Por CNN en Español

Las detenciones arbitrarias, la falta de un debido proceso, los tratos inhumanos al interior de las cárceles o las muertes en los centros penales son resultado del régimen de excepción y “podrían” constituir delitos de lesa humanidad, según un informe de Amnistía Internacional (AI) divulgado este miércoles.

El reporte “Seguridad sin derechos” es resultado de cuatro años de investigación, entre 2022 y 2025. Durante ese tiempo, AI realizó 109 entrevistas con víctimas, familiares, abogados, especialistas e incluso exmiembros de la Policía Nacional Civil, revisó expedientes y fallos judiciales.

La investigación, dice Amnistía Internacional, dejó evidencia documentada de 470 muertes al interior de los centros penitenciarios de personas detenidas durante el régimen de excepción.

CNN consultó al gobierno de El Salvador para obtener comentarios acerca del estudio y aún espera respuesta.

El informe recoge una muestra de 82 casos en los que se refleja una repetición de los siguientes patrones: Detenciones arbitrarias, desaparición forzada, tortura y tratos crueles, inhumanos o degradantes y el desmantelamiento del debido proceso.

Para AI, la investigación arroja indicios de delitos de lesa humanidad porque han sido cometidos durante un periodo prolongado, han sido implementados de manera sistemática, dirigida a la población civil y han sido defendidos por actores del Estado.

“Es condicional cuando decimos que podrían constituir crímenes de lesa humanidad. No expresa una duda acerca de los hechos, los hechos están documentados, expresa un respeto por los tribunales y las instancias que deben juzgarlos. Amnistía Internacional no puede dictar una sentencia, lo que hacemos es documentar, preservar la evidencia, analizar a la luz del derecho internacional y exigir que las instituciones competentes actúen”, aseguró Ana Piquer, Directora de Amnistía Internacional, durante la presentación en línea del informe.

En la conferencia participó Noah Bullock, de la organización Cristosal e Ignacio Jovtis, director para América Latina de InterJust. Bullock sostiene que en El Salvador la justicia dejó de funcionar ya que hay madres con cartas de libertad en sus manos, pero sus hijos siguen detenidos.

“La gente ha pasado por la Procuraduría para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, la Procuraduría General de la República y Centros Penales y encontraron instituciones cooptadas que estaban más al servicio del Ejecutivo que a la ciudadanía que estaba buscando protección de derechos”, dice Noah Bullock, director de Cristosal, un destacado grupo de derechos humanos crítico del presidente de Nayib Bukele, que suspendió operaciones en El Salvador desde julio de 2025, alegando hostigamiento, represión y persecución por parte del gobierno hacia defensores de derechos humanos.

Por su parte, Jovtis destacó que diferentes organizaciones estén llegando a la misma conclusión. “Cada vez empieza a quedar más claro que no es una casualidad metodológica, sino que es un indicador y eso es importante porque empieza de a poco a enlazar el centro de la discusión”, agregó.

El Gobierno aún no se pronuncia sobre este informe. Sin embargo, Bukele en el pasado ha defendido su política de seguridad porque afirma que ha reducido los niveles de violencia. También ha criticado a los detractores de sus métodos al asegurar que resguardan los derechos de los delincuentes y no los de la población honrada. El presidente será recibido este martes por Donald Trump en la Casa Blanca.

El régimen de excepción está vigente desde marzo de 2022 y ha sido prorrogado por más de 50 ocasiones. Desde su vigencia hasta la fecha hay más de 92.000 personas detenidas, y

By Kevin Liptak, Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump is expected to use his primetime address Thursday to reveal what he will claim is new information related to foreign efforts to influence US elections, though how much to reveal has been the subject of intense internal debate in the lead up to the speech, according to people familiar with the plans.

Alongside Trump’s speech, the White House has been weighing whether to release a cache of documents related to, among other topics, China and its role in US elections, the people said.

Some of the materials derive from intelligence gathered during Trump’s first term, which he and other officials will allege was suppressed, the people said.

Trump is also expected to discuss purported vulnerabilities in election infrastructure, including voting machines.

The exact contents of Trump’s speech have been closely held, though the president said this week that the address would include a major announcement related to election security. Trump has faced criticism for seeking to undermine faith in elections and denying results, and state elections officials told CNN they are watching closely, fearful he might use the primetime venue to do so again.

“It doesn’t get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country,” Trump said. “We’ll be discussing other things too, but it’s going to be a very big announcement.”

A major effort has been underway inside the administration in recent weeks to locate intelligence information that could support Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud and interference. A task force, under the direction of conservative writer John Solomon, has been working to identify documents to be declassified and made public, the people familiar with the matter said.

Not all administration officials are on board with the effort, however. Some worry declassifying wide swaths of information could provide a muddled picture of American voting security and undermine confidence in elections. And others fear the information could risk jeopardizing intelligence collection methods.

China’s alleged meddling in US elections is not wholly new. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in 2024 that the US had seen evidence of Chinese attempts to “influence and arguably interfere” with the upcoming US elections, despite an earlier commitment from leader Xi Jinping not to do so.

But when it comes to the 2020 election — which Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed he won — the US intelligence community released a report assessing that the Russian government meddled with an influence campaign “denigrating” President Joe Biden and “supporting” Trump. The report said China did not interfere and “considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election.”

That assessment contradicted comments from Trump and members of his administration, including former Attorney General William Barr and former national security advis

By Phil Mattingly, CNN

(CNN) — A Reporter’s Notebook from four cities, 5,000 miles, three dozen interviews and the people I can’t stop thinking about.

We were a few minutes into a drive when Jolene Simecek said something that left me speechless.

