayoría del presidente de la Cámara de Representantes, Mike Johnson, de cara a las elecciones de mitad de mandato.

Pero, independientemente del resultado en noviembre, la batalla por la redistribución de distritos electorales a mitad de década probablemente haya alterado la política estadounidense de forma permanente, alimentando un creciente interés por rediseñar los distritos para obtener ventajas partidistas en cada ciclo electoral, en lugar de cada década después del censo, como es tradicional.

“No existe la normalidad”, afirmó Justin Levitt, profesor de la facultad de derecho de Loyola Marymount y director del sitio web “All About Redistricting”.

Señaló que la serie de fallos del Tribunal Supremo relacionados con las elecciones en los últimos años, incluyendo una opinión de 2019 que declaraba que los tribunales federales no podían controlar la manipulación de distritos electorales con fines partidistas, contribuyeron a allanar el camino para las acciones extremas que ahora se están imponiendo.

“El Tribunal Supremo ha anunciado, en efecto, que los adultos se han marchado”, comentó. “Lo que ves es lo que obtienes cuando premias el mal comportamiento, que es mucho más mal comportamiento”.

Con las primarias ya en marcha en todo el país, ambos partidos se han quedado sin terrenos electorales donde librar nuevas batallas por la redistribución de distritos este año. Sin embargo, se están preparando para una manipulación electoral aún más agresiva en el ciclo electoral de 2028.

Aquí les mostramos en qué punto se encuentra la batalla por la redistribución de distritos:

Los republicanos tienen una escasa mayoría en la Cámara de Representantes de EE.UU., 218-212, incluyendo al recién independizado representante de California, Kevin Kiley, quien aún se une al grupo parlamentario republicano a pesar de haber abandonado el partido en medio de una reñida contienda por la reelección tras la redistribución de distritos.

Los conservadores enfrentan un camino difícil para mantener su control de la Cámara después de las elecciones de noviembre, dado que el partido del presidente generalmente pierde poder en las elecciones de mitad de mandato.

Ante este panorama histórico, los republicanos de Texas iniciaron la campaña de redistribución de distritos electorales a mediados de la década el año pasado, a instancias del presidente Donald Trump.

Aproximadamente diez meses después, los republicanos han modificado los límites

By Lisa Eadicicco, CNN

(CNN) — It’s a tough job market for software engineering hopefuls. Tens of thousands of jobs cuts across the industry have increased competition for open spots. The rise of AI has spurred fears of cheating during interviews, and company priorities are changing as the tech evolves almost daily.

But hiring managers have a bigger concern: Now that AI can write code, how can you figure out who – or even what skillset – makes a good software engineer?

The interview process hasn’t kept up with the way AI has changed programmers’ daily responsibilities, career experts and software engineers told CNN. That’s made the hiring process more challenging for both job seekers and hiring managers.

“I would say AI has hit engineering interviewing like an atomic bomb,” said Stefan Mai, a former engineer for Meta and Amazon and cofounder of tech interview coaching service Hello Interview.

Software engineering has been among the first industries to be noticeably impacted by AI. A report from Google’s research division last year found that 90% of tech workers use AI for tasks like writing and modifying code, up 14% from the previous year. The field has been closely watched as a bellwether as AI adoption expands.

How AI is changing software engineer jobs

AI can now help software engineers write code and documentation; analyze data; learn coding concepts and troubleshoot, among other things. That lets tech companies move much more quickly, some executives say.

An OpenAI engineer used AI to implement a system change that would have taken his team a week otherwise, company president Greg Brockman recently said during a Sequioa Capital talk. Many internal apps at Google are being “mostly” written with the company’s Antigravity AI coding tool, Varun Mohan, a director at Google DeepMind, told CNN earlier this month.

Boris Cherny, Anthropic’s head of Claude Code, wrote on X in December that “100%” of his contributions to the product over the past 30 days were written by Claude Code.

Cherny believes AI is shifting the role of a software engineer to focus on high-level decision-making rather than writing code. The title “software engineer” might be replaced with a name like “builder” that better captures the position, he previously told CNN.

AI isn’t meant to replace engineers, Google’s Mohan told CNN.

“We think developers should spend most of their time trying to figure out what they should build,” he said. “That’s the whole question.”

