Por Christian Edwards, CNN

Anthony Seldon ha escrito biografías de los últimos ocho primeros ministros británicos. Cuando emprendió el proyecto en la década de 1990, la tarea era monumental, pero bien planificada.

En aquel entonces, quienes ocupaban el número 10 de Downing Street permanecían varios años en el cargo, lo que le permitía analizar a sus personajes con detenimiento, a medida que cada uno dejaba su huella en su época.

Pero ahora Seldon corre el riesgo de verse superado por los acontecimientos.

Tras la reciente inestabilidad política bajo el anterior Gobierno conservador, que vio al partido cambiar de líder tres veces en un año, Seldon esperaba que la victoria de Keir Starmer en 2024 anunciara un retorno a la normalidad política.

El Partido Laborista de Starmer obtuvo una aplastante mayoría en el parlamento y prometió una década de renovación nacional.

Pero a menos de dos años de que Starmer asumiera el cargo, podría estar a punto de ser destituido.

Tras el rotundo rechazo de los votantes a los candidatos del Partido Laborista en las elecciones locales de Inglaterra, Escocia y Gales, sus colegas parecen dispuestos a sacarlo del poder.

La biografía de Rishi Sunak, predecesor de Starmer, escrita por Seldon, se publicará en agosto. Para entonces, el Reino Unido podría tener un nuevo primer ministro, el sexto en siete años.

Seldon, de 72 años, teme estar siempre a la zaga.

“Dentro de poco estaré hablando de ‘Angela Rayner en el número 10’”, suspiró Seldon en una entrevista con CNN, refiriéndose a la diputada laborista vista como una de las posibles rivales de Starmer para el cargo de primer ministro.

La constante rotación de personal en el número 10 de Downing Street ha llevado a muchos en el país a preguntarse: ¿Se está volviendo el Reino Unido ingobernable?

El Reino Unido tiene varios problemas. El país nunca se recuperó del todo de la crisis financiera de 2008. Los salarios reales se han estancado en gran medida desde entonces, y solo han repuntado ligeramente en los últimos tiempos en respuesta a las crisis inflacionarias de la pandemia de covid-19 y la guerra de Rusia en Ucrania.

Se estima que la salida del Reino Unido de la Unión Europea ha reducido el PIB per cápita hasta en un 8 %. El crecimiento de la productividad es moderado. La deuda ha aumentado gradualmente, lo que significa que los bonos del Gobierno británico ofrecen los rendimientos más altos entre los países del Grupo de los Siete (G7).

El Reino Unido también tiene los costos de electricidad industrial más altos de ese grupo.

Su sistema electoral también muestra signos de tensión. El sistema de mayoría simple británico funciona mejor cuando hay dos partidos dominantes. Durante más de un siglo, esos fueron el Partido Laborista y el Partido Conservador.

Pero el declive de ese duopolio ha transformado la política británica, pasando de una lucha entre dos partidos en Inglaterra a una lucha entre cinco, y entre seis en Escocia y Gales, ya que las dos formaciones históricas compiten ahora contra los centristas Liberaldemócratas, los ultraprogresistas Verdes, el ultraderechista Reform UK, así como los partidos nacionalistas que apoyan la independencia de Escocia y Gales, lo que podría llevar a la desintegración del Reino Unido.

Escocia forma parte del Reino Unido desde 1707 y Gales desde 1536.

Ante semejante avalancha de problemas, en el Reino Unido existe la tentación de decir que el buen gobierno se ha vuelto casi imposible y que cualquier líder tendría dificultades para nadar contra la corriente.

Pero, según Seldon, esta desesperación solo exculpa a Starmer y a sus predecesores, que no fueron precisamente brillantes.

“Reino Unido no es ingobernable en absoluto, aunque algunos primeros ministros

Por Laura Sharman, CNN

El presidente Donald Trump anunció que las fuerzas estadounidenses y nigerianas abatieron el viernes a un alto comandante del grupo militante ISIS.

“Esta noche, bajo mis órdenes, las valientes fuerzas estadounidenses y las Fuerzas Armadas de Nigeria ejecutaron a la perfección una misión meticulosamente planificada y muy compleja para eliminar del campo de batalla al terrorista más activo del mundo”, escribió Trump en una publicación de Truth Social a última hora del viernes (hora de Miami).

El presidente identificó al objetivo como “Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, segundo al mando del ISIS a nivel mundial”, y añadió: “Ya no aterrorizará al pueblo de África ni ayudará a planificar operaciones contra los estadounidenses”.

No es el primer ataque mortal que Trump ordena contra presuntos militantes del Estado Islámico en Nigeria, a quienes ha acusado de perseguir a los cristianos en ese país de África Occidental.

En diciembre, Trump afirmó haber ordenado un “ataque contundente y letal contra ISIS” en el noroeste de Nigeria, grupo que, según él, había estado asesinando a cristianos inocentes.

Esta noticia está en desarrollo y se actualizará.

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By Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — Transit workers for the Long Island Rail Road, the nation’s largest commuter railroad, are on strike, potentially stranding hundreds of thousands of weekday passengers in the New York City area.

The strike by the five unions representing 3,500 workers, the first at the railroad since 1994, brought all train traffic to a halt. The unions failed to reach a deal with railroad management on wages and work rules on Friday.

