Julia Conley, Common Dreams

The antiwar group CodePink it has yet to be served with any subpoenas after it was reported over the weekend that the Trump administration has opened an investigation into a recent humanitarian trip it helped organize to Cuba, but vehemently denied wrongdoing and said any government probe, if there is one, would only show that “this administration is beyond grotesque.”

“Taking medical supplies to pediatric hospitals in Cuba is now a crime?” asked co-founder Medea Benjamin on social media on Saturday after Fox News reported that organizers had been served subpoenas. “Saving the lives of babies is a crime?”

Fox reported that Benjamin and left-wing commentator Hasan Piker had been subpoenaed by federal investigators two months after they were among 40 Americans who sailed to Havana on the Nuestra America Convoy, which carried 20 tons of humanitarian aid to the island nation.

The Fox reporting claimed the subpoenas issued to Benjamin and Piker seek to obtain financial, logistical, and communications information related to the trip, which was organized in response to the Trump administration’s decision in late January to threaten to impose tariffs on any country that provided Cuba with oil.

The administration cut off Cuba’s main source of fuel at the beginning of the year when it sent US troops into Venezuela to abduct President Nicolás Maduro and took control of the country’s vast oil supply.

White House officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, have long desired regime change in the communist country, and rights advocates have warned the administration appears to be moving toward just that as it strangles the island’s oil supply—causing frequent blackouts and impacting the healthcare and food systems—and claims the Cuban government poses a threat to the US.

In organizing the Nuestra America Convoy, said Benjamin on Sunday, the advocates were acting “as moral US citizens trying to bring some relief to a population being deliberately starved by the cruel policies of our own government.”

“This policy has contributed to catastrophic shortages of medicine and electricity, massive blackouts, transportation collapse, and a public health crisis that has hurt the most vulnerable, especially children and the elderly,” said Benjamin. “It is a policy that is, literally, killing babies, as we have seen in the recent tragic doubling of the infant mortality rate. This is why we focused our donations on medical supplies for pediatric hospitals.”

The blockade is compounding the suffering caused by the trade embargo the US has imposed for decades, said Benjamin.

The Cuban Assets Control Regulations law prohibits US citizens from conducting unlicensed travel-related transations with Cuba, but the law makes exceptions for humanitarian endeavors and other activities aimed at supporting the Cuban people.

“We traveled to Cuba under the US government-authorized category of providing humanitarian aid to the Cuban people. We brought desperately needed medicines and medical supplies at a time when Cuba is suffering catastrophic shortages caused by the crippling US blockade,” said Benjamin.

Benjamin, Piker, and Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim emphasized that the group stayed in Spanish-owned hotels that are “explicitly permitted under” the US law—while right-wing influencer Nick Shirley allegedly stayed in a sanctioned hotel on a recent trip to Cuba.

“It is outrageous that the US government would target people for bringing humanitarian aid to suffering Cuban children,” Benjamin said. “But even more disturbing is the cruel and deeply immoral policy the United States continues to impose on Cuba—a policy designed to strangle the island economically, deprive people of food, fuel, medicine, and basic necessities, and make daily life unbearable.”

Piker said the reports of the investigation indicate that “the American government would rather try to criminalize delivering aid to a country we’ve starved, than punish the Epstein class.”

Benjamin emphasized that the reports of the probe come as the administration intensified its threats against Cuba, having indicted former President Raúl Castro last week on charges related to the shooting down of a plane operated by Cuban-American exiles in the 1990s. Trump and his allies have repeatedly mused about invading the country following his military attacks on Venezuela and Iran.

“President Trump already has his hands full trying to disentangle himself from the disastrous US war with Iran,” said Benjamin. “He should not start another one in Cuba. The American people are tired of endless wars, interventions, sanctions, and suffering imposed in our name.”

Meta employees reported Wednesday that in the company’s offices on the day mass layoffs hit thousands of their colleagues, fliers were taped to walls urging workers to sign a petition in support of stopping the company’s new artificial intelligence data tracking program—which CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted late last month as a way for its new AI models to “learn from watching really smart people do things.”

