By Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN

(CNN) — In 2018, Amanda Meyer Barkley left her home in Louisiana for what was meant to be a short vacation in Prague. She planned to stay for a few weeks, then return to the United States before moving on to China for a teaching job.

Nearly a decade later, she is still in the Czech capital — now in her 30s, married, and raising two young children.

Prague, a destination often called the City of a Hundred Spires, has become home.

Barkley and her husband spend their summers with their children in parks like Letná, Stromovka and Riegrovy Sady, or at the National Agriculture Museum, a short walk from their apartment. The city’s many dětské koutky — children’s play corners tucked into cafés and public spaces — make everyday life with young kids feel manageable, even easy.

“It really is just the most beautiful city with so much history…” Barkley says.

“Between the beauty of the architecture. The city itself, all of the parks and outdoor spaces… It’s clean. It’s safe. It’s just a really incredible place to live. I feel really lucky to live here.”

Eight years ago, Barkley could not have imagined this life. When she arrived in Prague in January 2018, she was in the middle of preparing to relocate to China for work. She had enrolled in an in-person teaching-English-as-a-foreign-language course in the Czech capital after learning she needed certification to secure the position in Asia.

Life-changing trip

But she was so enthralled with the city that she didn’t get on her return flight the following month.

Prague was not new to her. She had first visited in 2015 while traveling through Europe and admired the city’s famous sights — Prague Castle, Old Town Square — but felt more drawn to Berlin. “I could live in Germany,” she remembered thinking.

Back in the United States, she worked as a teacher and continued to travel, including a year in Australia. When a teaching opportunity in China came up, Prague seemed like a practical stop — a place to get certified and then move on.

It was a move that would change the whole course of her life.

She arrived in the city with just a backpack and the intention of focusing on her month-long course. But things started to unravel when she learned that, because she already had a teaching degree, the China job didn’t require the extra qualification.

Initially she felt frustrated and upset at wasting money on the airfare to Prague and on accommodation for a month. Yet she soon found herself enjoying the city, “hanging out with all these cool people.”

Pivotal moment

“So I just kind of pivoted and said, ‘What would it take for me to stay here now.’”

A few weeks later, Barkley sent an email withdrawing from the role in China. Then came the hard part: finding a job and a place to live in a city that she never intended calling home.

She took on many part-time jobs teaching and bartending before securing full-time work later that year. Starting a new life halfway around the world also meant she needed to buy new clothes so she “could wear something other than the six shirts” she’d originally brought along with her.

Things weren’t easy at first. Because the move to Prague wasn’t planned, she says, she wasn’t prepared for lean months. Needing to travel to her multiple jobs, but short of money, she lived frugally, sometimes relying on a diet of eggs and potatoes to keep costs down.

“That was definitely my toughest period, financially,” she says.

But socially, life was opening up. She formed a close-knit group of friends, many of whom she met through the teaching course. One of them was Blake, another American.

“We were just friends for a long time,” she explains. “But about three and a half years later, we said, ‘Maybe we’re not just friends.”

Clearing skies are on tap Tuesday as offshore flow reestablishes. A weak high pressure system will bring a slight warming trend and brings temperatures up to mid 60s and 70s. Fog may be an issue for northern areas for the first few hours, but conditions improve quickly. Some mid-to high clouds will appear,, rather mundane weather day. Enjoy!

A large system over the Pacific Ocean will bring moisture to Northern California Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. This system will reach our area by Wednesday afternoon. Most microclimates will stray dry but a small 10% chance of rain is in the forecast for areas north of Gaviota. Any rain amounts would likely not be measurable. Highs rise into the low 60s and 70s. Clouds will increase in front of this system and winds will be strong at times. Some Wind Advisories may be needed.

High pressure builds back in and brings a more notable warming trend Thursday and into the end of the month. We leave January with mid 70s and welcome in February with sunny skies and 70s also. Rinse and repeat weather will occur through the first week. Enjoy!

The post Bright Tuesday, tracking a slight chance of rain Wednesday appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Jen Christensen, CNN

(CNN) — Terry Sigmond thought it was a cold. She even tried to get out of a New Year’s celebration, but her friend encouraged her to go.

