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By Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak, Natasha Bertrand, Pete Muntean, CNN

(CNN) — The Federal Aviation Administration’s abrupt and unexplained closure of airspace above El Paso, Texas, early Wednesday has given way to a blame game inside the administration, with key senior officials asserting they hadn’t been alerted to the decision beforehand, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The White House, which was furious with the FAA for the decision, blames the agency for failing to alert the appropriate people in the West Wing of its plan to shut down the airspace for 10 days, two senior administration officials told CNN. Senior aides to President Donald Trump view this as a FAA “f**k-up,” not a Pentagon one, one of the officials said.

Elsewhere in the administration, top officials were pointing fingers at the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon for using new counter-drone technology in civilian airspace without first alerting the FAA, sources familiar with the talks said.

And one source disputed that the White House was kept in the dark, asserting that the FAA notified senior National Security Council staffers and the Homeland Security Council Tuesday evening that the airspace was going to be restricted and that they would issue the temporary flight restriction. The source said it was unclear if the officials who had been notified informed their agency’s principals.

The intense finger-pointing inside the administration more than 24 hours after the airspace had reopened underscored both the concerns raised by the series of events and the rush to find someone to blame for it.

The episode was met with heightened frustration as it threatened to taint the entire administration with a pall of incompetence and seemed to reveal communications problems among critical areas of Trump’s government, one official said. The White House was particularly concerned about the uncertainty created by the vague nature of the airspace closure notice, which classified the area around El Paso as “(National) Defense Airspace” and said pilots who violated the restriction could be intercepted.

Much of the internal White House frustration is now being directed at Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, whose agency houses the FAA, the two senior officials said.

Duffy was aware ahead of time the FAA was going to be shuttering the airspace, “but he didn’t tell anyone,” one of the officials told CNN. He later told top White House officials that he knew about the announcement ahead of time, the official said. But another administration official blamed FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, saying that he “decided to close the airspace without alerting White House, Pentagon, or Homeland Security officials.”

A separate source familiar with the process strongly defended Duffy and disputed that the FAA kept the White House in the dark.

“It’s baffling that White House officials are upset with Duffy for protecting the airspace and not the folks who launched the laser,” the source familiar with the talks said, blaming the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon for shooting “into commercial air space.”

Despite many White House officials being “furious” with the FAA and Duffy, as one of the senior administration officials characterized it, it is unclear whether Trump will move to hold any specific individuals accountable.

Pentagon and FAA tensions

There is a broad feeling in the Trump administration that the breakdown in communications was, in part, a result of the heavy distrust between the FAA and the Pentagon, which has existed ever since a military helicopter collided midair with a commercial plane in Washington, DC, last year, sources said. One of the sources said the Pentagon does not have a great track record

Por Federico Leiva, CNN en Español

Desde este viernes y hasta el domingo 15 de febrero, la NBA se vestirá de gala para el All-Star, o Juego de las Estrellas, cuyo evento principal se disputará este año en el estadio de los Clippers de Los Ángeles, el espectacular Intuit Dome. Durante tres días, el mejor básquetbol del mundo entregará espectáculo, concursos, color y un novedoso formato para el tradicional partido de las estrellas.

Habrá mucha actividad, por lo que conviene tomar nota de los eventos que veremos.

La 75° edición del All-Star comenzará el viernes en el Kia Forum de Inglewood, California, con el juego de las celebridades. Allí habrá youtubers, figuras del entretenimiento, la música y jugadores de otras disciplinas deportivas, entre ellos varios de fútbol americano. También exjugadores de la NBA y hasta un bicampeón mundial de fútbol.

La transmisión correrá por cuenta de ESPN y la plataforma Disney+.

Horario

• 7 p.m. de Miami.
• 6 p.m. de Ciudad de México.
• 7 p.m. de Bogotá.
• 9 p.m. de Buenos Aires.
• 1 a.m. de Madrid (ya sábado).

Al término del encuentro entre celebridades, saltarán a la cancha del Intuit Dome las estrellas emergentes, el talento joven que tienen la NBA y la G-League por estos días. La mala noticia es que una lesión dejó fuera al alero Cooper Flagg, elegido en el primer puesto del último Draft por los Mavericks de Dallas.

Participarán 28 atletas, que estarán repartidos en cuatro equipos de siete miembros cada uno. El formato será simple, con semifinales primero y una final entre los dos ganadores. No serán partidos por tiempo, sino por objetivo: el equipo que primero llegue a los 40 puntos habrá ganado la semifinal, y el conjunto que marque primero 25 puntos será el campeón en la definición.

Los partidos se verán por la pantalla de Peacock en Estados Unidos y de ESPN y Disney+ en Latinoamérica.

Horario

• 9 p.m. de Miami.
• 8 p.m. de Ciudad de México.
• 9 p.m. de Bogotá.
• 11 p.m. de Buenos Aires.
• 3 a.m. de Madrid (ya sábado).

El segundo día de actividad tendrá lo que para muchos resulta lo más atractivo del evento: los concursos.

En primer lugar, se llevará a cabo el de triples, una competencia individual entre ocho basquetbolistas que tirarán al aro en dos rondas de 70 segundos cada una con el objetivo de anotar la mayor cantidad posible. Los mejores tres pasarán a la final.