“After two days of round-the-clock negotiations, parties were unable to reach a deal,” said Kevin Sexton, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and spokesperson for the unions.

Commuters now face the prospect of having to drive to work at a time when high gas prices have surged and new extra tolls are in place on all cars entering Manhattan’s business district.

The unions are seeking the first raise for their members since 2022, a period that saw some of the highest cost-of-living increases in decades in one of the nation’s most expensive markets.

While the strike started at 12:01 a.m. ET on Saturday, it will be most severely felt on Monday when nearly 300,000 commuters make their way in and out of the city. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the railroad, said Friday afternoon that the limited bus service it will offer can accommodate only about 13,000 riders in the morning and another 13,000 in the evening.

The MTA is urging customers to work from home, avoid non-essential travel and give extra time no matter what form of transportation they take into the city.

While weekends have far fewer passengers than weekdays, this weekend can expect an uptick in off-peak service. The Mets and the Yankees, New York’s two baseball teams, play each other Saturday and Sunday at the Mets’ Citi Field, which is served by the LIRR.

Railroads operate under a different labor law than most businesses in the country, one that makes it more difficult for unions to go on strike. But the barriers in the law to limit strikes — mediation, cooling off periods and government panels considering bargaining positions — have all been cleared by the unions. And there is little left that could get the workers back on the job other than a labor deal acceptable to rank-and-file members.

Congress can intervene to broker a deal, as it did in December 2022, when it prevented a national freight railroad strike because it posed a threat to the national economy.

But the nation’s largest commuter railroad doesn’t pose the same risk to the economy as the freight railroads. And Congress didn’t act in 2025 when the engineers’ union at New Jersey Transit, which had 100,000 daily commuters, went on strike for three days.

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By Laura Sharman, CNN

(CNN) — US and Nigerian forces killed a senior commander in the ISIS militant group on Friday, President Donald Trump has said.

“Tonight, at my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” Trump said in a Truth Social post late Friday ET.

The president named the target as “Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally,” adding, “He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”

It is not the first fatal strike Trump has ordered on alleged Islamic State militants in Nigeria, who he has accused of persecuting Christians in the West African country.

In December, Trump said he had directed a “powerful and deadly strike against ISIS” in northwestern Nigeria, who he said had been killing innocent Christians.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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By Christian Edwards, CNN

London (CNN) — Anthony Seldon has written biographies of each of the last eight British prime ministers. When he embarked on the project in the 1990s, the work was mammoth but measured. Then, the occupants of 10 Downing Street would spend several years in office, allowing him to scrutinize his subjects properly as they each stamped themselves on their times.

But Seldon now risks being overtaken by events. After the recent churn of leaders under the previous Conservative government, which saw the party cycle through three leaders in one year, Seldon had hoped that Keir Starmer’s victory in 2024 would herald a return to political normality. Starmer’s Labour Party won a thumping majority in parliament and promised a “decade” of national renewal.

But less than two years into Starmer’s premiership, he may already be on the way out. After voters decisively rejected Labour Party candidates in local elections across England, Scotland and Wales, Starmer’s colleagues seem primed to oust him. Seldon’s biography of Starmer’s predecessor, Rishi Sunak, is due to be published in August. By then, Britain may have a new prime minister – its sixth in seven years. Seldon, 72, fears he may perpetually be playing catch up.

“I’ll be on to ‘Angela Rayner at Number 10’ before too long,” Seldon sighed in an interview with CNN, referring to the Labour lawmaker seen as one of the potential rivals to Starmer as prime minister.

The revolving door of 10 Downing Street has caused many in the country to wonder: Is Britain becoming ungovernable?

Britain’s problems are several. The country never truly recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. Real wages have largely stagnated since, only ticking up more recently in response to the inflationary shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Britain’s departure from the European Union, meanwhile, is estimated to have lowered GDP per person by as much as 8%. Productivity growth is tepid. Debt has crept up, meaning Britain’s government bonds have the highest yields among Group of Seven (G7) nations. Britain has the highest industrial electricity costs in that group, too.

Its electoral system is also showing strain. Britain’s first-past-the-post system functions best when there are two dominant parties. For more than a century, those were Labour and the Conservatives. But the decline of that duopoly has effectively turned British politics from a two-way into a five-way fight in England, and a six-way fight in Scotland and Wales, as the two historic parties now compete against the centrist Liberal Democrats, the ultra-progressive Greens, the hard-right Reform UK, as well as nationalist parties that support Scottish and Welsh independence, which could lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom. Scotland has been part of the UK since 1707, and Wales since 1536.

Against such a tide of troubles, there is a temptation in Britain to say that good government has become near impossible, and that any leader would struggle to swim against the current.

But, Seldon believes, this despair only exculpates Starmer – and his less-than-impressive predecessors.

“Britain is categorically not ungovernable, although some recent prime ministers (PMs) have tried darn hard to make it so,” he told CNN.

Seldon sees a string of failings among Starmer’s Conservative forerunners. Painting with a broad brush, he describes Boris Johnson, with his penchant for big government and his concern for “left-behind” regions, as “Rooseveltian” – but only in “ambition, not delivery.”

Liz Truss, in her ideological fervor for libertarian economics, was “Reaganite,” said Seldon, continuing to compare British prime ministers to American presidents. Seeking to reverse Johnson’s excesses, Truss introduced an unf