So began her weeks-long flu ordeal, when she dozed to Hallmark Channel movies and swapped bed-rest photos with the same friend she rang in 2026 with.

“We have all these pictures together, and we’re smiling,” Sigmond said. After flu, “we send pictures to each other with tissues stuffed up our noses to catch all the dripping snot.”

“I just laid in bed for days. We have one of those Sleep Number beds that you can crank up the heat on, and I think my husband thought he was in a sauna,” said Sigmond, 64, who said she’s usually a healthy and energetic marketing manager for a home care company in Florida.

Sigmond and her friend are far from alone. A brutal flu season is hitting across the country, sending record levels of people to the doctor.

According to the most recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dozens of cities, states or territories in the US show moderate to very high flu activity, but there are signs the season is coming down off its winter peak. Overall, the CDC estimates that there have been 19 million illnesses, 250 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths this season — most of them caused by a new strain called subclade K.

When CNN asked for your flu stories, we received hundreds of written responses from people like Sigmond and Jillian Luis, a 36-year-old from the Seattle area who said her family was sick for weeks.

“We just were kind of out of it for a whole month,” she said between coughs.

It started with her 3-year-old, then her 6-year-old. Somehow her husband avoided it.

“I’m glad somebody’s healthy, but man, it’s annoying,” Luis joked.

Luis is one of many who wrote to CNN who described the strain of juggling their regular responsibilities with a miserable illness. The one silver lining, Luis said, is that her 3-year-old became so resourceful, she figured out how to break into the sandwich bread and beef sticks. How does she know? Luis found the too-chewy beef bits in the kitchen and pieces of bread with holes nibbled out of them, “like we had a mouse.”

The next challenge, Luis said, is dialing back all the extra PBS Kids they’ve been watching. “Trying to get back into a routine and limit screen time again, now that will be the battle.”

Many people said they could see how conveniences developed during the Covid-19 pandemic made the flu manageable this year. But there are only so many food deliveries, off-camera Zoom meetings and TV binges to take advantage of when they’re the sickest they’ve ever felt.

Here’s how they managed so far during this record-breaking flu season.

Sleeping through steamy scenes

Lindsay Nelmes says she barely remembers New Year’s — and it wasn’t for fun reasons.

The 43-year-old Florida mother of two describes her family as “normally pretty healthy,” but after traveling to Chicago for the holidays, all of them — including her husband and their two middle-schoolers — caught the flu and developed the same symptoms: dizziness, chills, terrible fatigue and big-time brain fog.

The family spent much of the first week of 2026 in bed.

“We just dropped like flies,” she said.

With everyone being sick, Nelmes says, her kids would come into her bedroom with their iPads and headphones and ask for medicine about every four hours. When they bounced back quicker than the adults, there was a two-day stretch in which she thinks she ordered Instacart or DoorDash six times.

“I’m going to regret looking at my bank statement,” she said.

The flu wiped Nelmes out.

“My husband and I, it was literally three or four days of ju

By Bryan Mena, CNN

Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump could announce his nominee for the next Federal Reserve chair as soon as this week, and has signaled that his pick must push for significant interest rate cuts. But whoever he chooses will face a new policymaking committee — and one that could be even more resistant to slashing rates.

At the beginning of each year, four out of the 12 regional Fed presidents rotate into voting roles on the central bank’s influential rate-setting committee for the next eight policy meetings. This year, it’s Lorie Logan of Dallas, Beth Hammack of Cleveland, Anna Paulson of Philadelphia and Neel Kashkari of Minneapolis. The New York Fed president and all seven members of the Fed’s Board of Governors, including the Fed chair, have a permanent vote.

In their latest public comments, Logan and Hammack have both expressed concern that this is the fifth consecutive year that inflation is hovering above the Fed’s 2% target.

That means they are unlikely to vote for a rate cut in the near future, since that could fuel spending and add to price pressures.

Fed officials convene for their first meeting of the year on Tuesday and Wednesday, and they’re widely expected to keep rates unchanged.