El segundo turno será del concurso llamado “Shooting Stars”, donde cuatro equipos de tres integrantes cada uno intentarán anotar desde lugares designados dentro del campo. Cada equipo tendrá 70 segundos para sumar todos los puntos que pueda, y solo los dos mejores clasifican a una final.

Para el cierre de la jornada quedará el célebre concurso de volcadas, que tendrá la novedad de un nuevo campeón. Mac McClung, tricampeón del evento, no participará y habrá cuatro atletas disputándose la corona. Tendrán dos intentos para recibir la mejor puntuación de los jueces, y los dos mejores pasarán a la final.

NBC y Peacock transmitirán los concursos en Estados Unidos, mientras que ESPN y Disney+ lo harán en Latinoamérica.

Horario (solo el primer evento tiene hora fija; los demás comienzan al término del concurso anterior):

• 5 p.m. de Miami.
• 4 p.m. de Ciudad de México.
• 5 p.m. de Bogotá.
• 7 p.m. de Buenos Aires.
• 11 p.m. de Madrid.

El domingo será la hora del Juego de las Estrellas, aunque necesitará un nuevo nombre, ya que en realidad habrá cuatro partidos en uno solo. Por primera vez, la NBA formó tres equipos diferentes, dos solo con jugadores de Estados Unidos y uno solo con extranjeros. Cada uno tendrá ocho jugadores.

Se enfrentarán todos contra todos en partidos a 12 minutos, y los d

By Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — Newly released ethics guidance for the federal judiciary makes clear that judges can speak out against “illegitimate forms of criticism and attacks.”

The guidance comes as judges have been targeted with smears by President Donald Trump and allies for their rulings against administration policies. Judges have spoken publicly about violence or threats of violence faced by them, their families and their staff, including the 2020 fatal shooting of the son of a federal judge.

Judicial ethics rules, the new opinion says, “affirm that judges may choose to engage in a wide range of civic engagement activities, including speaking and writing on core judiciary matters such as advocacy for the rule of law and judicial independence.”

“At the same time, judges should always exercise caution when expressing their personal views to preserve the integrity of the judiciary and to promote public confidence in the courts,” the new opinion says.

The ethics advisory cites the 2024 year-end report by Chief Justice John Roberts that emphasized judicial independence and said that violence, intimidation, disinformation and threats to defy court orders all qualify as “illegitimate” forms of judicial attack.

Roberts himself issued a noteworthy statement last year, amid calls by Trump and his allies for the impeachment of a federal judge for his ruling against a Trump immigration initiative, that said “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

More recently, the chief judge of the federal court in Minnesota wrote a pair of extraordinary letters to the appeals court that oversees him decrying how the Justice Department had handled a dispute over warrants it sought from his court for ICE protestors who disrupted a church service.

Gabe Roth, who leads the court reform group Fix the Court, praised the new ethics opinion in a statement.

“Though individuals are not called out by name, this is a strong rebuke of the Trump administration’s ‘war’ on the judiciary and comes one day after Attorney General Bondi denounced ‘liberal activist judges’ for taking part in ‘coordinated […] unlawful attack’ against President Trump’s ‘authority.’ Any judge who, in a measured manner, seeks to counter that nonsense would thus be ethically sound,” Roth said.

In court decisions, some judges have also pushed back at the administration’s hostility towards the judiciary. Fourth Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson – in a decision concerning Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant the administration wrongly sent to an el Salvadorian prison – warned, “The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts.”

“Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate,” he wrote in the April opinion.

The new ethics language does not specifically point to the current environment. It instead leaned on past ethics commentary and said that “the Committee believes the Code and its previous advisory opinions leave room, in at least some circumstances, for the measured defense of judicial colleagues from illegitimate forms of criticism and attacks that risk undermining judicial independence or the rule of law, whether or not they rise to the level of persecution.”

The new opinion obliquely referenced the growing willingness of judges to speak to reporters without attribution, telling judges “that considerations of tone, context, and form should i

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – Despite being an iconic California symbol, the grizzly bear has been practically extinct in the state for a century now. A new student-led film premiering at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival highlights the growing effort to recover the species.

The documentary film, The Bear Beneath, by director and UC Santa Barbara student Olivia Hille, producer Jorge Rodal Llano, and filmmaker Tatum Davis centers around the untold story of overhunting and habitat destruction that led to dwindling numbers in grizzly bears.

UCSB researcher Peter Alagona is featured in the film as an environmental expert, who continues the work and education to ramp up recovery efforts.

"He's the number one grizzly researcher – probably in the world, yeah. And he is brilliant, he's passionate, he's genuine, we put him on as the subject really for this documentary and I just feel like the story wrote itself because he's just so true to what he has to say and so intelligent," says Hille.

The documentary was shot and completed as part of the Carsey-Wolf Center’s GreenScreen environmental filmmaking program. From pitch to delivery, the project was completed in just 10 weeks, the length of one academic quarter at UCSB.

"I just feel like documentary-filmmaking is just the perfect way to capture a moment in time, and I think in this moment we able to bring awareness to this topic and also hopefully promote people actually taking action," says Davis.

The trio says they hope the film spreads to greater audiences, and inspires the community to do better.

"We want the grizzlies back! That's the very first thing," says Rodal. "We're going to have to keep working on films that are really important, that are talking about what's happened here so we don't commit the same mistakes in the future, environmentally."

The film premiered for the first time on Feb. 11th at the Film Festival. Another screening is scheduled for Friday afternoon at 2:40pm.

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