By Dana Karni, Oren Liebermann, CNN

Jerusalem (CNN) — The US embassy in Israel has announced its first-ever event offering diplomatic services in a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The announcement on Tuesday said consular offices would provide “routine passport services” to American citizens in the settlement of Efrat, south of Jerusalem, in a one-day event on Friday. The embassy said the outreach effort was part of the “Freedom 250” initiative to reach all American citizens.

This move appears to signal further US legitimization of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which is considered by much of the international community as land for a future Palestinian state.

It breaks with decades of US foreign policy, which has held that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are an obstacle to peace. But President Donald Trump is no stranger to such dramatic shifts in American policy. During his first administration, the US reversed its longstanding position on settlements when then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said they were not inconsistent with international law.

Consular events will also be held in the Palestinian city of Ramallah and the settlement of Beitar Illit in the West Bank, as well as the cities of Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya and Beit Shemesh, though no dates have been announced.

Israel’s foreign ministry celebrated the announcement as a “historic decision” to “extend consular services to American citizens in Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical term for the West Bank.

Xavier Abu Eid, a former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization’s negotiations department, said on social media: “Five months after President Trump said that he is against annexation, his representatives on the ground are providing services inside Israeli settlements, effectively treating all the land as part of Israel. Normalizing annexation step by step.”

Just days ago, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that it would be “fine” if Israel took over much of the Middle East. Asked if Israel should be allowed to take over land extending as far as the Euphrates River in Iraq, Huckabee said, “It would be fine if they took it all,” before adding, “I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today.”

A group of Arab and Muslim countries denounced Huckabee’s expansionist comments as “dangerous and inflammatory,” calling them a “flagrant violation of international law.”

The Palestinian foreign ministry said Saturday that Huckabee’s remarks “contradict religious and historical facts, international law, and the position expressed by US President Donald Trump rejecting the annexation of the West Bank.”

Trump has said that he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, but Israel’s government has pushed forward with a surge in settlement expansion and tightened the country’s grip on the territory.

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By Samantha Delouya, CNN

(CNN) — Roofers are turning down jobs. Painters are locking themselves inside the homes they’re finishing. Concrete crews have monthslong waiting lists.

In the Twin Cities and surrounding suburbs, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has slowed home construction to a crawl – at a time when Minnesota, like much of the country, faces a steep housing shortage.

The White House has begun scaling back its monthslong enforcement surge in the state. But across the housing market, the aftershocks are still unfolding.

“I think most of us would probably take Covid over this,” said one large homebuilder in the Minneapolis area who asked for his name not to be shared since some of his job sites have been targeted by immigration officers over the last few weeks. “This is misery for us in the housing industry.”

President Donald Trump has made housing affordability a central pillar of his domestic agenda, and the US House of Representatives passed legislation this month intended to encourage more homebuilding. But the president’s stepped-up immigration enforcement threatens to undercut that effort, sidelining the workers needed to build new homes.

As in many other states, the construction industry in Minnesota is heavily reliant on immigrant labor.

The homebuilder, who oversees hundreds of residential projects across the Midwest, said many of his jobs are now facing monthslong delays as dozens of construction crews hesitate to return. He said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were stationed at the site of one of his large apartment construction projects for weeks, waiting to make arrests. More than nine crews walked off the job after seeing the officers, he said. At one point this month, only six of the 80 roofers he had contracted were still showing up, regardless of their immigration status.

Even in the days after the White House announced that the immigration operation in Minnesota would wind down, the builder said there were still interactions with ICE around his job sites.

“In real dollars, we’re seeing a decline in revenues of somewhere between 25% and 30% – and that’s directly attributed to the fact that we can’t put work in place,” he said.

Workers fear showing up

At its height, about 3,000 federal officers were deployed as part of Operation Metro Surge, the large-scale immigration operation primarily carried out by ICE and Customs and Border Protection.

What began in December in Minneapolis and St. Paul quickly spread to the rest of the state and led to confrontations between federal agents and protesters, including the fatal shootings of two US citizens by federal agents and the detention of thousands of individuals.

Across the US, immigrants play an outsized role in the construction industry: According to a recent report from the National Association of Home Builders, immigrant workers account for more than 25% of the construction workforce, a historic high. It is unclear how many of those workers are undocumented.

Builders in Minnesota told CNN they estimate thousands of construction workers, both documented and undocumented, are avoiding work for fear of harassment, detainment, or violent confrontations.