In December, Fed officials projected just one rate cut for 2026.

The so-called inflation hawks

Investors and economists describe central bankers who support policies that are tough on inflation as “hawks,” while those who are more concerned about the labor market are referred to as “doves.” That makes hawks less likely to support rate cuts, unlike the doves on the committee.

The Fed is tasked by Congress to stabilize prices and promote full employment, a balancing act that became complicated after Trump unleashed a sweeping economic agenda last year that threatened both of those goals simultaneously.

While a weaker labor market led to the Fed lowering rates three times last year, Trump’s tariffs — and possibly additional levies — could still push inflation higher, making it difficult to argue the Fed should lower rates more than once this year.

Hammack could be the committee’s most hawkish voice this year, stating in a Wall Street Journal interview from December 21 that rates “can stay here for some period of time until we get clearer evidence that either inflation is coming back down to target or the employment side is weakening more materially.”

“I’m very focused on making sure that we can get inflation back to target. That is one of our primary objectives and it’s important that we complete the job,” she said.

Logan is also considered a hawk, and suggested she would have cast a dissenting vote on the Fed’s December decision to lower its benchmark lending rate for the third consecutive time by a quarter point. She stated in her latest interview on November 21 that “holding rates steady for a time

Análisis por Aaron Blake, CNN

La administración Trump ha señalado un nuevo enfoque en su controvertida ofensiva inmigratoria en Minneapolis, incluyendo el ascenso del zar fronterizo Tom Homan y la marginación del jefe de la Patrulla Fronteriza, Greg Bovino.

Y los funcionarios han indicado que una gran razón para ello es que los altos miembros del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional arruinaron la respuesta a la muerte de Alex Pretti el sábado.

El problema, según fuentes de CNN, fue que esos funcionarios del DHS sugirieron que Pretti era un terrorista empeñado en masacrar personas, lo cual no ayudó dada la dificultad de conciliar las pruebas en video.

Un funcionario declaró a CNN que el presidente Donald Trump había revisado personalmente la cobertura periodística y no estaba satisfecho.

Pero es una justificación realmente curiosa.

Por un lado, funcionarios, incluido Trump, reaccionaron de manera muy similar después de que un agente del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE) matara a Renee Nicole Good en Minneapolis hace menos de tres semanas.

La secretaria de Seguridad Nacional, Kristi Noem, lo calificó de “terrorismo interno”, y Trump afirmó falsamente que Good “atropelló deliberada y brutalmente” a un agente de ICE.

La administración suavizó un poco esas afirmaciones en los días y semanas siguientes, al quedar claro que el pueblo estadounidense consideraba que el tiroteo era injustificado.

Pero si a Trump le molesta que sus funcionarios se descuiden al defender a los agentes federales que matan personas, quizá debería considerar el ejemplo que él mismo ha dado.

Tal vez el punto más importante sea éste: este tipo de enfoque maximalista y cuestionador de los hechos no sólo es acorde con quién es Trump, sino con quiénes han demostrado ser los altos funcionarios del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional involucrados.

Esto era algo normal. Y si lo importante era la sobriedad, la constancia y la credibilidad, quizá no fueran las personas indicadas para el puesto.

Bovino es un ejemplo de ello.

Hace apenas dos meses, un juez federal de Illinois determinó que Bovino había “admitido en su declaración que mintió varias veces” sobre un evento en Chicago en el que lanzó gases lacrimógenos contra los manifestantes.

Bovino y el DHS inicialmente afirmaron que una piedra lo impactó en el casco antes de que lanzara el gas lacrimógeno. Luego, en su declaración, señaló que la piedra lo impactó después. Luego, afirmó que la piedra “casi lo impactó” antes. Después, afirmó que se había “equivocado” y que no le habían lanzado ninguna piedra previamente.

El testimonio de Bovino en septiembre en un caso penal en Los Ángeles tampoco fue tan bien.

Cuando un defensor público federal mencionó una reprimenda que Bovino recibió hace años por referirse a los inmigrantes indocumentados como “escoria, suciedad y basura”, el veterano agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza afirmó que se