A day before about 8,000 Meta employees began receiving emails notifying them that they were being laid off—a process that began in Singapore at 4:00 am local time Wednesday and continued in European and US offices in their respective time zones—the labor-focused media organization More Perfect Union shared a leaked audio file in which Zuckerberg was heard explaining how the AI training program worked.

“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,” said Zuckerberg. “So if we’re trying to teach the models coding, for example, then having people internally build tools or solve tasks that help teach the model how to code, we think is going to dramatically increase our model’s coding ability faster than what others in the industry have the capability to do, who don’t have thousands and thousands of extremely strong engineers at their company.”

He assured the company’s 78,000 employees that “no human is looking at or watching what people are doing on their computers... None of the data is being used for looking at what people are doing or surveillance or performance tracking or anything like that. It’s purely just that we are using this to feed a very large amount of content into the AI model so that way it can learn how smart people use computers to accomplish tasks.”

Zuckerberg explained how the employees have been used to train the model that could potentially replace many of them days after Meta announced it was planning to lay off about 10% of its workforce as the company invests heavily in AI, spending $125 billion to $145 billion on the technology—more than double what it spent last year.

The New York Times reported earlier this month that employees “revolted” when they learned about the AI tracking program, and expressed fears that they had unknowingly been training a model that would ultimately replace them.

An engineering manager asked on the company’s internal communication platform how workers can opt out of having their computer activity monitored to train the AI model, only to be told by chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, “There is no option to opt out on your corporate laptop.”

Another employee told Bosworth, “Your callousness to the concerns of your own employees is concerning.”

On Monday, The New York Times reported, employees learned that in addition to the layoffs, another 7,000 workers will be reassigned to help develop AI tools.

About 2,000 employees began working this month on a new Applied AI and Engineering team, which is set to use the data gathered by the AI tracking program Zuckerberg described to build AI tools. Those who volunteered to join the group would not be included in this week’s layoffs, the Times reported.

“Every company is training AI on their employees,” said Chen Avnery, an independent adviser on AI governance and data platforms. “Meta just said it out loud. The question stopped being, ‘Will AI replace you?’ a year ago. Now it’s whether you’re building the agents or generating their training data.”

More than 1,000 people in the company have signed the petition calling to halt the AI data program, according to the newspaper.

Software engineer Mack Ward urged his colleagues to sign on earlier this month, telling them in an internal post that “AI is a freight train, but the future is not a foregone conclusion.”

“It’s not too late to pump the brakes and consider how we, society, want to go about this,” Ward said. “Speaking up is never easy, but ‘easy’ isn’t what you were hired to do.”

The 57 confirmed bombings of boats that the Trump administration has carried out so far since last September have shattered families and communities across Latin America, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and US Southern Command never acknowledging the identities of the at least 192 people they’ve killed, beyond declaring them “narco-terrorists.”

But despite the concerted effort to keep the names and any information about the victims hidden—their identities “blown away over vast stretches of ocean,” as a new report states—20 journalists led by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) managed to identify 13 of the men whose killings have been called “murders” by legal experts and rights advocates.

The journalists and researchers represented CasaMacondo, Verdad Abierta, 360-grados.co, and NGO El Veinte in Colombia; Alianza Rebelde Investiga in Venezuela; the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian; and Airwars in the UK.

The investigation, titled “Bombed, Without the Right to a Defense,“ was completed despite widespread fears of speaking out about the bombings in the affected communities.

“Some relatives of victims in Venezuela and in Santa Marta, Colombia, say they have received threats, as sources confirmed to journalists in this alliance,” reads the report. “Authorities have remained largely opaque, and the officials willing to talk do so only off the record, wary of dragging their countries into conflict with [US President Donald] Trump.”

