By Maureen Ohare, CNN

(CNN) — In our travel roundup this week: why British Chinese food is baffling to Americans, the couple who bought an Italian mansion sight unseen, plus who’s staying in North Korea’s luxury hotels.

A home in Italy

Vito Andrea Racanelli’s ancestors migrated from Italy to America in the late 1800s. More than a century and a half later, he and his family decided to do it in reverse, choosing Tuscany as their home. Racanelli, a Denver-based attorney, spent more than $1 million on a sprawling farmhouse in Radicondoli.

“Buying real estate in Italy is completely different,” he tells CNN, suggesting that foreign buyers hire help with navigating the process, rather than trying to tackle it all on their own. Read the full story of the renovation for what else he learned.

For CNN subscribers, we have two more tales of property-buying abroad.

Texas couple John Alan and Vicky Ambrose bought the empty shell of a Piedmont mansion for 140,000 euros (around $160,000) without even seeing it.

They then embarked on a three-year renovation, spending a further 150,000 euros to transform the property into a boutique luxury apartment with two panoramic balconies. Here’s what it looks like now.

Mussomeli, in Sicily, is famous as one of the towns around Italy selling off ruined homes for just one euro, or about $1.20. These bargain-basement homes are in need of a complete rebuild, but the project also includes “premium” homes, which need fewer interventions, and are often fully inhabitable, starting from around $12,000.

Around 450 houses have now been sold in the town, transforming the community, where the most popular properties with foreigners are those with hillside views. Here’s what locals, both established and new, say life is like there.

Endless summer

Here’s a reminder this Valentine’s Day that our hit series “Chance Encounters,” about extraordinary travel connections, is available in podcast form.

American Kerri Cunningham fell for Brit Dirk Stevens when they met as teenagers on summer vacation in Europe. They were each other’s first love but lived on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Then almost three decades later, they unexpectedly reunited. Listen here.

Mexico was the scene for yacht captain Bob Parsons and librarian Beverly Carriveau’s summer romance that lasted through the decades. A “thunderbolt” passed between them in Mazatlán in 1968, recalls Carriveau, and their lives were never the same again. Hear it in her own words.

Of course, it’s not just lovers who go the distance on Valentine’s Day. That bouquet of roses you ordered will have made a long and chilly journey to your sweetheart’s door. Here’s where they’ve been.

Destinations less visited

For decades, Somalia’s name has been shorthand for conflict, piracy and danger. Yet, against the odds, the East African nation is now seeing a quiet rise in foreign tourists. That’s despite most Western governments still advising against all travel. Here’s what’s behind the surge in tourism.

Over in South Asia, Bangladesh has tigers, tea plantations and beaches, but it’s never been a mainstream tourist destination. Just 650,000 international visitors arrived in 2024. Here’

By Dana O’Neil, CNN

Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy (CNN) — She thought about watching “Miracle,” thinking the story of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team would be the exact sort of motivation she needed.

But then Sarah Warren thought about it a little more. “Miracle,” she realized, had some low points. It was January 5 of this year and later that day, Warren would stand behind the starting line at the Milwaukee skating center where she’d trained since she was a little girl, bend her surgically reconstructed knees and at the sound of the starting gun, try to race her way onto the US Olympic speed skating team.

For that, Warren realized, she needed a straight-up pick me up. She bagged “Miracle” and instead hit play on “Moana.”

“The one thing she has in that movie is belief,” Warren told CNN Sports. “Like, there’s nothing different except in the big moment of the movie, she just believes in herself. And it just hit home to me.”

There has been a lot of talk about belief in these Olympic Games, particularly about what one believes one can do on a damaged knee. There might be no one – including Lindsey Vonn – who can speak to that better than Sarah Warren.

Warren was 13 when she had her first arthroscopic procedure and 28 when she underwent her most recent surgery to repair total meniscal failure. In between, she has had six more surgeries on her knees and one on her ankle. She has torn both of her ACLs (the right in 2016; the left in 2018) and spent the equivalent of four years rehabbing and recovering. Two years ago, she couldn’t balance on one foot and needed to re-learn how to skate.

On Sunday, she will compete for Team USA in the 500m speed skating event. Asked the same question many would like to ask Vonn, as she recovers from a complex fracture of her tibia – why? – Warren shrugs her shoulders.

“To me, it’s always possible,” she said. “You have these setbacks, but to me, you take two steps backwards and three steps forward. Allowing a surgery to take away my dream was equal with giving up.”

Enduring pain after pain

In the written timeline of injuries she provides to CNN Sports, Warren describes her procedures with both the clinical detachment of the future doctor who is currently pursuing her graduate degree in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University – “lateral meniscectomy, arthroscopic debridement of articular cartilage, posterior horn lateral meniscectomy, suprapatellar pouch release, revision notchplasty, tenolysis of peroneus longus, extensive synovectomy” – and the emotional reality of the patient who has endured them all.

“Lying on the field, I understood that a significant injury had occurred, one that would have a lasting impact on my athletic career. Determined not to miss the season, I opted to brace my knee and continued to participate throughout.

