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Judge rejects Justice Department’s initial attempt to bring charges against Don Lemon

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By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN

(CNN) — A federal magistrate judge rejected the Justice Department’s initial attempt to bring charges against journalist Don Lemon for appearing alongside protesters who breached a Minnesota church over the weekend, a source told CNN.

“The Attorney General is enraged at the magistrate judge’s decision,” a person familiar with the matter said. Attorney General Pam Bondi has been on the ground in Minnesota for two days meeting with federal prosecutors from the state.

Lemon, who is a former CNN host who now makes content independently, was with dozens of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters as they rushed into Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota on Sunday morning, interrupting a church service and leading to tense confrontations, CNN has reported.

Lemon has said that he was present at the demonstration as a journalist and not as a protester. In a video of the episode that he posted on YouTube, Lemon says “I’m just here photographing, I’m not part of the group… I’m a journalist.”

The Justice Department has arrested two people involved in the protests, CNN has reported.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Lemon. The Department of Justice could always try again to bring charges against him.

This story was updated with additional information.

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Trump’s posturing over Greenland has changed the transatlantic alliance forever, European officials say

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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (L) pictured speaking with Finland's President Alexander Stubb.

By Issy Ronald, Nick Paton Walsh, Clare Sebastian, Joseph Ataman, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s posturing over Greenland has irrevocably changed the transatlantic relationship, even after he backed away Wednesday from his threats of a US takeover of the Danish autonomous territory, European officials told CNN.

One European diplomat, speaking anonymously, described the last week as a “whirlwind of absurdity that damages transatlantic relations, distracts from Ukraine and makes China and Russia very happy.”

Tensions between the United States and its European allies, bound together under the collective security umbrella of NATO, reached a fever pitch last weekend when Trump threatened to impose tariffs on the nations opposing his ambitions to annex Greenland, a vast, strategically important Arctic island that has belonged to Denmark for centuries.

Denmark and its European allies refused to yield to Trump’s demands and considered deploying trade weapons of their own in retaliation, making for a strained atmosphere at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.

Trump ruled out using military force to annex Greenland in his keynote speech at Davos on Wednesday, and he went on to drop his threatened tariffs and announce “the framework of a future deal” over the island after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

But the diplomatic chaos he unleashed over the last two weeks still lingers, with profound ramifications for the US-European economic and diplomatic relationship. A key group of European Parliament members blocked a vote to ratify a US-European trade deal Wednesday, underscoring the tensions between the transatlantic allies.

“Trust has been truly damaged, and this will take time to repair,” Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch told CNN.

“The last few weeks, apart from a very turbulent first year, have been very damaging for the relationship between the European Union, Europe and the US.”

Still, reflecting the diplomatic tightrope that Europe is walking, some European leaders underlined the importance of the transatlantic alliance, even its current bruised form.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called on Europe to renew its faith in NATO, positioning the alliance as crucial for the continent – and the US – to navigate a new world order increasingly dictated by force.

“The old world order is unraveling at a breathtaking pace,” he said in a speech Thursday at Davos.

“We must invest massively in our ability to defend ourselves. We must rapidly make our economies competitive. We must stand closer together, among Europeans and among like-minded partners.”

He reiterated Germany’s support for Denmark and Greenland, adding pointedly that Berlin would uphold “the principles on which the transatlantic partnership is founded — sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

One European official struck a slightly more optimistic tone to CNN, noting that while “everything is transactional and unpleasant … we can still reach good results.”

And Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre emphasized that “NATO countries are cooperating day-by-day very closely.”

Big tech is increasingly promising to pay for spiking power costs. But there’s not much to enforce it

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By Ella Nilsen, CNN

(CNN) — As an electricity crunch drives bills higher around the country, big tech companies building power-hungry data centers are increasingly offering to pay for more of the energy they consume, so everyday people don’t get stuck with the bill.

At least, that is the message from seven large tech companies in new letters responding to three Senate Democrats’ investigation into how data center buildout nationwide is impacting electricity prices. But while these companies can make commitments, there are few regulations to ensure those promises are kept.

In mid-Atlantic states especially, a sudden boom in data center growth combined with a lack of new power to supply them has caused sharp electricity bill spikes in states including Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and the District of Columbia. Around the country, certain areas where data centers were built saw electricity costs jump as much as 267% compared to five years ago, a 2025 Bloomberg News analysis found.

Seven companies, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Coreweave, Equinix and Digital Realty, responded to questions from the senators on how many data centers they had, how much power those facilities needed, and how they plan to procure and pay for that power.

Some companies made commitments to foot the bill. In its letter to Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Google said it would pay for all of the electricity it would use to power its fleet of data centers and would make changes to how it manages and pays for energy use when the grid’s power usage is at its highest, a time period when data center power use can drive up prices for other customers.

