CNN

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused the Trump administration of a “continuing cover-up” in the way it has handled the release of millions of documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein.

“They are slow walking it, they are redacting the names of men who are in it, they are stonewalling legitimate requests from members of Congress,” Clinton told the BBC at the Munich Security Conference in Berlin.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has repeatedly defended the US Department of Justice’s handling of the files, saying the department is “committed to transparency” and “is hiding nothing.”

The latest batch of documents released by the DOJ contained several references to Bill Clinton, offering fresh insights into the sometimes-lewd ways the former president’s staff communicated with Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Hillary Clinton said she and her husband “have nothing to hide.” Bill Clinton has repeatedly denied wrongdoing related to the late sex offender. Previous document dumps revealed photos of Bill Clinton alongside Epstein and in a hot tub with someone a DOJ official described as a “victim” of Epstein’s sexual abuse.

Both Clintons are set to appear for closed-door depositions in the House’s Epstein probe later this month, agreeing to the conditions set by House Oversight Chairman James Comer only once the House was preparing for a vote to hold the couple in contempt for defying a congressional subpoena.

Without referencing this tussle, Clinton said the couple “are more than happy to say what we know, which is very limited and totally unrelated to their behavior or their crimes.”

“I just want it to be fair, I just want everyone to be treated the same way. That’s not true for my husband and me,” she added, repeating her desire to attend public hearings too.

She claimed that such scrutiny directed toward her and her husband was being used by the administration as a way to “divert attention from President (Donald) Trump.”

Trump, who is mentioned more than 1,000 times in the documents, eventually encouraged Republicans to vote to release the files late last year after initially resisting an effort to make them public.

“I’ve been totally exonerated,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, when asked about Clinton’s comments. “No, no, they’re getting pulled in, that’s their problem, we’ll have to see what happens. I watched (Clinton) in Munich, and she seriously has Trump derangement syndrome.”

Clinton referenced Attorney General Pam Bondi’s testimony on Wednesday as one example indicating the administration has “something to hide.”

“(Bondi) refused to answer question

Por Hanna Ziady, CNN

El organismo de control de privacidad de datos de la Unión Europea ha iniciado una investigación sobre X de Elon Musk por imágenes sexualizadas generadas por el chatbot de inteligencia artificial del sitio de redes sociales, Grok.

La medida se suma a la creciente presión regulatoria sobre X, que también enfrenta investigaciones en Francia y el Reino Unido después de que miles de imágenes deepfake sexualizadas, principalmente de mujeres, pero también de niños, se generaron utilizando Grok el mes pasado, lo que provocó una reacción global.

La Comisión de Protección de Datos de Irlanda (DPC), principal responsable de hacer cumplir el Reglamento General de Protección de Datos (GDPR) de la UE, señaló en un comunicado el martes que ha abierto una investigación “a gran escala” sobre X en relación con estas imágenes.

En particular, la Comisión examinará si X incumplió con las normas emblemáticas de privacidad de datos de la UE en la forma en que manejó los datos personales de los ciudadanos del bloque.

“La DPC ha estado trabajando con X desde que hace varias semanas surgieron los primeros informes en los medios sobre la supuesta capacidad de los usuarios de X de incitar a la cuenta @Grok en X a generar imágenes sexualizadas de personas reales, incluidos niños”, declaró el comisionado adjunto Graham Doyle.

La investigación de la comisión “examinará el cumplimiento por parte de X de algunas de sus obligaciones fundamentales en virtud del RGPD en relación con los asuntos en cuestión”, añadió.

CNN se ha puesto en contacto con X para solicitar sus comentarios.

Desarrollado por la startup de inteligencia artificial de Musk, xAI, que adquirió X el año pasado, Grok está integrado en los feeds de redes sociales de X.

Bajo presión gubernamental, con amenazas de prohibiciones y multas, X restringió el mes pasado la capacidad de Grok para generar ciertas imágenes explícitas. Aun así, la empresa enfrenta múltiples investigaciones en Europa.

La Oficina del Comisionado de Información del Reino Unido anunció investigaciones formales sobre X y xAI a principios de este mes, “que abarcan su procesamiento de datos personales en relación con el sistema de inteligencia artificial Grok y su potencial para producir contenido de imágenes y videos sexualizados dañinos”.

Mientras tanto, la policía allanó las oficinas de X en París a principios de febrero como parte de una investigación más amplia sobre la empresa y Grok. Musk también fue citado a declarar.

En respuesta, el equipo de asuntos gubernamentales globales de X negó cualquier irregularidad y afirmó que las acusaciones subyacentes a la redada eran “infundadas”.