Tenants’ rights groups say eviction filings could rise if renters who fear going to work fall behind on rent payments. Last week, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board voted to temporarily suspend evictions for its rental properties in response to Operation Metro Surge, Read more

By Kati Chitrakorn, Leah Dolan, CNN

London (CNN) — This season at London Fashion Week, designers made it clear that a runway is no longer the only way to go about staging a show. For every high-octane catwalk across the five-day schedule, there were a number of relaxed presentations and informal gatherings as some brands looked to save money, slow things down and connect with their community beyond the rigidity of assigned seating.

In her second season as CEO of the British Fashion Council, Laura Weir summarized it best during her opening speech on Friday morning. “This week is not only a schedule of shows,” she said, reeling off the numerous presentations, dinners and events taking place. London’s strength, she continued, is in the fact that the city doesn’t “follow a formula” but sets “the cultural temperature.”

Indeed, long viewed as the scrappy sibling on the fashion calendar, London’s brands are unlike the more commercially viable labels at New York Fashion Week, which earlier this month demonstrated their prowess in knowing how to sell clothes, often with wider appeal. That’s not to say that London designers don’t know how to sell, but their approach is more targeted.

Whether it’s Chet Lo’s recreation of a Hong Kong night market, Chopova Lowena’s folklore mashup for quirky girls, or Tolu Coker’s exploration of diasporic black identity, London’s indie brands tend to spotlight and cater to the underserved – from LGBTQ+ community individuals to people of color. In doing so, several designers have amassed a devoted following. And it was these communities that they sought to engage – not only through the clothes, but this time through moments that encouraged guests to mingle with the designers as well as each other.

Laura Ingham, deputy director of Vogue’s global fashion network, recalled to CNN a conversation the past week with a colleague, in which they discussed “the power that fashion has to tell stories from different cultures, and the importance of community.” Fashion, she said, can play a role in “unifying all communities, whilst also shining a light” on the city’s most promising designers, many of which were “doubling down on their unique points of view.”

As designer Emma Chopova, one half of the brand Chopova Lowena, known for its fashionably unfashionable aesthetic, said: “Our community is everything to us.” Since 2022, Chopova and co-founder Laura Lowena-Irons have shown their designs via a catwalk only once a year, typically releasing a digital lookbook instead. For the first time, they held a presentation, complete with AstroTurf for guests to play mini-golf and garden-themed cupcakes to nibble on. “We want to keep feeding our people,” Chopova said – seemingly both figuratively and literally.

Among the designers who also eschewed the catwalk this season was Talia Byre, who instead hosted an intimate gathering to celebrate a limited-edition zine that documented the process of making her latest collection. Meanwhile, designer Kazna Asker offered iftar, a meal for those in observation of Ramadan, as she presented textiles collected from her recent trips to the Middle East. And Knwls co-founders Alex Arsenault and Charlotte Knowles opened a pop-up store decorated with paintings by artists they had known since school. One morning, the duo, who have had a partnership with Nike since 2025, hosted a Pilates session in the space. Arsenault hoped such activities would appeal to fans. “That’s what people want these days, they’re craving something physical,” he said.

Elsewhere, Talia Loubaton presented her sought-after brand, Liberowe, at London Fashion Week for the first time. While many of her peers at Central Saint Martins (Loubaton graduated from the MA Fashion course) tend to make more challenging, ava

Análisis por David Goldman, CNN

El presidente Donald Trump hizo una apasionada defensa de la economía estadounidense durante su discurso sobre el Estado de la Unión este martes por la noche.

“La inflación se desploma, los ingresos aumentan rápidamente. La economía, en pleno auge, avanza como nunca antes”, manifestó.

Hipérboles aparte, tiene razón: la economía estadounidense es sólida. Pero Trump no entiende la cuestión.

La asequibilidad, no la fortaleza económica, impulsa a los votantes a las urnas.

A la mayoría de los estadounidenses les da igual el PIB, el IPC, el PCE o cualquier otro acrónimo o dato que muestre que la economía va por buen camino.

Les preocupa la seguridad laboral y esos temores financieros que les quitan el sueño: cómo pagar la comida, la vivienda, la atención médica, las cuotas del automóvil, la universidad y la guardería, todo lo cual cada vez es más caro.

Trump sugirió que aún queda trabajo por hacer para que Estados Unidos vuelva a ser asequible y describió algunas políticas nuevas para abordar las preocupaciones financieras de los estadounidenses.

Pero el mensaje de Trump se centró principalmente en el excepcionalismo estadounidense, sus logros económicos, la baja inflación y la robusta inversión extranjera. Culpó a su predecesor de arruinar la economía y elogió la labor de su administración para rescatarla.

