The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, is speaking at a news conference about the indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro.
“There’s a reason why myself and the leadership are here and not in New York to announce this indictment,” said Blanche from Miami, Florida. “The community here understands the Cuban regime better than anyone in America. Many families know the cost of oppression.”
Today’s indictment makes a statement that those who lost their lives 30 years ago have not been forgotten, he said.
Key events
When asked if the announcement of the indictment is partially a pretext to push for regime change in Cuba, by an NBC reporter, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said: “We turned in an indictment and that’s what we are here to talk about. If people want to speculate, I don’t care.”
Ashley Moody, a senator from Florida, read out the penalty sheet for Raúl Castro, as advised by the southern district of Florida, US district court: one count of conspiracy to kill US nationals, two counts for destruction of aircraft and four counts of murder.
The FBI conducted 16 cases to bring this indictment together, said Christopher Raia, the FBI’s deputy director.
The investigators reopened many cold cases over 30 years.
“To anyone who spies on our country or who harms our citizens, remember the FBI has a long memory,” said Raia. “We will come after you.”
“According to the indictment, Raúl Castro, then minister of the Cuban revolutionary armed forces, authorized and oversaw a military command that ended with Cuban fighter jets firing air-to-air missiles at civilian aircraft over international waters,” said Jason Reding Quinones, the US attorney for the southern district of Florida.
Those missiles killed all onboard, and for 30 years those families have waited for accountability, he said.
“This is the first time in almost 70 years that a senior leader in the Cuban regime has been charged in the US for acts of violence resulting in the death of Americans,” he said.
The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, is speaking at a news conference about the indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro.
“There’s a reason why myself and the leadership are here and not in New York to announce this indictment,” said Blanche from Miami, Florida. “The community here understands the Cuban regime better than anyone in America. Many families know the cost of oppression.”
Today’s indictment makes a statement that those who lost their lives 30 years ago have not been forgotten, he said.
US indicts former Cuban president Raúl Castro as it intensifies pressure
Richard Luscombe
The United States has issued a federal criminal indictment against Raúl Castro, Cuba’s former president, on Wednesday, and five others in a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to oust the country’s six-decade-old communist regime.
The 94-year-old political figurehead was charged in Miami, Florida, with conspiracy to kill US nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft, according to court filings obtained by CBS.
Other defendants are a fighter pilot who was initially charged in connection with a 1996 incident in which four men were killed by the Cuban military when their aircraft was shot down during a humanitarian mission in the Florida straits.
Castro is alleged to have given the order to open fire.
The indictment comes at a time of heightened tension between the US and Cuba, with Donald Trump threatening military action against the Cuban government, and an energy crisis created by a tight US oil embargo causing rolling blackouts and prompting protests in the capital.
Miami’s Freedom Tower, where more than half a million Cuban refugees were processed as immigrants between 1962 and 1974 after fleeing Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, provided a symbolic backdrop for the announcement.
Trump also again touted the US naval blockade of Iranian ports as “successful”.
They call it the wall of steel, nobody goes through it … We have ships that tried to go through it … and they say DO NOT PROCEED FURTHER OR WE WILL SHOOT.
After painting an image of “a young handsome captain” telling ships not to proceed via “the greatest loudspeaker system”, Trump then impersonated an Iranian man after his ship was hit by US forces, while mispronouncing “Iran”, and said the ship turned around. “Nobody violates it, nobody,” Trump went on.
It’s unclear what incident Trump was referring to in these surreal remarks.
While the US Central Command has successfully intercepted and redirected dozens of ships during the blockade, several Iranian-linked and dark fleet vessels have slipped through.
Trump says US ‘may have to hit Iran harder – or maybe not’
In further remarks on Iran, Trump told cadets he thought Tehran “so badly” wanted to make a deal, but added:
We will not let Iran have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple. We will not let that happen.
We’ll see what happens. We hit them very hard. We may have to hit them even harder – but maybe not.
In the middle of remarks about the US’s purchase of icebreakers from Finland, Donald Trump once again joked about being president for an unconstitutional third term.
For context, Washington signed a $6bn agreement with Finland last year to purchase 11 new icebreakers, which can sail through seas covered with ice, reflective of Trump’s focus on the Arctic region – including his preoccupation with Greenland.
He told the crowd at the at the United States Coast Guard Academy:
I said, ‘When’s the first one coming?’, and they said, ‘2028.’ I said, ‘I’ll be here in 2028’ – maybe I’ll be here in ‘32 too, I don’t know.
There was some whooping from the crowd in response.
Trump has repeatedly joked about running for a third term despite it being prohibited under the US constitution.
Earlier this month, for example, he jested during a White House address to business leaders about leaving office “in eight or nine years from now”.
Trump on Iran: ‘Do we finish it up or do they sign a document?’
