By Hannah Rabinowitz, Kristen Holmes, CNN

(CNN) — More than three years ago, President Donald Trump turned to New York defense attorney Todd Blanche to step into a legal firestorm that threatened multiple criminal convictions and could cost Trump’s business hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, Blanche is slated to formally undertake the permanent role as the face of the president’s campaign of retribution against those who he believes tried to improperly target him for nearly a decade.

His confirmation as the attorney general by the Senate isn’t assured. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sudden death left the Judiciary Committee Republicans with just one vote to lose, a razor thin margin of error that has given the few Republicans with hesitations an ability to negotiate with the department on matters most important to them.

Blanche has been prepping for Wednesday’s high-stakes Judiciary Committee hearing for more than a week, betting on his track record of cracking down on gang activity, fraud and drug trafficking, as well as enforcing the administration’s hardline immigration approach as the ticket through the confirmation process, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

He has participated in at least one practice run of the hearing, one of the sources said, and has also focused on ways to fight back against allegations that he is operating based solely on the whims of the president and not in the interest of the United States, a separate source said.

That criticism is not confined to Democrats. Some conservatives say they’re still deciding whether to back Blanche after he signed a nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, an effort critics warned would bankroll allies of the president, including some who stormed the Capitol.

Blanche later walked away from the plan, telling lawmakers last month that “we are not moving forward with the fund, period.” Administration sources told CNN that they believe his statement put that issue to rest.

A federal judge in Florida on Monday castigated the initial lawsuit that led to the fund and a tax audit immunity provision for Trump and his family as an effort to “manipulate the judicial process.”

The acting attorney general has also drawn fire for a string of contentious moves since his predecessor, Pam Bondi, was fired in April, including indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and the Southern Poverty Law Center; rollbacks of gun control measures; and waves of subpoenas issued to journalists seeking the identities of sources.

He took over the fallout of the Epstein files, which has dogged the president since Bondi promised and then failed to deliver on major new evidence about the convicted sex offender’s crimes. A group of Epstein survivors have come out against Blanche’s nomination, citing his role in efforts to contain the political fallout. And Blanche last year met with Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

Inside the White House, officials have been optimistic about Blanche’s chances and have cited those same controversial actions as reaso

Por Mary Kay Mallonee, CNN

El presidente Donald Trump confirmó que el estanque reflectante del Monumento a Lincoln fue vaciado el lunes para realizar reparaciones y que “se volverá a llenar y se pondrá en servicio pronto”, alegando nuevamente que vándalos dañaron el revestimiento del depósito.

CNN observó que gran parte del agua había sido drenada, dejando al descubierto sedimentos secos, algas y algunos escombros en lo que se suponía que era un monumento recién renovado y pintado con lo que Trump había llamado anteriormente “azul bandera estadounidense”.

Desde que Trump solicitó la renovación de la piscina en abril, el proyecto, que costó más de US$ 14 millones, se ha visto afectado por la proliferación masiva de algas, el agua de color verdoso, el deterioro del fondo y acusaciones de vandalismo.

El presidente declaró el lunes por la noche en Truth Social: “Hoy vaciamos el hermoso ‘Estanque Reflectante’ para reparar los destrozos y daños causados ​​por los vándalos hace dos semanas”.

“Los cortes tenían 274 metros de largo, y el fondo de la piscina fue cortado y luego levantado con gran fuerza por estos matones”, escribió Trump en la publicación.

La última afirmación de Trump de que las grietas en el revestimiento tenían “274 metros de largo” —lo que equivaldría a la longitud de tres campos de fútbol— es considerablemente mayor que sus afirmaciones anteriores, cuya extensión ha aumentado varias veces.

Primero lo describió como un corte de 73 metros y luego afirmó que en realidad había “numerosos cortes a lo largo de una extensión muy larga de 106 metros”.

Un equipo de CNN visitó la piscina a última hora de la tarde del lunes y no observó señales evidentes de grandes grietas en el revestimiento recién instalado, pero no pudieron acceder a toda la longitud de la piscina debido a la valla que se ha instalado alrededor de gran parte del lugar.

CNN se ha puesto en contacto con el Departamento del Interior, el Servicio de Parques Nacionales y la Policía de Parques de EE.UU. para preguntar si han encontrado indicios de cortes en el revestimiento de la piscina ahora que se ha vaciado la mayor parte de la misma.

