Former Cuban President Castro indicted in US

The indictment marks a dramatic escalation in Washington’s pressure campaign against Havana

Former Cuban President Raul Castro has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The indictment came months after US President Donald Trump warned that Cuba would be “next” after Venezuela was targeted for regime change.

Handed down on Wednesday, the widely-expected indictment accuses Castro of ordering the shootdown of two American planes operated by anti-communist Cuban exiles off the island’s coast in 1996. Cuba said at the time that the planes were connected to the US Air Force, and were warned to divert before they were fired upon.

The indictment was handed down shortly before a ceremony in Miami commemorating the incident.

In a statement earlier on Wednesday, Trump said “America will not tolerate a rogue state harboring hostile foreign military, intelligence and terror operations just ninety miles from the American homeland.”

Earlier this week, US spies told Axios that they believe Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones in preparation for an attack on the US military base at Guantanamo Bay and targets as far afield as Key West in Florida. Havana ridiculed the claims, accusing the US of fabricating a “fraudulent case” for military intervention.

Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have repeatedly threatened Cuba with military action this year. After abducting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, Trump imposed a near-total energy blockade on Cuba, before declaring that “Cuba is next” on his list of regime-change targets.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that the USS Nimitz carrier strike group arrived in the Caribbean, mirroring the military buildup that preceded the operation against Maduro.

The Justice Department also indicted Maduro before US special forces kidnapped him in a raid on his residence in Caracas.

https://www.rt.com/news/640297-us-indicted-raul-castro/

EU elites have caused ‘unimaginable damage’ – ex-Polish PM

Leszek Miller has lashed out at Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas, and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel have done “unimaginable damage” to the EU through a series of disastrous policies, former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller has said.

Miller, who was responsible for Warsaw’s 2004 accession to the EU, took to X on Tuesday after Merkel received the newly created European Order of Merit award, presented to her by von der Leyen during a ceremony in Strasbourg.

“Merkel and von der Leyen are two German women who have caused unimaginable damage to the European Union. I hope that justice will still catch up with them,” Miller wrote.

Merkel led Germany from 2005 to 2021 through multiple crises. Among her most divisive policies was the decision to admit large numbers of asylum seekers during the 2015 migration crisis.

Among Merkel’s other disputed policies is Germany’s nuclear phaseout after the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The current chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has called the move a “huge mistake.”

Merkel also took part in negotiating the 2014 and 2015 Minsk accords between Russia and Ukraine, admitting in 2022 that the agreements were intended in part to “give Ukraine time” to strengthen its military. Moscow said it was “deceived” by the deal’s European guarantors.

Von der Leyen, meanwhile, has become one of the EU’s most polarizing leaders over her backing for aid to Ukraine and sweeping sanctions on Russia that critics say have fueled inflation and put pressure on European industry.

Critics also accuse von der Leyen of centralizing power and sidestepping traditional EU decision-making processes, particularly through efforts to weaken or abolish member states’ veto powers.

In a separate post, Miller lashed out at EU foreign policy chief and Russia hawk Kaja Kallas after she argued that the bloc must be able to “beat” Russia to confront China.

“The European Union is not made up entirely of idiots, but Ms. Kallas undoubtedly hails from that species,” Miller wrote.

The remarks echo Russian criticism of the current EU leadership. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in 2025 there were “no prospects for meaningful dialogue with the bulk of these elites in Europe,” while former President Dmitry Medvedev has described European leaders as “destructive and narrow-minded people.”

https://www.rt.com/news/640285-eu-elites-damage-leszek-miller/

Summary

Axios: "Trump continues to say he thinks a deal can be reached, but that he's ready to resume the war if it isn't."

US Marines board Iranian-flagged tanker in the Gulf of Oman, as it was accused of attempting to violate the US naval blockade.

Iran's parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says that Tehran sees signs that the United States is seeking to restart the war

Oil tumbles after Pakistan again touts final deal draft text imminent, followed by Trump claiming US in 'final stages' of peace talks with Iran, though Tehran hasn't budged on nuclear issue.

Iran's IRGC Navy says 26 vessels, including oil tankers, container ships and other commercial vessels, transited in the prior 24 hours "in coordination" with Iranian authorities.