“Heredé una economía que estaba al borde del colapso. Ahora nuestra economía es, literalmente, la envidia del mundo”.

Pero hay un problema con esa estrategia.

¿Pruebas? Esa última cita no fue del discurso del martes. Fue del Estado de la Unión de 2024, pronunciado por el expresidente Joe Biden, quien perdió las elecciones ocho meses después.

El mensaje de Trump, al menos en teoría, es en gran medida correcto.

El empleo, el crecimiento salarial, el gasto del consumidor y la inflación bajo el Gobierno de Trump lucen bastante decentes o se han mantenido prácticamente estables. El mercado bursátil está cerca de un máximo histórico.

El PIB estadounidense creció un 2,2 % en 2025, en línea con los tres últimos años de sólido crecimiento económico. La economía se desaceleró más de lo previsto a finales de año, pero el cierre gubernamental más prolongado de la historia frenó el crecimiento que debería recuperarse este trimestre.

El año pasado no fue un gran año para el mercado laboral, ni mucho menos. Sin embargo, el desempleo se mantiene bajo, y una contratación más fuerte de lo esperado en enero sugiere que 2026 podría ser mucho mejor para la creación de empleo.

La inflación parece estar nuevamente en descenso después de un recorrido accidentado en 2025, y el crecimiento de los salarios ha superado la inflación durante casi tres años, lo que ha ayudado a los estadounidenses a estirar aún más sus dólares.

Los estadounidenses más ricos se están beneficiando financieramente de las tendencias económicas positivas, mientras que los hogares con menores ingresos se encuentran cada vez más rezagados.

Esta tendencia en forma de K no es nueva, pero la brecha entre ricos y pobres se ha ampliado en los últimos años, sobre todo porque el mercado inmobiliario permanece prácticamente congelado.

Quienes poseen vivienda, en particular quienes re

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN

(CNN) — A sprawling Chinese influence operation — accidentally revealed by a Chinese law enforcement official’s use of ChatGPT — focused on intimidating Chinese dissidents abroad, including by impersonating US immigration officials, according to a new report from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

The Chinese law enforcement official used ChatGPT like a diary to document the alleged covert campaign of suppression, OpenAI said. In one instance, Chinese operators allegedly disguised themselves as US immigration officials to warn a US-based Chinese dissident that their public statements had supposedly broken the law, according to the ChatGPT user. In another case, they describe an effort to use forged documents from a US county court to try to get a Chinese dissident’s social media account taken down.

The report offers one of the most vivid examples yet of how authoritarian regimes can use AI tools to document their censorship efforts. The influence operation appeared to involve hundreds of Chinese operators and thousands of fake online accounts on various social media platforms, according to OpenAI.

“This is what Chinese modern transnational repression looks like,” Ben Nimmo, principal investigator at OpenAI, told reporters ahead of the report’s release. “It’s not just digital. It’s not just about trolling. It’s industrialized. It’s about trying to hit critics of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] with everything, everywhere, all at once.”

CNN has requested comment on the report from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC.

ChatGPT served as a journal for the Chinese operative to keep track of the covert network, while much of the network’s content was generated by other tools and spread through social media accounts and websites. OpenAI banned the user after discovering the activity.

OpenAI’s investigators were able to match descriptions from the ChatGPT user with real-world online activity and impact. The user described an effort to fake the death of a Chinese dissident by creating a phony obituary and photos of a gravestone and posting them online. False rumors of the dissident’s death did indeed surfaced online in 2023, according to a Chinese-language Voice of America article.

In another case, the ChatGPT user asked the AI agent to draw up a multi-part plan to denigrate the incoming Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in part by fanning online anger about US tariffs on Japanese goods. ChatGPT refused to respond to the prompt, according to OpenAI. But in late October, as Takaichi took power, hashtags emerged on a popular forum for Japanese graphic artists attacking her and complaining about US tariffs, according to OpenAI.

The report comes amid a battle between the US and China for supremacy over AI. At stake is how the technology is used on the battlefield and in the boardroom of the world’s two biggest economies.

The Pentagon is in a standoff with another prominent AI company, Anthropic, over the use of its AI model. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a Friday deadline to comply with demands to peel back safeguards on its AI model or risk losing a lucrative Pentagon contract.

The report from OpenAI “clearly demonstrates the way that China is actively employing AI tools to enhance information operations,” Michael Horowitz, a former Pentagon official focused on emerging technologies, told CNN.

“US-China AI competition is continuing to intensify,” said Horowtiz, who is now a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “This competition is not just taking place at the frontier, but in how China’s government is planning and implementing the day-to-day of