La Unión Europea ya está investigando a X por las imágenes sexualizadas, examinando si la plataforma “evaluó y mitigó adecuadamente los riesgos asociados con la implementación de las funcionalidades de Grok en X en la UE”.

La controversia que rodea a Grok ha vuelto a poner a la inteligencia artificial y a las redes sociales bajo fuego por posibles daños a los jóvenes.

El lunes, el Reino Unido anunció planes para obligar a los chatbots de inteligenci

By Brian Stelter, CNN

(CNN) — Warner Bros. Discovery wants to hear Paramount’s “best and final proposal” for the media company, and is opening a brief window for discussions about a bid, while also moving forward with its Netflix merger and urging shareholders to reject Paramount’s current hostile bid.

If that sounds convoluted, that’s because it is.

Warner Bros. Discovery, or WBD for short, is worth tens of billions of dollars, and the company’s board is trying to ensure it squeezes every possible billion out of its suitors.

So it is reopening talks with Paramount, in pursuit of a higher price, while recognizing that Netflix can and likely will match the price.

Netflix, for its part, is criticizing Paramount aggressively, saying that Paramount’s “financing challenges and rapid deleveraging plans pose tremendous risk to the entertainment industry.”

Last December, WBD agreed to sell most of the company, including the Warner Bros. movie studio and HBO, to Netflix. WBD’s cable channels, including CNN, are not part of the sale.

The deal with Netflix doubled as a rejection of Paramount. But Paramount CEO David Ellison responded by going directly to shareholders with a $30-per-share offer for all of WBD, including CNN.

That’s the offer WBD is officially opposing. On Tuesday morning, WBD said it will hold a special shareholder meeting on March 20 and will recommend voting to approve the Netflix deal, which values the studio and streaming assets at $27.75 per share.

WBD has argued that the sale to Netflix, along with the creation of Discovery Global, a new company housing the cable channels, is the best available option for investors, while calling the Paramount proposal overly risky and likening it to a leveraged buyout.

But there is a big unknown: What is Paramount’s “best and final” offer?

In negotiating parlance, that’s the most a buyer is willing to pay, and Paramount hasn’t shared its answer.

During the initial bidding war for WBD last year, Paramount indicated it was willing to pay more than $30 per share. Last week, according to WBD, a person speaking on Paramount’s behalf told a Warner board member that Paramount would agree to pay $31 per share if the two sides held deal talks.

The person left some additional wiggle room by indicating that $31 was not the final offer.

And so, despite having a signed merger agreement, Netflix has granted WBD a limited waiver to talk with Paramount for the next seven days.

“We seek your best and final proposal,” WBD said in a letter to Paramount’s board on Tuesday morning.

The rest of the letter, full of financial jargon and legalese, can be translated thusly: It’s time to put up or shut up.

Paramount made some moves in WBD’s direction last week with an amended proposal that slightly sweetened the takeover terms.

Holding talks with Paramount now might unlock even more cash for a company that was barely trading at $10 per share one year ago, before all the sale talk erupted.

“Throughout the entire process, our sole focus has been on maximizing value and certainty for WBD shareholders,” WBD CEO David Zaslav said in a Tuesday press release.

Referring to Paramount by its stock ticker symbol, he said, “Every step of the way, we have provided PSKY with clear direction on the deficiencies in their offer

By Don Riddell, CNN

(CNN) — From the age of just nine, Bruna Moura vowed that she would make something of her life. She can vividly remember being pulled to the front of the classroom in Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil so that her teacher could belittle her for not answering a question 100% correctly.

“She said that I was too dumb and I would never go anywhere, never be anything, never be anyone,” she recalled in an interview with CNN Sports.

The question? Which South American countries border Brazil, and which do not?

She says that she answered most of it correctly, forgetting only Bolivia and Suriname. By the time she got back to her seat, Moura was determined to prove her teacher wrong.

She said, “It was in that moment I decided whatever I want to be in life, I will get to the top of it.”

By the time she was 15, her aspirations were beginning to crystallize: Moura would be a professional athlete and compete in the Olympic Games.

“The top of a sports career is reaching the Olympics,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in the first or the last place, if you are an Olympian, your name is written in the books.”

On February 10, at the age of 31, Moura became an Olympian, but her road to the Games was tougher than she could have ever imagined – a 16-year odyssey involving both summer and winter sports, a Covid-19 scare and a fatal car crash that could have easily killed her.

A heart defect leads to a new path

Moura’s original plan was to compete in her home Olympics, in Rio, as a mountain biker in 2016. But fate had other plans.