Three people named in the report had already been identified publicly in legal complaints—Trinidadians Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, whose families filed a complaint in the US federal court; and Colombian Alejandro Carranza Medina, whose family filed a petition with the US-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The men identified for the first time by CLIP include:

• Juan Carlos Fuentes, a bus driver who told his family he was “going to have to do something risky to see if I can make ends meet” after his bus broke down, and who left behind three children and a grandson;
• Luis Ramón Amundarain, a motorcycle taxi driver and fisherman with a wife and five children;
• Eduard Hidalgo, a fisherman who had been deported from the US in December 2025;
• Jesús Carreño of Venezuela;
• Eduardo Jaime, a “beloved indoor soccer player” in his hometown of Güiria, Venezuela;
• Dushak Milovcic, a student at the National Guard Academy in Venezuela who became involved in drug transporting, starting as “a lookout for smugglers”;
• Ricky Joseph, a well-known fishmerman in Savannes Bay, Saint Lucia, whose family lost contact with him after a bombing on February 13 and who is believed to be one of the victims;
• Pedro Ramón Holguín Holguín, who was registered as a fish and seafood wholesaler in Ecuador;
• Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Solórzano, who was rescued by Costa Rican authorities but died following an attack on his boat;
• Luis Alí Martínez, who had a criminal record for drug trafficking and other crimes;
• Ronald Arregocés of Riohacha, Colombia;
• Adrián Lubo, of Riohacha, Colombia, who was called “a great captain” by a person who knew him; and
• Robert Sánchez, who was traveling with his cousin, Amundarain, when the boat they were on was bombed.

Another man was identified by his nickname, and two unnamed people, including an Ecuadorian man who helped survivor Jonathan Obando escape a bombing and later died, were included in the report.

“It’s a double tragedy—not only because of the unlawful killings, but because the victims are erased, reduced to anonymity,” John Walsh, of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told CLIP and the reporting alliance.

The report emphasizes that all of the victims it identified came from poor families and communities. In Uribia, Colombia, where at least two bodies washed ashore after a boat attack, 92% of residents “lack adequate education, healthcare, or basic public services.”

“In those conditions, recruiting young men to transport cocaine is easy work—and the pay can be good,” reads the report.

A boatman in Uribia told CLIP that “most people here aren’t the owners” of vessels or the drugs they carry. “The people who own the cargo are almost always outsiders—even international players.”

María Teresa Ronderos, director and co-founder of the CLIP, told The Guardian the report affirms that despite the administration’s repeated claims that the military is defending “our nation’s interest” and protecting Americans from those who are “trafficking deadly narcotics” like fentanyl and cocaine, “the US is not taking down any Pablo Escobar or Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.”

“Despite the US claim that the strikes are fighting narco-terrorism, what is actually happening is that young people living in extremely precarious conditions, doing whatever work they can to support their families, are being targeted,” Ronderos said.

The boat that Fuentes and Amundarain, who had both gone to Trinidad and Tobago to work, were on was traveling from the Caribbean country to Venezuela, calling into question the claim that the vessel was trafficking drugs.

“Boats carry drugs from South America northwards, not the reverse,” Ronderos told The Guardian.

Legal experts have emphasized that even in the cases of victims who were involved in the drug trade, the bombings still legally qualify as extrajudicial killings, or even murder. Trump informed Congress in October that the White House views the US as being in an armed conflict with drug cartels in Latin America, claiming a rationale for carrying out the boat strikes. But no conflict has officially been declared, and rights experts warn that the military has clearly violated international law by targeting the survivors of some of the boat attacks in “double-tap” strikes.

“The deaths of Joseph and Samaroo were clearly extrajudicial killings,” Steven Watt, an attorney with the ACLU who is working on the case brought by the two Trinidiadian families, told CLIP. He added that “the Trump administration’s argument—that a ‘war on drugs’ justifies violent strikes like these—cannot legally excuse the killings.”

Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group told CLIP that “the law of war permits violence otherwise prohibited, but only during genuine armed conflict—a threshold the Trump administration has failed to meet, as it has not even identified who the US is supposedly fighting.”

“Beyond that foundational problem, the administration’s suggestion that vaguely defined ‘enablers’ may be targetable raises further concerns that it is violating the rules of its own bogus legal paradigm,” Finucane said.

Ronderos added that “there is no death penalty for cocaine trafficking.”

“So the fact that they were killed without even having the chance to defend themselves is deeply troubling,” she told The Guardian.

In accordance with international and domestic laws, the US has historically treated drug trafficking on the high seas as a criminal offense and has ensured those who are found trying to bring drugs to the US are brought to justice in court.