Alongside his usual boastful claims that Iran’s navy and air force are “gone”, Donald Trump said the only question now is whether the United States goes back to finish the job or if Iran will sign a document.
Everything’s gone. Their navy’s gone. Their air force is gone. Just about everything. The only question is, do we go and finish it up? Are they going to be signing a document? Let’s see what happens.
Earlier, the president told reporters he was in no rush to bring his war on Iran to an end, and said achieving the mission’s objectives was more important than setting a timeline for its conclusion.
As my colleague Yohannes Lowe reports, Trump’s comments come as a durable peace deal seems increasingly elusive and amid warnings that the US is weighing up restarting military attacks.
Analysts say both Tehran and Washington want to avoid a new round of hostilities but neither are willing to pay the political price of the concessions necessary to secure a peace agreement.
The White House said in early April that Trump’s objectives in Iran were to “obliterate Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capability, annihilate its navy, sever its support for terrorist proxies, and ensure the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism never acquires a nuclear weapon.”
While there is little doubt that waves of US and Israeli airstrikes have heavily degraded Iran’s military capabilities, many of Trump’s core objectives remain unfulfilled and he is now essentially trying to get back to the status quo of the strait of Hormuz being freely open to international vessels.
A stockpile of highly enriched uranium is also still believed to remain buried following US-Israeli airstrikes last June, Iran still supports proxy militant groups such as Lebanon-based Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran reportedly retains much of its prewar missile stockpile despite US-Israeli attacks.
You can follow all our coverage of the war over on the Middle East live blog:
President Trump has arrived at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, where he will be giving the commencement speech in a few minutes. He has spoken at the Academy at least once before.
Anna Betts
Barney Frank, one of first openly gay members of Congress, dies aged 86
Barney Frank, the former US representative who made history as one of the first openly gay members of Congress, died on Tuesday night. He was 86.
Frank, a Democrat of Massachusetts who represented the state in the US House of Representatives from 1981 to 2013, entered hospice care at his home in Maine last month, Politico reported. He had been dealing with congestive heart failure.
Born in New Jersey in 1940, was a key figure behind the biggest shake-up of US financial regulations since the Great Depression, as chair of the House financial services committee from 2007 to 2011.
The sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which Frank co-sponsored, bolstered oversight of the financial sector in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. Signed into law by Barack Obama in 2010, the law cracked down on lending practices and expanded consumer protections.
The former House speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement on his death and life’s work:
“During his 32 years in the House, Congress and the Country were well-served by Barney Frank’s passion, his persistence and his patriotism. In the wake of the financial crisis, he was a force for reining in an out-of-control financial system: crafting the landmark Dodd-Frank reforms, establishing a consumer financial protection agency and improving transparency in the markets. For many years, we fought side by side to bring down the cost of housing and expand housing opportunities for those living with HIV/AIDS.
As the first Member to come out as gay publicly, Chairman Frank was a pioneering and powerful voice for the LGBTQ community. All were moved by how he spoke about the discrimination he faced. He channeled that personal experience into passionate leadership to enact the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and to send the bigoted ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy to the dustbin of history.”
January 6 police officers sue Trump over $1.8bn fund, alleging ‘presidential corruption’
Two police officers who clashed with rioters at the US Capitol during the January 6 insurrection in 2021 have sued Donald Trump over plans to create a $1.776bn “anti-weaponization” fund.
The fund, which critics have argued is essentially a slush fund, is set to compensate allies of the US president who he claims were victims of prosecutorial overreach.
It was created as part of an agreement in which Trump and his sons dropped a $10bn long-shot lawsuit against the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Harry Dunn, a retired US Capitol police officer, and Daniel Hodges, a Metropolitan police department officer, filed a complaint in US district court in Washington DC on Tuesday.
“In the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century, President Donald J. Trump has created a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund to finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name,” the lawsuit says.
Todd Blanche, acting attorney general, and Scott Bessent, treasury secretary, are also named as defendants.
When Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich asked the president a question, Trump’s response was to tell reporters that her husband Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican congressman, has voted against him.
“Her husband votes against me all the time. Can you imagine? I don’t know what’s with him,” said Trump. “You better ask what’s with him. He likes voting against Trump. You know what happens with that? It doesn’t work out well.”
Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican has built his career on a brand of bipartisanship, has served in the House since 2017 and won re‑election in 2024. He has broken with Trump and his party on several issue. Last year, he voted against the “one big, beautiful bill”.
Trump has a history of attacking the media and of dodging questions by distracting reporters and audiences.
Trump told reporters Wednesday that the proposed White House ballroom is also a “strong military position”.
“The ballroom is being built, I’m building the ballroom,” he said. “It’s a military complex. The roof is actually a drone port. It gives great safety to everything below it.”
Leave a Reply