A promising talent on the junior World Cup circuit, Moura was diagnosed with an atrial septal heart defect that would require surgery. She couldn’t afford to pay for the treatment, so one of her former coaches – who was also a cross-country skier – invited her to a training camp to try and raise some funds.

It turned out to be kismet – not only was Moura able to pay for the surgery, but she also discovered a new sport.

“I saw in cross-country skiing an opportunity, maybe a better chance, to fulfil my dream,” she said.

Moura competed in her first cross-country world championships in 2017, and she set her sights on the 2022 Beijing Olympics. She qualified for the second and final berth in the Brazilian women’s team at the last attempt in Switzerland.

“It was an explosion of excitement,” she recalled. “I could hardly believe it because, for 2022, it was a very difficult process, it was just joy.”

Her Olympic dream was so near, but little did she know it was still so far. The day after the Brazilian Olympic Committee announced her place on the team, she tested positive for Covid-19 and was sent into quarantine where she was training in Austria.

She says that she punched the wall in frustration: “It was really difficult to deal with, how am I going to test negative in time to fly?”

The clock was certainly ticking – her flight to Beijing was scheduled for January 26 and it was already January 18.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said, “It was really difficult to deal with.” She remembers thinking, “This is the worst moment of my life, it cannot get any worse. Little did I know.”

An Olympic dream crashes in Italy

Moura quarantined herself in Austria, and she was testing negative on January 24.

On January 27, she was able to leave quarantine, planning to travel from Obertilliach to Munich to catch a flight to Beijing. She intentionally booked a minivan so there would be room for her ski equipment and enough distance between herself and the driver to reduce the risk of any coronavirus contamination.

For reasons she still doesn’t understand, the driver chose not to travel through Lienz, instead he plotted a more indirect route through

By Yahya Salem, CNN

(CNN) — There’s a sense of urgency in Basim Sabri’s voice as he stands in the middle of a banquet hall at his mall in the heart of Minneapolis, directing the flow of busy volunteers and jovially asking his cooks to be patient as he finishes his call with CNN.

Sabri’s urgency is understandable, perhaps even necessary. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan is right around the corner, and Sabri is determined to maintain the annual tradition of hosting a Ramadan feast for the Twin Cities community at Karmel Mall – which he has owned for more than two decades – especially in the aftermath of the ongoing federal immigration crackdown.

“I’m not just a landlord, I’m also a very involved person within the community,” Sabri told CNN. “I see the fear, the depression with many tenants, and the anger that this is happening to them.”

Hundreds attend the annual gathering, according to Sabri. And given Karmel Mall’s cultural and economic status within Minneapolis’ Muslim community, particularly its Somali population, he said he believes this year’s feast – or iftar – is practically a self-assigned duty to help the community recover spiritually and boost its morale during the holy month.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. During its approximately 30 days, which start Wednesday in North America, Muslims abstain from food and drinks from dawn until sunset. Ramadan also holds profound spiritual and social significance: It is celebrated as an opportune occasion for observers to congregate to break their fast, pray and practice countless forms of communal support.

However, in the aftermath of Operation Metro Surge, launched by the Trump administration in December with the ostensible purpose of apprehending and deporting undocumented immigrants in Minnesota, the mere notion of congregating is putting a lot of Muslims in the Twin Cities on edge.

“It’s been a very difficult time,” said Khalid Omar, a community organizer and a leader at Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center. “You can only imagine the weight of the full government being utilized in the state, going against and going after the Somali and Muslim community.”

At the peak of Operation Metro Surge, about 3,000 immigration officers descended on the North Star State. Federal agents arrested more than 4,000 undocumented immigrants from the beginning of the operation on December 1 through February 4, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The operation also resulted in the killing of two US citizens, the deployment of aggressive tactics by armed, masked DHS agents, and a soaring sense of trepidation permeating Minnesota’s immigrant communities.

Economic and religious activities disrupted by DHS

Muslims in Minneapolis, estimated now to be more than 100,000, have lived in the city for well over a century, and the city has embraced them. In 2006, Minneapolis elected the first Muslim US congressman, and in 2023, it became the first major US city to allow the broadcasting of the Islamic call to prayer five times a day, year-round.

However, the recent federal aggression, fueled by President Donald Trump’s vitriol calling Minnesota’s Somali community “garbage,” has seemingly soured that sense of embrace.

“I’m a very proud Muslim … and extremely proud to be a Minnesotan,” said Sabri, who is Palestinian American. “We’re very fortunate to be in