“On the flight home, just stared blankly at the seat in front of me, aware that this injury could be the breaking point and the end. The path ahead no longer seemed obvious, but those close to me reminded me that an unclear path does not mean that I am lost.”

Warren is not here to sugarcoat anything, to even so much as imply that her belief was never shaken and that she herself didn’t wonder more than once if it was worth it. As she was wheeled back for her second ACL surgery, Warren looked at her mother, Katherine, and said, “I don’t think I

By Kaanita Iyer, Marshall Cohen, Tami Luhby, Sunlen Serfaty, René Marsh, CNN

(CNN) — For Ashley Garley, the past year has been “messy, challenging and heartbreaking.”

Garley, a former contractor and malaria expert with the US Agency for International Development, was among the first people impacted by the Department of Government Efficiency’s massive shrinking of the federal workforce last year, led by billionaire Elon Musk, which began almost immediately after President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Garley, who lost her job after the US froze all foreign aid in late January 2025, is struggling to find a full-time job with benefits more than a year later. To contribute to the bills, she has returned to a job she held in her teens and 20s: swim instructor.

Going from a jet-setting job with global impact, to teaching part-time at her county pool in Maryland has been “pretty emotional,” Garley told CNN.

Like Garley, hundreds of thousands of federal workers and contractors have had their lives upended by Trump’s quest to clamp down on the federal workforce, whom he sees as a threat to his ability to execute his priorities.

More than 350,000 workers have left the federal government’s payroll since the president started his second term on January 20, 2025, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

After accounting for new hires, the federal workforce shrunk by 242,000 people – or just over 10% – between his inauguration day and December. Nearly 2.1 million federal civilian employees remain.

Trump said last month that he doesn’t feel bad about the downsizing, claiming without evidence that former federal workers are now making more money in the private sector.

But that’s not been everyone’s experience. CNN spoke with several former federal workers who were laid off or accepted buyouts amid DOGE’s aggressive and controversial cuts last year. Some of them, like Garley, have struggled to find a job and pay the bills. Meanwhile, others have pivoted careers, moved across the country for new jobs or are dedicating their time to volunteer work – and finding a silver lining in their new lives.

Here are some of their stories:

Emotional toll

The stress of losing her dream job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention landed Morgan Hall in the hospital.

A few months after she received her final paycheck in August, Hall told CNN that she had been in bed for days without eating or answering the phone. Her son ultimately found her, and she was hospitalized in October for 10 days with severe depression, anxiety, and physical complications tied to a preexisting medical condition that can be worsened by stress.

Hall – who worked as an analyst for CDC’s violence prevention division – was initially placed on administrative leave on February 14, 2025, and later terminated as part of the sweeping layoffs known as a “reduction in force,” or RIFs. She is among the 10,500 people across agencies who were affected by RIFs.

Hall says she has fallen behind on bills, which includes roughly $57,000 in hospital costs. For two months, she relied on food stamps to buy groceries, sought state assistance for utilities, and a relative helped cover her mortgage so she would not lose her home.

In January, Hall began a temporary 12-week stint that placed her back at CDC, working through a contractor. However, she says she is still unable to meet her expenses. She is also continuing to apply for jobs, submitting at least five applications on most days.

Por CNN

Las autoridades llevaron a cabo este viernes por la noche un operativo relacionado con la desaparición de Nancy Guthrie, la madre de la presentadora de “Today”, Savannah Guthrie, en una residencia cercana a su casa, según informó el departamento del sheriff.

Más de una docena de vehículos, incluidos los del SWAT y los forenses, fueron vistos en el lugar.

Un área donde las fuerzas del orden estaban realizando actividades relacionadas con la investigación de Guthrie ha sido reabierta, según un productor de CNN en el terreno.

Los investigadores también abandonaron la escena, casi cuatro horas después de llegar al sitio, aproximadamente a tres km de la casa de Guthrie.

El departamento del sheriff comunicó el viernes por la noche que se estaba realizando actividad en una residencia cercana al lugar, y agregó que “debido a que esta es una investigación conjunta, a pedido del FBI, actualmente no hay información adicional disponible”.

La actividad policial nocturna en una casa a menos de tres km de la casa de Nancy Guthrie sugiere que los investigadores están siguiendo “una pista bastante buena”, según el agente especial retirado del FBI y colaborador de CNN para las fuerzas del orden, Steve Moore.

La operación, sotuvo Moore a Elex Michaelson de CNN, parecía estar “motivada por una investigación más que por una reacción”, una posible indicación de que las autoridades habían obtenido información que consideran importante, añadió Moore.

“Cuando se forma una fila de 20 vehículos federales, además de todos los camiones de equipo, esta fue una operación planificada previamente”, señaló Moore.

Basándose en su experiencia, indicó que los investigadores creen que la información “es lo suficientemente importante como para obtener una orden judicial, para ilusionar a la gente y para invertir mucha energía y esfuerzo. Deben creer que es una pista bastante buena”.

A pesar de toda esta actividad reciente alrededor de la desaparición de Nancy Guthrie, los funcionarios aún no han identificado su ubicación ni la identidad de su secuestrador, según una fuente policial de CNN.