Meta Axes 8,000 Workers As Zuckerberg Admits AI Is Watching, Replacing Labor

Welcome to another day of corporate America hemorrhaging engineers and other white-collar workers with insurmountable student debt as AI adoption accelerates. This era will likely be remembered in history as the great "white-collar purge," and the response will be continued hatred of data centers.

We've been covering for weeks that today is D-Day for Meta Platforms employees, who have finally learned their employment fate at the company that owns Facebook and Instagram.

Bloomberg reports that the new round of layoffs affects roughly 8,000 roles globally, with engineering and product teams expected to be at the center of the cuts as CEO Mark Zuckerberg reduces labor in favor of GPUs.

This latest round of cuts is expected to hit Meta's engineering and product teams in particular, and additional layoffs could come later in the year, said people familiar with the company's plans, who asked not to be named as the information is not public. -BBG

The layoffs follow Meta's reassignment of about 7,000 employees into newly created AI-focused teams on Monday.

The X account, Official Layoff, posted leaked audio of an all-hands emergency at Meta earlier this week, in which Zuck told employees their devices are being tracked to train AI models. In other words, those workers are training chatbots to eventually render them obsolete.

Official Layoff added more color about Monday's meeting:

LEAKED AUDIO FROM META ALL-HANDS AHEAD OF LAYOFFS TOMORROW

Mark Zuckerberg, in his own words, told Meta employees their devices are being tracked to train AI models.

His reasoning? Meta employees are smarter than the contract workers the rest of the industry uses for data labeling. So instead of hiring outside help, Meta is turning its own workforce into training data.

"The average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks if you're working through these contractors."

He wants the AI to learn how "really smart people use computers" by watching employees work. He says the content is "stripped out" and none of it is used for surveillance or performance tracking.

Then he admitted the rollout was botched but said Meta intentionally kept employees in the dark because leaking competitive AI strategy would help rivals.

"It is not strategically in your interest for us to communicate everything in all the detail that we normally would on this."

Translation: We're watching you, we told you as little as possible, and we did it on purpose.

AI is replacing the contractor. Then the employee trains the AI. Then the AI replaces the employee.

This story and this company keeps getting weirder.

https://twitter.com/i/status/2056858309618282743

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/meta-axes-8000-workers-zuckerberg-admits-ai-watching-replacing-labor

Massie Sounds Alarm: Epstein associates get 'diplomatic immunity' in the U.S. while Britain, Norway & France file charges.

Calls out Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick’s Epstein Island trips as a 'major red flag.' Still ZERO prosecutions here.

https://twitter.com/i/status/2056840119995314332

Employee sues Google over ‘unfair’ dismissal linked to anti-Israel protest – Guardian

A former DeepMind engineer has said he questioned the use of the company’s AI products by West Jerusalem for military purposes

A former AI engineer at Google DeepMind has accused the US tech giant of unfairly dismissing him over protests against the company’s deals with Israel, The Guardian reported on Wednesday. The man described the decision to fire him as discriminatory and filed a claim with a British employment tribunal.

Google’s ties with the Israeli government, including a $1.2 billion AI and cloud computing contract signed jointly with Amazon, have repeatedly sparked employee protests. In 2024 alone, the company fired dozens of dissenting staff members.

According to the engineer, he was called into a meeting with a manager that led to his dismissal after distributing flyers around DeepMind’s London office reading: “Google provides military AI to forces committing genocide” and “Is your paycheck worth this?” He also reportedly sent emails to his colleagues and called on them to unionize.

The former employee, who is of Palestinian origin, alleged in his lawsuit that Google discriminated against his belief that no one should be complicit in war crimes and claimed he was acting as a whistleblower, according to The Guardian. The US tech giant insisted that the employee’s version of events “does not accurately reflect the facts” and said that he had resigned.

In October, several media outlets reported that the 2021 agreement Google and Amazon signed with Israel barred the companies from restricting West Jerusalem’s access to their services even in cases it violated their terms of use. The deal also reportedly included clauses explicitly preventing the two tech giants from breaking ties with Israel under pressure from employees, shareholders and activists.

