Before we can jump into this month’s headlines, there’s one that should be addressed at the top. A shooter attempted to get into the White House Correspondents Dinner last night. It was the first correspondents dinner Trump has attended since 2011, which has caused a flurry of speculation about the event being staged. Either way, we can’t let things like this distract us from our mission to rid America of its fascist tendencies. Trump is a symptom, not the disease. Getting rid of him won’t solve our problems, as much as we might wish it would. After Trump comes Vance, who is just as willing to do the billionaires’ bidding as Trump, and just as interested in the oppression of Americans to serve that purpose. The puppeteers don’t lose control, they just shift to another puppet. The oligarchy lives on, emboldened by even more right-wing outrage. Whether the attack was genuine or not, it did nothing to further our mission.

Cuba has long been a nation where struggle is the norm. Corruption and economic hardship have plagued the island for decades. It’s impossible to know what might have become of the country if the US hadn’t meddled in its affairs and choked its economy. But after Trump kidnapped Maduro in Venezuela, a critical ally for Cuba, he issued a blockade on fuel deliveries. Since January, one Russian tanker has been able to dock in Cuba and deliver oil that the nation depends on for its energy. This exacerbated an energy crisis which has lasted years. It took weeks for the oil delivered by Russia to be refined into usable fuel, which resulted in a little over a week’s worth of energy. It’s unclear when the next shipment will arrive.

In Havana, their food is spoiling due to a lack of power, they don’t have access to transportation due to a lack of gas. In more rural areas Cubans might go multiple days without any power. Garbage is piling on the streets because there is no gas to fuel garbage trucks. Because potable water is pumped in, they don’t have regular access to water. Hospitals don’t have gas for their generators, so they aren’t able to use some medical equipment. Doctors are using cellphone flashlights during operations. And farmers’ crops are rotting because they can’t be transported into the cities.

The US disproves of Cuba’s communist government. But our decades-long embargo of the nation, dating back to the 60’s, now exacerbated by escalations under the Trump Administration, have strangled the country. The UN has voted repeatedly for 30 years to condemn the embargo. The US should Let Cuba Live!

Negotiations have yielded little progress in the US/Israeli war on Iran. The parties agreed to a ceasefire on April 8 which faced immediate tension as Israel continued to bomb Lebanon. Iran said it violated the ceasefire, Israel said it didn’t. Eight days later, Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon, although their occupation of Southern Lebanon has continued. In typical fashion, this ceasefire has been violated and Israel knowingly killed yet another journalist, Amal Khalil, (the 9th this year) and struck the building again when rescuers tried to pull her from the rubble (which is a war crime within a war crime). Still, somehow, the ceasefires have both been extended as indirect talks continue through Pakistan as a mediator.

The US and Iran have honored the ceasefire in as far as neither have fired missiles against the other. However, the Straight of Hormuz has become the major focus of the war. 20% of the world’s oil shipments run through the Straight but Iran has limited passage, resulting in global economic impacts.

Disputes over passage through the Straight go back decades. Iran claims that they (and Oman, which borders the other side of the Straight) have the right to disrupt passage, while the US and a small handful of other countries argue that they don’t. Either way, the Straight is a key point in the negotiations.

However, details of the negotiations are unclear. They appear to be on-again-off-again as this past week Trump claimed US envoys would meet with Iranian Foreign Minister. Iran disputed the claim and said no direct talks are planned and that Pakistan would be conveying messages between delegations. Trump then cancelled the US envoys’ trip. The Foreign Minister had provided a “workable framework” to Pakistani officials and said they have “yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy.”

Since the US war in Iran began, the military has seen a surge in calls to GI rights hotlines and military members filing as conscientious objectors. The number of cases seen now outsize anything seen during the entire War on Terror, with more than 80 new cases reported in March alone—a drop in the bucket of miliary membership, but part of a pattern of soldiers seeking to end their service. The day-one bombing of a girls’ school in Iran is a common citation from soldiers reaching out to these hotlines.

Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, Army General David Hodne, and Major General William Green Jr. are the latest firings among high-ranking officers of the US military. George served as the Army’s most senior general, Hodne was the commanding general of the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, and Green headed the Army’s Chaplain Corps. Since Trump took office in 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has driven out 13 military officials. For a country so intent on the strength of our military, we sure are cutting out a lot of senior officers before their scheduled retirement.

House Democrats filed articles of impeachment against Hegseth, in a move unlikely to go anywhere while Republicans are still in control.

Since Trump took office last year, more than 55 people have been killed by ICE. ICE has been responsible for the deaths of 23 people in 2026, and 18 of those were in ICE custody. Three people died in ICE custody in April. Even if we focus solely on deaths in ICE custody, this year is on pace to surpass last year’s record. 18 deaths in 119 days comes to an average of 1 death per 6.6 days. We’re only four months through the year and have already seen 56% of the deaths in custody for the entire year last year.

Reporting this month found that the cases of sudden death in ICE custody are often the result of medical neglect, including dismissal or misdiagnosis of dangerous symptoms and slow emergency medical response, sometimes taking an hour or more to call emergency medical transportation, despite DHS news releases consistently claiming the detainees received prompt medical attention.

Arrests since the brutal events in Minneapolis have declined nationwide by an average 12%, with significant increases in Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina and Indiana being offset by sharp declines in large states like Minneapolis and Texas. Still, more than 60,000 people remain in ICE custody, where they’re being subjected to horrendous conditions and medical neglect. More than 70% of current detainees have no criminal convictions. Of the fewer than 20,000 detainees with criminal records, many have been convicted of minor crimes such as traffic violations. It’s unclear how many have committed violent crimes.

The DHS shutdown continues as Democrats refuse to fund ICE without significant reform, but the leverage is gone. Trump is using funds allocated to DHS by the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act to pay TSA agents, so the pressure has been released. The two houses of Congress have passed bills back and forth with few if any signs of progress. Republicans have begun the process of using budget reconciliation to fund ICE without Democrat support, which only requires a simple majority in the House and Senate.

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