Los agentes han recuperado varios guantes como parte de la investigación, y el más cercano se encontró aproximadamente a tres kilómetros de la casa de Nancy Guthrie, según el Departamento del Sheriff del Condado de Pima.

Los investigadores también encontraron ADN, aunque se desconoce a quién pertenece. El departamento no ha indicado dónde se halló, pero confirmó que provenía de alguien ajeno a las relaciones cercanas de Guthrie.

Las pruebas que requieren análisis forense se están enviando al mismo laboratorio externo que se utilizó desde el inicio de la investigación para mantener la coherencia, según informó el departamento del sheriff.

El video de la cámara del timbre de la casa de Guthrie, recuperado por el FBI, ha proporcionado hasta ahora a los investigadores las “pistas más importantes que hemos tenido”, declaró una fuente relacionada con el caso a CNN.

Tras publicar el video que muestra a un hombre en la puerta principal de Guthrie, las autoridades recibieron casi 5.000 llamadas en cuestión de horas, añadió la fuente. Cientos de investigadores están revisando las pistas.

Las autoridades hacen un llamado al

Por CNN

El secretario de Estado Marco Rubio abrió sus muy esperados comentarios este sábado en la Conferencia de Seguridad de Munich, Alemania, reconociendo la importancia histórica de la alianza entre Europa y Estados Unidos que “salvó al mundo” de amenazas pasadas.

“Si bien estamos preparados para hacer esto solos si es necesario, preferimos y es nuestra esperanza hacerlo con ustedes, nuestros amigos aquí en Europa”, afirmó Rubio.

“Estamos unidos”, agregó Rubio sobre Estados Unidos y Europa, enfatizando la importancia de la asociación de décadas de duración que se ha visto sometida a una intensa tensión durante el segundo mandato del presidente Donald Trump.

Rubio reconoció que Estados Unidos puede, a veces, ser algo “directo y urgente en nuestro consejo”, pero trató de asegurar a los líderes europeos que la administración Trump está comprometida con la alianza.

Pero si bien Rubio elogió la importancia histórica de una fuerte alianza entre Estados Unidos y Europa, también dejó claro que el Gobierno de Trump cree que el camino a seguir requiere un cambio en la forma en que esos países trabajan juntos.

“Queremos aliados que puedan defenderse para que ningún adversario se sienta inclinado a desafiar nuestra fuerza colectiva”, manifestó.

La administración Trump ha enfatizado que Europa debe asumir más responsabilidad para defenderse contra las amenazas regionales en lugar de depender tanto de la asistencia estadounidense.

“Queremos aliados que se enorgullezcan de su cultura, su herencia… y que, junto con nosotros, estén dispuestos y sean capaces de defenderla”, añadió. “Porque en Estados Unidos no tenemos ningún interés en ser guardianes educados y ordenados del declive controlado de Occidente. No buscamos separarnos, sino revitalizar una vieja amistad”.

El tono de las declaraciones de Rubio este sábado contrasta marcadamente con las del vicepresidente de EE.UU., J.D. Vance, en la Conferencia de Seguridad de Munich hace justo un año, cuando criticó duramente a Europa por depender demasiado del apoyo estadounidense.

El discurso de Vance aún permaneció en las mentes de los líderes europeos presentes el sábado durante las declaraciones de Rubio, durante las cuales recibió momentos de aplausos de la audiencia al enfatizar la importancia de asegurar una alianza fuerte a los dos lados del Atlántico.

Sobre los esfuerzos de paz en Ucrania, Rubio manifestó que Washington se esforzaría por buscar un acuerdo, pero no estaba seguro de si Rusia realmente quería poner fin a los combates.

“No sabemos si los rusos hablan en serio sobre el fin de la guerra. Dicen que sí”, declaró Rubio durante una sesión de preguntas y respuestas tras su intervención en la Conferencia. “Lo que no podemos responder, pero seguiremos intentando, es un resultado con el que Ucrania pueda vivir y Rusia pueda aceptar. Eso ha sido difícil de alcanzar hasta ahora”.

Rubio aseguró que Estados Unidos no se desentendería de su obligación de poner fin a la guerra en Ucrania.

El diplomático de EE.UU. afirmó que no creía que Rusia pudiera lograr sus objetivos iniciales al comienzo de la guerra hace casi cuatro años. Añadió que Rusia perdía entre 7.000 y 8.000 soldados a la semana en el conflicto, una opinión que coincide con la última estimación de Ucrania.

Sobre Irán, Rubio afirmó que la preferencia del presidente Donald Trump era alcanzar un acuerdo, pero que era “muy difícil”.

Trump se mostró pesimista el viernes por la tarde al hablar de las conversaciones en curso entre Estados Unidos e Irán sobre un posible acuerdo nuclear, afirmando que los iraníes no tienen un buen historial en ese aspecto.

También sugirió que quizás un cambio de régimen en el país sería “lo mejor que podría pasar”.

El propio presidente se había mostrado más positivo sobre las negociaciones apenas unas horas antes, cuando afirmó que creía q