Similarly, Meta said it would pay for the “full costs for energy used by our data centers” as well as funding “new and upgraded local infrastructure,” and adding new power to the grid, in a statement to CNN.

“We’ve been committed to these principles for many years and welcome recent pushes from other companies,” Ryan Daniels, a Meta spokesperson, told CNN.

Microsoft made similar commitments last week.

In addition, several other tech companies wrote that they would support being put into a different class of electricity ratepayers that would be charged more for power than residents or other smaller commercial customers.

But the letters, provided first to CNN, offer few specifics on how exactly companies will implement these promises. Data companies are optimistic. Representatives from both Digital Realty and Equinix told CNN that they were looking forward to collaborations with elected officials, as well as the public and private sector, that would make positive change happen.

But details remain thin. “These commitments do not explain how Big Tech companies – not American consumers – will bear the full cost of data centers,” Warren said in a statement.

It is exceedingly difficult to know exactly how much big tech companies are actually paying electrical utilities for the power they consume. That’s because there are often secret contracts inked between utilities and data centers, rather than a public rate case, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Harvard Law School’s electricity law initiative.

“The devil is really in the details here,” and consumers don’t have much protection with the current system, Peskoe told CNN.

Warren and the other senators argued in statements that even after com

¿Quiénes son los 37 presuntos delincuentes que México envió a Estados Unidos?

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Por Mauricio Torres, CNN en Español

México envió este martes a Estados Unidos a 37 presuntos delincuentes peligrosos, una medida que forma parte de los mecanismos de cooperación entre ambos países en materia de seguridad, según indicaron desde el Gobierno. Este traslado se suma a otros dos que México realizó en 2025, uno de 29 personas en febrero y otro de 26 personas en agosto, con lo que el Gobierno de Claudia Sheinbaum ha enviado a EE.UU. a 92 sospechosos en un año.

Sheinbaum dijo en su conferencia de prensa de este miércoles que el envío “fue a solicitud del Departamento de Justicia” de Estados Unidos y que México analizó cada caso en lo individual.

El Departamento de Justicia, por su parte, señaló este miércoles en un comunicado que entre los trasladados hay presuntos traficantes de personas y armas, así como líderes de organizaciones criminales que EE.UU. considera terroristas, como los cárteles de Sinaloa, Jalisco Nueva Generación, del Noreste y del Golfo. “Este es otro logro histórico en la misión del Gobierno de (Donald) Trump de destruir a los cárteles”, dijo la secretaria de Justicia de EE.UU., Pam Bondi.

Desde el martes, ambos gobiernos han difundido tanto las identidades como información sobre la mayoría de estos sospechosos. Los nombres de tres de ellos —que enfrentan cargos en Texas, Arizona y Columbia— están sellados, según el Departamento de Justicia.

CNN busca contactar a los abogados de las personas trasladadas para saber cómo se declaran.

Los 37 trasladados enfrentan cargos como narcoterrorismo, narcotráfico, tráfico de personas, tráfico de armas y lavado de dinero, por los que enfrentan penas que van de los 20 años de prisión a la cadena perpetua.

El Departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos y la Secretaría de Seguridad y Protección Ciudadana de México han dado detalles de algunos de estos sospechosos.

Está acusada en Estados Unidos de proveer apoyo material al Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, al que EE.UU. considera una organización terrorista internacional y que es uno de los cárteles más violentos de México. Según el Departamento de Justicia, Navarro Sánchez proveyó de granadas al cártel y se involucró en actividades de narcotráfico y tráfico de migrantes, armas y dinero en efectivo.

Se les acusa de ayudar a lavar dinero para los cárteles Jalisco y de Sinaloa que, según el Departamento de Justicia, les pagaban con una comisión o un porcentaje de los recursos blanqueados. Washington dice que en sus actividades ilícitas recurrían a transferencias con criptomonedas.

Es señalado como integrante del Cártel del Noreste y responsable del asesinato de “múltiples personas”, secuestros y actividades de narcotráfico. Según el Departamento de Justicia, se encargaba de la seguridad de casas ubicadas en México que servían como puntos para distribuir marihuana, cocaína y metanfetaminas a Estados Unidos.

Apodado “Sagitario” o “El Señor de la Silla”, está acusado de narcoterrorismo. Según el Departamento de Justicia y la Secretaría de Seguridad, es uno de los líderes del Cártel de los Beltrán Leyva —una organización desprendida del Cártel de Sinaloa— y, junto con su hijo Pedro Inzunza Coronel, realizó actividades de lavado de dinero, narcotráfico y producción de fentanilo. Inzunza Coronel fue abatido en 2025. Inzunza Noriega fue detenido el 31 de diciembre en Culiacán, capital de Sinaloa.

El Departamento de Justicia y la Secretaría de Seguridad lo señalan como operador del Cártel de los Beltrán Levya. También es conocido como “Payo” y las autoridades de Estados Unidos lo

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