Madhu Kurup, vice president of engineering at Indeed, compared AI in software engineering to Google Maps’ role in travel. Google Maps can tell a person which highway exit to use, flag traffic conditions and find coffee shops on a driver’s route, but it doesn’t pick the destination or decide what time to leave.

However, that Google report last year indicated that 46% of tech workers only “somewhat” trust the quality of AI-generated code, and 31% said AI only “slightly” improved code.

And layoffs throughout 2025 and 2026 suggest AI is affecting payrolls. AI was the top reason cited by companies for job cuts in April for the second month in a row, the executive outplacement firm Read more

By Patrick Svitek, CNN

(CNN) — James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Texas, raised more than $3 million in the first 24 hours after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton emerged as his Republican opponent, Talarico’s campaign first told CNN.

The haul confirms Talarico’s status as a formidable fundraiser as he looks to become the first Democrat to win a Senate election in Texas since 1988. The party is especially encouraged after the scandal-scarred Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in a nasty primary runoff on Tuesday.

“Texans are uniting behind our campaign to defeat (Paxton) and the broken, corrupt political system he embodies,” Talarico said in a statement.

The $3 million haul is the most Talarico’s campaign has raised in a single day. It is more than the $2.5 million that Talarico raised earlier this year shortly after one of the biggest moments of his campaign: CBS’ decision not to air an interview that Talarico did with late-night host Stephen Colbert.

Talarico already raised $27 million in the first quarter of this year, one of the largest hauls by a Senate candidate ever. Paxton’s campaign and its affiliated committees took in $2.2 million over the same period.

Talarico’s campaign entered April with $9.9 million cash on hand, while Paxton’s groups had $2.6 million in reserves.

Talarico kicked off the general election with a rally Wednesday in Houston, where he touted his campaign’s fundraising success and promised the financial support would help “end 30 years of one-party rule in Texas.”

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

The post James Talarico campaign says it raised more than $3 million in 24 hours since Texas primary runoff appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Ben Church, CNN

(CNN) — It may be cliché, but it doesn’t make it untrue – there’s nothing quite like the World Cup.

As is true for over a billion fans around the world, my life has been punctuated every four years by the tournament. It evokes memories of pure elation and takes you back to summers spent celebrating goals with strangers in beer gardens.

The World Cup, though, also serves crushing disappointment as very few things can. Heartbreaking penalty kick losses, missed opportunities and summers spent crying … with strangers in beer gardens.

• Sign up for The Beautiful Game by CNN Sports

Off the field, the world will be watching how the United States, Mexico and Canada can safely host the biggest World Cup in history – with the tournament already creating global headlines before a ball is even kicked.

But on the field is where the best action will take place. There will be heroes, villains and everything in between. Teenagers you’ve never heard of will suddenly become household names for the summer, and previous legends of the game will bow out on the biggest stage (looking at you, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo).

Ultimately, nothing can move a group of people like soccer can, especially at a World Cup. It taps into something primal, uniting nations and creating memories that last forever, causing your heart to beat louder than ever before.

If you’re already a soccer fan, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. But if you’re not, get involved. Fall in love with the world’s game, you won’t regret it (or maybe you will when you’re hiding behind the sofa unable to watch the USMNT’s penalty shootout).

This summer, you can think of The Beautiful Game by CNN Sports as your trusty companion to help guide you through the myriad of action and countless storylines that will undoubtedly emerge from the 104 matches being played across the continent.

I, Ben Church, will not be in North America but will instead be following along from London, likely wrapped in an English flag, hoping my beloved Three Lions can finally win their first men’s World Cup since 1966 (It’s Coming Home!).

But you’ll also be hearing from our stellar team live on the ground from host cities across North America, with an email dropping into your inbox every morning that will deliver behind-the-scenes reporting, expert analysis and point you towards the biggest storylines of the day.

And finally, to address the ball-shaped elephant in the room. Yes, we are calling it soccer. And yes, as an Englishman who has called it football his entire life, it does physically hurt me (this despite me being readily aware that “soccer” as a term was also invented in England). But here we are.

I just hope my editor is happy. (Editor’s note: I’m thrilled).

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

The post Introducing The Beautiful Game by CNN Sports, CNN’s daily 2026 FIFA World Cup newsletter appeared first on News Channel 3-12.