She was steering me through Parma, Ohio, narrating the new subdivisions as they slid past — block after block of brand-new homes she’s made her peace with never owning. Around here, she said, they don’t last on the market long enough to put in an offer. Her parents never built the kind of wealth you hand down. So you rent, and you work harder — 16-hour days, never home — and the math still won’t move. Not for her, not for most people her age.

“What kind of pressure does that put on you?” I asked.

STREAMING NOW: What happens when hard work is no longer enough? Priced Out in America follows families trapped in the affordability crisis, revealing structural forces that have profoundly and permanently reshaped the U.S. economy.

She didn’t hesitate. “It’s not fun. I wanted a yard for my kid. Just the normal American dream — a house, a picket fence, a yard. And it just seems like that’s more and more out of touch. Not reality.”

I sat in silence. When I got back to DC and watched the tape, the weight of the moment was visible — a couple of seconds of dead air while I sat with what she’d said.

Here’s what the camera couldn’t pick up. For months before I booked a flight, I’d been buried in economic data, chasing a theory I’d never said out loud: that the cost-of-living crisis wasn’t just making life expensive. It was eviscerating the deal we’d all signed onto and believed. Go to school, get a job, work hard and do the right things. Buy the first home, raise the family, build a little wealth, buy the bigger home.

Jolene is 42, a single mom, working since she was 13. She gave up her apartment and went $15,000 into debt to go back to nursing school, betting on herself and the shortage in healthcare. The tradeoff: her sister’s basement, because there were no other options. Her new roommates are five and three.

As we drove past her old apartment complex, she walked me through the math that forced her to leave. Her rent had gone from $785 to nearly $1,600 — for the same unit – over the course of seven years. Her income hadn’t moved.

“I’ve already paid a quarter million dollars in rent in my life,” she said. “I should already have the home with the equity paid off.” Then her voice trailed off. “But I didn’t make the right decisions.”

Jolene and I are the same age, same graduating class, same state, just opposite corners – her side of Cleveland, my side of Toledo. For a while our lives ran parallel. Then they split, and I can’t tell you where or why. She did all the things we were told to do, and she’s living in her sister’s basement. In the weeks after, the only answer I could come up with was an old proverb: There but for the grace of God go I.

What I built before I ever left

“Affordability” is everywhere now — a clipboard word that flattens Jolene into a data point shorthanded for poll-tested talking points. A word that detaches itself from the actual people experiencing the long-fraying fabric that underpins the economic promise of America tear straight through.

The stock market sets new records on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. Corporate earnings, productivity growth and consumer spending

By Bryan Mena, CNN

Washington (CNN) — Spending at US retailers last month was weaker than expected, despite the World Cup drawing tourists from around the world and online sales events.

Retail sales rose 0.2% in June from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Thursday, down sharply from May’s revised 1% increase. That was lower than expectations of a 0.3% increase, according to a poll of economists by data firm FactSet. Retail sales are adjusted for seasonal swings but not inflation.

The World Cup and Amazon’s Prime Day sale helped boost spending last month, according to economists, though lower gas prices weighed on the government’s retail figures, since they’re not adjusted for inflation. Excluding sales at gas stations, spending in June was up by a solid 0.7%.

A measure of retail spending that strips out volatile categories, such as sales of building materials and gasoline, rose 0.5% in June, down from May’s 0.8%, but slightly higher than expectations of a 0.4% increase. That shows underlying consumer demand continued to hum along last month.

Sales were up across most categories last month, rising the most among online retailers (1.9%) — likely thanks to the Prime Day sale — and car dealerships (1.9%). Retail spending declined the most at gas stations, plummeting 5.3%, and at health and personal care stores, which fell 0.8%.

Spending at restaurants and bars edged higher by just 0.1% last month, despite an influx of World Cup tourists. Sales at department stores were also up by only 0.1% in June.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the US economy, has held up this year, despite higher inflation and unusually weak consumer sentiment. That’s partly due to layoffs and a still-solid labor market, though low-income households are feeling the pain of price hikes and mounting debt more so than their high-income counterparts, who have benefited from a resilient stock market. Economists refer to that divergence as the K-shaped economy.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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

The post Retail sales last month rose less than expected appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Bryan Mena, CNN

Washington (CNN) — Spending at US retailers last month was weaker than expected, despite the World Cup drawing tourists from around the world and online sales events.

Retail sales rose 0.2% in June from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Thursday, down sharply from May’s revised 1% increase. That was lower than expectations of a 0.3% increase, according to a poll of economists by data firm FactSet. Retail sales are adjusted for seasonal swings but not inflation.

The World Cup and Amazon’s Prime Day sale helped boost spending last month, according to economists, though lower gas prices weighed on the government’s retail figures, since they’re not adjusted for inflation. Excluding sales at gas stations, spending in June was up by a solid 0.7%.

A measure of retail spending that strips out volatile categories, such as sales of building materials and gasoline, rose 0.5% in June, down from May’s 0.8%, but slightly higher than expectations of a 0.4% increase. That shows underlying consumer demand continued to hum along last month.

Sales were up across most categories last month, rising the most among online retailers (1.9%) — likely thanks to the Prime Day sale — and car dealerships (1.9%). Retail spending declined the most at gas stations, plummeting 5.3%, and at health and personal care stores, which fell 0.8%.

Spending at restaurants and bars edged higher by just 0.1% last month, despite an influx of World Cup tourists. Sales at department stores were also up by only 0.1% in June.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the US economy, has held up this year, despite higher inflation and unusually weak consumer sentiment. That’s partly due to layoffs and a still-solid labor market, though low-income households are feeling the pain of price hikes and mounting debt more so than their high-income counterparts, who have benefited from a resilient stock market. Economists refer to that divergence as the K-shaped economy.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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

The post Retail sales last month rose less than expected appeared first on News Channel 3-12.