Two major back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela on Wednesday, June 24. At least 1,700 people have died and more than 5,000 were injured, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said Monday. CNN is tracking developments, with maps and satellite imagery. The coastal state of La Guaira has been designated a “disaster zone” in the wake of the earthquakes. Twenty-nine percent of buildings in the state are thought to have been damaged, according to an analysis by Oregon State University, with coastal areas more affected.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/25/americas/venezuela-earthquake-map-vis
Karla Jacinto was only 12 when she was forced to work in a Mexican brothel. She remembers how powerless she felt the first day she was sold to “clients” in Guadalajara. “I cried, I screamed, I begged for help, and nobody listened to me until it got to the point where my feelings started to shut down,” she said. “And all I did at that moment was close my eyes after seeing the first client, the second, the third, until they became tens.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/30/americas/human-trafficking-mexico-world-cup-latam-intl
Ukraine said on Tuesday it hit one of Russia’s largest satellite communication centers for the second time in just over a week, as Kyiv ramps up long-range drone attacks to pressure the Kremlin to end its four-year-old war. The Dubna Satellite Communications Centre to the north of Moscow, some 500 km (310 miles) from the Ukrainian border, is used for intelligence gathering and the coordination of Russia’s armed forces fighting in Ukraine, President Volodymr Zelensky said. Russia hasn’t confirmed the Dubna communication center was struck, but the governor of the Moscow region Andrey Vorobyov said a drone had hit an “administrative building” in the town with no reported casualties.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/30/europe/moscow-dubna-attack-ukraine-intl
On the streets of Moscow, disgruntled drivers wait patiently for gasoline in a long line of cars and trucks amid an acute national shortage. Many have spent the entire day, they tell CNN, driving around in search of fuel — extraordinary in the capital of one of the world’s biggest energy producers and unexpected in a city that has long been kept insulated from the effects of the Ukraine war. But now, for the first time in a conflict that is in its fifth year, the stark reality of what the Kremlin still insists on calling a “special military operation” has become impossible for ordinary Russians to comfortably ignore. In the past month, Ukraine’s unprecedented drone campaign has been extraordinary in scale and impact.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/29/europe/russia-ukraine-war-putin-intl-latam
The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will decide whether cities and states may ban people from owning AR-15 rifles and similar semi-automatic weapons, taking up a major Second Amendment dispute that it had previously declined to address. One of the appeals involving certain semi-automatic rifles came from two Illinois residents who want to purchase AR-15 style rifles but are blocked from doing so by an ordinance in Cook County that makes it unlawful to sell or possess any “assault weapon or large capacity magazine,” specifically listing dozens of models that were off limits. Ten states have similar bans in place, according to the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/30/politics/ar-15-style-rifles-supreme-court-second-amendment