By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — Some human-to-human transmission may have occurred on board the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak that has left three people dead and several others ill, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday.

“We do know that some of the cases had very close contact with each other and certainly human-to-human transmission can’t be ruled out so as a precaution this is what we are assuming,” Dr. Maria Van Kerhove, WHO’s Director for Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, told reporters.

Almost 150 people, including 17 Americans, remain stranded on the MV Hondius that is currently off the coast of West Africa.

The ship, operated by tour company Oceanwide Expeditions, left Ushuaia, Argentina last month on a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, stopping off at some of the world’s most remote islands. But along the way, several passengers fell sick with a rapidly progressing respiratory illness, the company said.

Seven cases of hantavirus, a rare disease typically caused by contact with infected rodents’ urine, faeces or saliva, have been identified so far. Two of those are confirmed and five suspected, WHO said Monday.

Three people – a Dutch couple and German national – have died while one British national remains in intensive care in South Africa, though Van Kerkhove said his condition is improving.

Two other people suffering from hantavirus symptoms remain on board the ship, though their medical evacuation is currently underway, Van Kerkhove said.

“The risk to the general public is low,” Van Kerkhove emphasized. “This is not a virus that spreads like flu or like COVID. It’s quite different.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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By Adam Pourahmadi, Magdalena Vitores Moreno, CNN

(CNN) — An “unprecedented” crisis is unfolding for 20,000 seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf, a UN body has warned, as the Strait of Hormuz closure leaves crews trapped on ships with no clear way out.

As the stalemate in the Gulf drags on, maritime workers – many from poor, developing countries – are finding themselves stranded at sea, caught between commercial pressure from ship owners, security threats from drones and sea mines and limited legal protections.

“It is an unprecedented situation,” Damien Chevallier, director of the Maritime Safety Division at the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO), said in an interview with CNN. “We have around 20,000 seafarers in the Gulf for now close to eight weeks. It is a humanitarian crisis. We have never faced such a situation.”

The warning lays bare the severity of the situation facing the crews. Many are unable to dock on either side of the Persian Gulf: Iranian ports pose war-zone risks, while visa restrictions and logistical hurdles along the Arab states lining the Gulf’s southern shores make it difficult for many sailors to leave their vessels. The maritime exit – through the Strait of Hormuz – remains effectively closed.

Since the war started, Iran has sought to impose new navigation rules in the Persian Gulf, allowing vessels from so-called “friendly” countries to pass through the strait in exchange for fees.

In response, the Trump administration has moved to enforce a naval blockade targeting ships entering or leaving Iranian ports and warning shipping firms they could face sanctions if they pay those tolls.

The competing measures have created a standoff that has brought traffic through the strategic chokepoint to a near halt, with only a handful of vessels transiting the waterway each day compared to more than a hundred in normal conditions.

Hundreds of vessels are now seeking a way out of the war-torn area.

“Around 800 to 1,000 vessels would like to sail through the Strait of Hormuz to evacuate the area,” Chevallier said.

One such case is the Auroura, a sanctioned oil tanker linked to Iran’s shadow fleet of vessels used to transport oil in defiance of American sanctions.

Crew members told CNN in an interview last month that they had been stranded onboard for weeks after the war broke out, requesting repatriation after they say the ship’s owner pressured them to sail to Iran to pick up oil despite mounting risks.

The vessel’s crew, all Indian nationals, described worsening conditions onboard, including shortages of food and fresh water.

Manoj Yadav, a union organizer with the Forward Seamen’s Union of India, said the situation was dire.

“The crew is facing shortages of basic supplies,” he told CNN at the time. “They want to go back home. The situation on this vessel is not good.”

The Auroura is far from an isolated case, according to the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), a global trade union that represents seafarers around the world.

“It’s not only repatriation, it’s abandonment,” said Mohamed Arrachedi, the ITF’s flag of convenienc

By Clare Duffy, CNN

New York (CNN) — Since independent vehicle crash testing began in the mid-1990s, automakers have been incentivized to make safety changes that have saved thousands of lives each year.

Now, a new group is hoping to take a similar approach to artificial intelligence.