“El Departamento de Parques tuvo que vaciar el agua para reparar la estanqueidad”, declaró el presidente el lunes por la noche. “Pronto se volverá a llenar y a poner en funcionamiento. Estos sinvergüenzas que odian a la patria deberían pagar un alto precio por los daños causados”.

Trump volvió a publicar mensajes el lunes por la noche, quejándose de las noticias sobre la piscina e insistiendo en que el revestimiento “fue cortado con un cuchillo o un cúter” y que incluso la proliferación de algas fue “causada por vándalos”.

En las últimas semanas, al menos tres personas fueron acusadas de daños a la propiedad tras supuestamente retirar trozos de pintura azul de la piscina. Todas ellas se declararon inocentes recientemente.

Asimismo, David Hearn, expiragüista olímpico, acusado del mismo delito, se declaró inocente la semana pasada.

El secretario del Interior, Doug Burgum, declaró el 5 de julio en una entrevista en el programa “State of the Union” de CNN que el Gobierno podía probar “absolutamente” que los daños fueron causados ​​por vándalos y que existen fotografías que respaldan esta afirmación.

Sin embargo, eludió la pregunta sobre si dic

By Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

(CNN) — Beneath a diaphanous white veil, four family members sit together on tan leather chairs, the woman in the center holding a baby in her arms. They gaze pointedly at the viewer, their concealed-yet-visible state a potent metaphor. Now in their 60s, they are the children born from a Japanese soldier and Vietnamese wife in the years that Japan occupied Vietnam during World War II. Like others born from these taboo unions, they have dealt with social hardships and the lifelong absence of their father. Though some troops stayed after the war, many families faced forced separation by the mid-1950s, when soldiers were required to return.

That was the case for the family of Lê Thị Xuân and Yoshiharu Shimizu (whose Vietnamese name is Nguyễn Văn Đức), who had two sons and one daughter, pictured above. When photographer Phan Quang took this portrait of the siblings in 2014, the family spanned four generations – including a great-grandchild seated on the woman’s lap. The image belongs to a larger multiyear series, “Re/cover,” which Phan embarked on to tell these families’ stories and completed a decade ago. In each of the portraits, his subjects are draped by the white veil, both a symbol of matrimony and silence. Part of the work is exhibiting at the Rencontres d’Arles photo festival in France this summer and fall.

Because of Japan’s occupation, including its military’s harrowing history of sexual slavery through “comfort women,” any union between Japanese soldiers and Vietnamese women endured extreme prejudice. In “Re/cover” Phan sought out the families born from mutual consent and love, whose stories were untold.

“Japanese soldiers who married local women were often looked down upon by their peers, as these women came from what was then seen as a ‘lesser’ country,” Phan said. “On the other hand, their Vietnamese wives and children were stigmatized for carrying the bloodline of a former occupying force.” Their children’s dual identity resulted in legal and social hardships, a kind of in-between state where they could not integrate fully into Vietnamese society nor visit their father’s homeland.

“Their lives seemed entirely erased by history, and they themselves appeared trapped in a melancholic loop of the past, with no way out,” Phan added.

Xuân, one of the few Vietnamese wives who was still alive as Phan made the work, “spoke about her love with a surprising warmth and devotion,” he recalled. Shimizu voluntarily stayed in Vietnam after World War II to join the Việt Minh resistance, opposing French colonial reoccupation, the photographer explained. The couple married in Hanoi and lived together for nine years before she and Shimizu were separated. “Their love was genuine, and she remained deeply proud of her husband, carefully preserving his belongings for decades.”

Without recognition from the Japanese government, or a way for Shimizu’s family in Vietnam to immigrate, they never reunited as a family. Shimizu faced hardship upon his return to Japan in 1955 and was unable to support them financially, Phan explained. In 1986, when Vietnam underwent historic reforms and began to open the country to travel, he returned with his new Japanese wife to see his adult children. Xuân “welcomed them both with extraordinary generosity,” he added.

Locating the families of “Re/cover” presented challenges to Phan, who, with his news reporting experience, spent years tracking them down and earning their trust. Despite writing more than 200 letters to Japanese consulates, historical institutions and other organizations, he received scant replies, which he attributed to the sensitive nature of the topic.

While developing the series, the veil as a visual device came to him after he visited a traditional Japanese kimono workshop in 2013. Phan saw connections between Japan and Vietnam in its use — a facto

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By Nicole Chavez, Karina Tsui, CNN

(CNN) — In an uncanny echo of the recent past, a Mexican immigrant who had lived in Texas for 35 years and a young Colombian father halfway across the country in Maine were killed days apart in shootings at the hands of immigration agents.