Israel’s contracts with US tech companies have come under increased scrutiny amid accusations that its military campaign in Gaza following the 2023 Hamas attack amounts to genocide. In 2024, Gaby Portnoy, head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, credited the Google-Amazon Nimbus Project with enabling “phenomenal things” in combat that he said “constitute a significant part of victory.”

https://www.rt.com/news/640299-google-sue-dismissal-israel-protest/

What Thomas Massie’s Defeat Means For The Constitution and Freedom Going Forward

The political system is designed to perpetuate itself, and it will protect the interests of political and bureaucratic elites, big business, and the military-industrial complex because these are the centers of political power in American society.

Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) is one of the good guys. In fact, he’s one of the very few members of Congress who believes what he says about limited government, individual freedom, and the U.S. Constitution. If you support these things, you’ll support Thomas Massie, and if you oppose him, it’s because you oppose these things.

We’ve just seen the DC Republican establishment come out in an unprecedented campaign against an incumbent member of their own party because Donald Trump told them to. This action is profoundly meaningful and instructive about the system of governance we have in this country. First, it shows how deeply corrupted the political system is, not only by money, but even more fundamentally by morally compromised leaders. Second, it shows that we are not going to vote ourselves into a system of limited government and constitutional liberty. The statist juggernaut unleashed against Massie runs the very system that preserves itself in power. Finally, it illustrates how mass “democracy” is a system of elite rule, and that populism in mass politics is itself is a mask elites wear to perpetuate their control over the state system and the people it rules.

Massie is an MIT-educated engineer and successful businessman who has served the 4th congressional district of Kentucky as an articulate and courageous advocate. He earned the monicker “Mr. No” for his consistent opposition to big spending bills and legislation that authorized bloated and intrusive government. If that reminds you of Dr. Ron Paul’s nickname “Dr. No,” you’re right on. Massie and Paul are cut from the same cloth and both have served as indefatigable fighters for freedom in the United States Congress, even when the cool kids of big government attacked and ridiculed them.

Massie earned a lifetime rating of 93% from the Conservative Political Action Committee and a lifetime Liberty Score of 96% from Conservative Review by voting against big spending and debt, against foreign aid and adventurism, for gun rights, for civil liberties and government transparency, and generally for the individual and against big government. If you want to find someone who should be a hero to the rightwing in general and to Republicans in particular, Thomas Massie is your man.

But then he voted against Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” He voted against the bill because it will increase the deficit by $4 to $5 trillion over the next decade and is projected to add 28% to the United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio, which will mean higher long-term interest rates and reduce economic growth as government debt soaks up more capital. Deficit spending is a classic Keynesian method for artificially increasing demand, which has the negative side effect of producing inflation. Trump’s tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill have been offset by his economically illiterate policy of tariffs, which have fueled inflation as a de facto tax on Americans. And the working class will not get a dime back from the refunds businesses will receive, who paid the tariffs whose implementation process the Supreme Court properly held was unconstitutional. Trump’s fragile ego cannot tolerate any criticism of his bad economic policies, and Massie’s common sense refusal to go along is more than Trump could stand.

The president declared political war on Massie, who demanded that Trump follow through on his campaign pledge to release the Epstein Files and expose the child sex trafficker’s immoral behavior and the coterie of his rich and powerful friends. After Trump began his second term, however, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi informed Trump that he, too, was in many of the Epstein documents. After this, Trump became adamantly opposed to releasing them. In fact, he reacted with apoplectic fury against Republicans who had always supported him, such as then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Massie led the fight to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which led to the release of files extensively redacted and withheld by the Department of Justice and FBI.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/deep-state/what-thomas-massies-defeat-means-for-the-constitution-and-freedom-going-forward

Thomas Massie Accused Israel Lobby Of Being Behind His Ouster — They Just Congratulated His Pro-Israel Opponent

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) congratulated Republican Kentucky congressional candidate Ed Gallrein Tuesday after the pro-Israel lobby helped him defeat incumbent Thomas Massie.

AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobbying groups spent over $9 million in mostly independent expenditures to oust Massie, who has been critical of Israel and opposed foreign aid. The lobbying group expressed their determination to place pro-Israel candidates into positions of power.

“Congratulations to US Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein for defeating anti-Israel incumbent Thomas Massie!” AIPAC wrote on X. “Pro-Israel Americans are proud to back candidates who support a strong alliance and help defeat those who work to undermine it. Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!”

https://dailycaller.com/2026/05/20/massie-israel-lobby-aipac-ed-gallrein/

>>24627029

https://www.antiwar.com/