Nonprofit media watchdog Common Sense Media is launching the Youth AI Safety Institute, an industry-backed, independent research and testing lab to study the risks AI tools may pose to children and teens. It will aim to provide information to parents and families about various AI tools and set safety benchmarks for tech firms.

AI companies are locked in a race to build the most powerful, widely used models, and that sometimes means speed is prioritized over safety testing. Because AI tools are complex systems with a range of different uses, ranking their safety will likely be far trickier than judging how a car responds in a crash.

But Common Sense Media and the board of top AI, education and health leaders it recruited to oversee the Youth AI Safety Institute believe that solely relying on AI firms to self-police on safety isn’t enough to protect young people. Existing third-party AI safety organizations largely focus on societal-level and existential risks, such as job loss or even human extinction, rather than consumer-friendly safety ratings aimed at everyday use.

The goal is for the public spotlight and third-party standards to spark what Common Sense Media CEO James Steyer called a “race to the top” for tech firms to make safety fixes to improve their standing.

Leading AI firms invest in safety research to “make their models as good as they possibly can, but there’s no independent measure of that,” John Giannandrea, Apple’s former AI strategy chief who joined the institute’s advisory board, told CNN. “We don’t really know which models are more appropriate for kids at a certain age than others, and I think the only real way to do that is to have an independent set of public standards.”

The launch comes as multiple families have sued AI companies alleging that chatbots encouraged their children’s suicides. A recent CNN investigation found that AI chatbots advised teen test accounts on how to commit violence. Grok, xAI’s chatbot, came under fire earlier this year for sharing sexualized images of women and children in response to users’ “digital undressing” prompts. And growing AI adoption in classrooms has raised questions about whether the technology could stunt learning.

“I think many parents and educators and citizens feel we’re at a catastrophic moment as AI is reshaping the lives of children and families and schools and, quite frankly, all of society,” Steyer told CNN exclusively ahead of announcing the group on Tuesday.

Independent youth safety benchmarks

The Institute will start with a $20 million annual budget, backed by OpenAI, Anthropic and Pinterest, as well as the Walton Family Foundation, Goldman Sachs Managing Director Gene Sykes and other philanthropists. Funders will have no say in the group’s operation or research, according to Common Sense.

The group’s advisory board will also include Mehran Sahami, chair of Stanford University School of Engineering’s computer science department; Dr. Jenny Radesky, director of University of Michigan Medical School’s developmental behavioral pediatrics division; and Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who served as California’s first-ever surgeon general — bringing together expertise in research, standards settin

By Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — A set of May primaries will test the strength of Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party and the role the president intends to play as GOP voters pick their candidates knowing he’ll never again appear on the ballot.

In Indiana on Tuesday, Trump is intervening in seven ordinarily sleepy state Senate races, seeking to purge a GOP old guard that rejected his demands to redistrict the state’s US House map.

It’s the first of several primaries in which Trump could play a dominant role this month — with a US House race in Kentucky, where Trump is seeking to oust one of his foremost conservative challengers, Rep. Thomas Massie, and a Senate runoff in Texas, where Trump has stayed out of the race despite GOP leaders’ hopes he would back Sen. John Cornyn over Attorney General Ken Paxton, also being closely watched.

Ohio will also hold its primary on Tuesday. Here’s what to watch in Indiana and Ohio:

Trump’s revenge campaign

Indiana’s Senate Republican supermajority embarrassed the president in December, when it ignored his months of lobbying and voted down a new congressional map that would have likely allowed the party to win the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats in November’s midterms.

Now, Trump is looking for payback — endorsing primary challengers to seven of the eight Republican state senators who voted against redistricting and who are up for reelection this year.

The outcome of those typically low-profile races will have outsize ramifications for a GOP that will soon be forced to grapple with what the post-Trump political landscape will look like. These races will test whether voters are willing to ignore Trump’s wishes and give their elected officials room to go in another direction.

Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray — who has drawn Trump’s ire over redistricting but is not on the ballot himself Tuesday — told CNN’s Dana Bash that such primary contests are usually fought over “home-grown issues.”

“That’s not what this is,” Bray said. “This is really driven from outside the state of Indiana, mostly in Washington, DC, and the money’s coming from outside Indiana as well.”