A spokesperson for US Southern Command told the reporters that the bombings have been “deliberate, lawful, and precise, directed specifically at narco-terrorists and their enablers,” and that the US has “full confidence in the operations and intelligence professionals who inform our missions.”

But the administration has not released any evidence showing the strikes have targeted major drug trafficking operations, and as Common Dreams reported last month, data from US Customs and Border Protection shows little evidence that the strikes are stopping the flow of illicit substances.

“CBP’s seizures of fentanyl at the US-Mexico border had been declining, often sharply, since mid-2023. But since early 2025, the declines stopped,” said Adam Isacson of WOLA at the time. “Halfway into fiscal 2026, seizures are almost exactly half of 2025’s full-year total: a flat trendline.”

Finucane told The Guardian that the boat strikes have never been “a serious counter-drug operation.”

“I think this was in part a military spectacle to give the illusion of the administration doing something ‘macho’ about drugs,” Finucane said.

Walsh said Hegseth and Trump “want to impress the public, to make Americans believe that they, unlike previous governments, are finally ending the terrible problem of drug trafficking.”

“The profound cruelty and indifference with which they order these systematic and intentional killings allows them to project this menacing image of faceless ‘narco-terrorists,’” he added. “In doing so, they shock many Americans while numbing their sense that the US officials responsible for these murders should be held accountable.”

As the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence approaches, a government watchdog group is warning that the Trump administration has refused to release key documents regarding President Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 project, in which the White House has partnered with corporations including Palantir and ExxonMobil to organize what it’s called “a celebration of America like no other.”

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a lawsuit Monday against the Department of Interior (DOI) in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, more than two months after the group filed multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests regarding the funding of the “controversial and secretive” Freedom 250 initiative.

As the agency that oversees the National Parks Service, DOI and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are playing a major role in the organization of Freedom 250, with the celebration including projects like the National Garden of American Heroes, the proposed Freedom 250 Grand Prix at the National Mall, and the proposed Independence Arch.

In late February, PEER’s FOIA requests sought information from DOI on reports that public funds are being directed to Freedom 250 through the congressionally chartered National Park Foundation, “with no transparency, no accountability, and no guardrails.”

“America’s 250th anniversary celebration is supposed to be an occasion for strengthening public trust in our democratic institutions, not eroding it,” Tim Whitehouse, PEER’s executive director, said late Monday. “In contrast, Freedom 250 is a privately managed slush fund... It epitomizes what is wrong with politics today.”

In its lawsuit, PEER said the DOI “has failed to make a final determination on any of PEER’s FOIA requests and has failed to disclose any of the requested records within the time stipulated under FOIA.”

The department has failed to respond to the requests as reports have mounted that Trump is using Freedom 250 to:

• Divert $100 million in taxpayer funds from America 250, the congressionally mandated 250th anniversary entity, without congressional approval;
• Sell access to the president for up to $2.5 million;
• Seek foreign donations, including at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where Freedom 250 CEO Keith Krach was seen promoting the project to foreign state actors in a leaked video;
• Use public employees to promote the private entity, including by pressuring DOI employees to include Freedom 250 logos and links in their official email signatures—a possible violation of the Hatch Act as well as workers’ First Amendment rights; and
• Use taxpayer funds to push a partisan agenda, with DOI removing a slavery exhibit from Independence Park in Philadelphia as well as references to the internment of Japanese Americans and the oppression of Native Americans from other National Park Service sites ahead of the anniversary.

In its lawsuit, PEER noted that the DOI was required to respond to the FOIA requests by March 20, but communications from the department have indicated officials plan to respond no sooner than August 3—after the main 250th anniversary celebrations occur.

Whitehouse said DOI’s failure disclose information about the funding mechanisms for Freedom 250 continue “a pattern of Secretary Doug Burgum dispensing with a variety of legal safeguards to improperly facilitate Trump projects—particularly around the nation’s capital.”

“Just look no further than his more than $1 billion ballroom or vanity projects, such as the arch,” said Whitehouse.

Burgum has pushed for the construction of a 250-foot arch in Washington, saying it “embodies American freedom.” Trump has said the project could be paid for by private donors, while veterans groups and historians have filed legal challenges over the proposed project, arguing Congress needs to approve its construction.