While the shootings this month are still in their investigative infancy, they are a grim callback to January and the separate killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota when each encountered Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities.

Within a week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, became the third and fourth people to have been fatally wounded by federal immigration agents this year as President Donald Trump’s sweeping deportation agenda has led to immigration enforcement crackdowns resulting in not only arrests and removals, but also violence and death.

Here’s what we know about the four people killed this year by federal agents involved in immigration enforcement activities and other shootings in which agents opened fire:

Renee Good

Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, was killed on January 7 when an ICE agent shot into her vehicle in Minneapolis.

The mother of three had been participating in demonstrations against the immigration enforcement surge dubbed Operation Metro Surge and stopped her burgundy SUV for a few minutes on a snowy residential Minneapolis street, obstructing the flow of traffic. When Good began pulling forward, an ICE officer standing in front of her vehicle pulled his weapon and fired at least three shots into the car, killing her.

Alex Pretti

Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who treated veterans, was shot and killed on January 24 by federal immigration agents.

Video of the encounter shows Pretti sought to aid a woman shoved to the ground by an immigration agent, getting pushed to the ground himself as he and others get into a physical skirmish with a group of agents before at least two eventually

Análisis por Stephen Collinson, CNN

Irán parece estar jugando con Donald Trump en su propio terreno.

El presidente se quejó el lunes de que no se puede confiar en que la República Islámica cumpla un acuerdo, y reprendió a sus gobernantes por una de sus propias medidas emblemáticas.

“Era un trato cerrado, y luego lo rompieron. Siempre lo rompen”, declaró a Fox News refiriéndose al memorando de entendimiento que suspendió brevemente la guerra.

Trump no pareció apreciar la ironía de su crítica, dado su hábito de abandonar múltiples acuerdos internacionales, incluido el Acuerdo de París sobre el Clima (dos veces).

Algunos críticos atribuyen la actual situación de Estados Unidos a la decisión de Trump, durante su primer mandato, de desechar el acuerdo de la era Obama que limitaba el programa nuclear iraní.

Más tarde, un Trump frustrado prometió imponer su propio peaje a los barcos que transitaran por el estrecho de Ormuz. Irán, con una oferta cargada de sarcasmo, intervino con un precio mejor que el del autor de “El arte de la negociación”.

“El presidente tiene toda la razón”, escribió en X el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores, Abbas Araghchi, argumentando que Trump había legitimado la postura de Teherán sobre el cobro por el paso por la vital vía fluvial. Araghchi añadió con ironía: “El 20 % es, por supuesto, demasiado. Seremos justos”.

Trump está descubriendo que Irán es un negociador duro y tiene su propia interpretación del contenido del memorándum. Y aún no ha explicado claramente a los estadounidenses por qué reavivó una guerra que, según él, ya había ganado.

Semanas después de declarar con gran pompa que un memorando de entendimiento que firmó significaba que había puesto fin para siempre al programa nuclear de Irán y traído la paz a Medio Oriente por primera vez en 3.000 años, el presidente ha cambiado de opinión.

El lunes, en el programa de radio de Hugh Hewitt, Trump declaró que el acuerdo era una “prueba” que Irán había suspendido y que “no significaba gran cosa”.

En otro tiempo, sus admiradores podrían haber argumentado que las marcadas contradicciones de Trump demostraban que estaba jugando una partida de ajedrez diplomático en cuatro dimensiones. Ahora, en el mejor de los casos, se encuentra en un punto muerto.

El memorando de entendimiento fracasó porque Irán actuó para defender su mayor victoria en la guerra: el control efectivo del estrecho.

Esto reforzó una dura realidad para Estados Unidos: a pesar de las amenazas y el poderío militar de Trump, Teherán sigue marcando el rumbo del conflicto.

Y la ecuación que definió la guerra permanece inalterada: la República Islámica utiliza la geografía y un astuto conocimiento de su propio poder limitado para superar a una superpotencia adversaria.

La nueva prueba de voluntades surgió en parte de la prisa del Gobierno por negociar un memorando de entendimiento con un lenguaje impreciso.

El equipo de negociadores inmobiliarios de Trump, liderado por el vicepresidente J.D. Vance, pareció pasar por alto lo que los críticos más versados ​​en historia y diplomacia comprendieron de inmediato: que Irán lo usaría para obtener una mayor ventaja.

Por ejemplo, el acuerdo instaba a Teherán a “tomar las medidas necesarias” para el libre y seguro paso de buques comerciales por