These are the Indiana state Senate Republican primary races to watch:

• District 1: Sen. Dan Dernulc faces Trump-backed Trevor De Vries.
• District 11: Sen. Linda Rogers faces Trump-endorsed Brian Schmutzler.
• District 19: Sen. Travis Holdman faces Trump-endorsed Bluffton City Councilman Blake Fiechter.
• District 21: Sen. Jim Buck faces Trump-backed Tracey Powell, a Tipton County commissioner.
• District 23: Sen. Spencer Deery faces Trump-backed Paula Copenhaver, an aide to the Trump-aligned Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith.
• District 38: Sen. Greg Goode faces Vigo County Councilwoman Brenda Wilson, whom Trump endorsed.
• District 41: Sen. Greg Walker faces Trump-endorsed state Rep. Michelle Davis.

Turning Point’s test

Twenty-three days before Charlie Kirk was killed, the conservative activist took up Trump’s push for redistricting in In

Por John Liu, CNN

El petróleo alcanzó su precio de cierre más alto del año el primer día de la operación del presidente Donald Trump para guiar a los barcos varados a través del bloqueado estrecho de Ormuz, lo que subraya la intensa incertidumbre que aún aqueja el comercio mundial de energía.

Los futuros del crudo Brent, la referencia mundial del petróleo, cayeron un 1,1 % hasta los US$ 113,4 por barril a la 1:58 a.m. (hora de Miami) del martes, tras haber subido un 5,8 % hasta los US$ 114,4 el lunes, el cierre más alto de 2026.

El West Texas Intermediate (WTI), la referencia estadounidense, bajó un 2,1 % hasta los US$ 104,3 por barril.

El petróleo se negocia mediante contratos de futuros, lo que implica un acuerdo para comprar o vender a un precio determinado en una fecha futura. El precio del WTI del martes refleja el petróleo para entrega en junio, mientras que el Brent refleja el petróleo para entrega en julio.

Ser el mayor productor de petróleo del mundo no ha eximido a Estados Unidos de una crisis energética, que ha elevado el precio de la gasolina a US$ 4,46 por galón el lunes, desde un promedio de US$ 2,98 por galón antes de que comenzara la guerra, según la AAA.

Según Andy Lipow, presidente de la consultora Lipow Oil Associates, el precio de la gasolina en Estados Unidos podría alcanzar los US$ 5 por galón si el estrecho de Ormuz permanece cerrado el próximo mes.

Este repunte casi igualaría el máximo histórico de US$ 5,02 por galón registrado en junio de 2022 tras la invasión rusa de Ucrania.

Los recientes precios elevados se produjeron cuando Trump intentó liberar el flujo de petroleros a través del estrecho de Ormuz, que ha permanecido prácticamente cerrado por Irán desde que fue atacado por Estados Unidos e Israel, estrangulando alrededor del 20 % del suministro mundial de petróleo antes de la guerra.

La nueva iniciativa del presidente, denominada “Proyecto Libertad”, comenzó el lunes con el objetivo de “guiar” a los buques a través del crucial canal de transporte de petróleo y gas.

Sin embargo, no se registró un aumento significativo en el tráfico marítimo: solo cuatro buques cruzaron el estrecho ayer, según S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Antes de la guerra, un promedio de más de 120 barcos al día transitaban por esta vital vía fluvial.

Varios buques mercantes y un importante puerto petrolero en los Emiratos Árabes Unidos también fueron atacados el lunes, cuando Estados Unidos destruyó algunas embarcaciones iraníes, la mayor escalada desde que comenzó el alto el fuego temporal hace cuatro semanas.

El intercambio de disparos entre Estados Unidos e Irán puso a prueba el frágil alto el fuego entre ambos países, mientras Trump se negaba a decir si la tregua seguía vigente.

La decisión de Estados Unidos e Israel de ir a la guerra con Irán ha desencadenado una crisis petrolera histórica, y países de todo el mundo, incluidos muchos aliados clave de Estados Unidos en Europa y Asia, se enfrentan ahora a precios del combustible disparados y costes crecientes.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Con información de Matt Egan y Hanna Ziady, de CNN.

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