With just over seven months to go until the midterm elections, the US-Israeli war on Iran pushing gas prices past $4 per gallon, and the rising cost of living bringing consumer confidence to an all-time low, political observers marveled on Monday at Republican senators’ decision to center President Donald Trump’s demand for a new $400 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom at the White House as a top legislative goal.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), and Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) held a press conference late Monday to announce their intention to expedite a bill to the Senate floor to use public funds to pay for the construction of a secure ballroom, joining Trump in insisting that a shooting at the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner on Saturday proved the project is a national security priority.

Trump has demanded the construction of the ballroom for months, ordering demolition work to begin last year as he insisted the project would be paid for entirely by private donations from companies with government contracts like Amazon, Lockheed Martin, and Google—a plan that has raised alarm over significant conflicts of interest.

The construction was halted recently after a federal court ruled the project must be approved by Congress, but an appeals court this month allowed the building to continue while it reviews the ruling.

On Monday evening, the US Department of Justice also filed a motion—which observers noted appeared to be written in the same style the president frequently uses in his social media posts—demanding that US District Judge Richard Leon dissolve his previous injunction blocking the project.

The motion started by claiming the name of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the nonprofit that sued over the ballroom construction, is “FAKE.”

“They suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly referred to as TDS,” reads the filing.

Graham said Monday that the ballroom should be paid for with $400 million in taxpayer funds collected in the form of national park fees and customs fees, with the private funding Trump secured going to extra costs like fine china.

The senator insisted the American public, whose approval of the president stood at 40% in one monthly survey in March, would support the bill.

“If you don’t think $400 million of taxpayer money is a good investment to create a secure facility at the White House, then I disagree. I bet you 90% of Americans would love to have a better facility,” said Graham.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal responded: “Nope. Ninety percent of Americans would love to have affordable healthcare, housing, and childcare. Or lower gas prices. Or lower grocery prices. Not a frigging illegally constructed ballroom.”

Graham explained that beneath the ballroom there would be “a lot of military stuff” and “infrastructure that is national security-centric,” and suggested the construction of the facility would allow Trump and future presidents to stay on the White House grounds instead of leaving for public events.

The WHCA has held its annual dinner at the Washington Hilton for decades, and it’s unclear whether it would ever change the venue to the White House in order to hold the event in a “secure” ballroom.

The press conference came two days after a man armed with multiple guns and knives tried to break into the WHCA dinner and exchanged gunfire with Secret Service personnel before being tackled and disarmed. Just hours after being evacuated from the chaotic scene, Trump held a press conference with his top administration officials and declared the incident had proven that “we need the ballroom.”

Graham said Monday that the president talks about the ballroom “all the time” in his conversations with Republican senators. He said the White House supports the plan to pay for the project with $400 million in public funds.

“The Republican pitch to voters in an election year dominated by the crushing costs of living in this country should be the urgent need for a new marble and gold ballroom for members of the American ruling class to have safer banquets,” said one observer sardonically.

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) told Pablo Manriquez of MeidasTouch that regardless of the GOP’s claims about national security, the ballroom is “about what Donald Trump wants and what makes him more money and puts his name on another edifice. That’s all the ballroom is, it’s nothing the American people asked for.”

“It’s nothing the American people need at a time where grocery prices continue to rise and are rising faster, gasoline costs are through the sky, and it’s harder for everyday Americans to make it through every day,” said Schneider. “The president’s always focused on himself.”

A new report by an economic think tank takes aim at the broadly accepted idea that Americans are divided on the major issues affecting millions of people every day—the question of how to ensure everyone can get the healthcare they need without going bankrupt, how the government can ensure working people make enough money to live, and whether the US should take more aggressive climate action.

As it turns out, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) suggested Monday, there’s far more agreement on those and more issues across the political spectrum than the corporate media and establishment politicians from both sides of the aisle would have the public believe.

Lawmakers who push for good, fair-paying jobs for all workers; raising the chronically stagnant federal minimum wage; guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans; clean energy investments; and ending the influence of corporations and billionaires on US elections would not be advocating for policies that are just popular on the left, the report says, but would actually be promoting a “Majority Agenda.”

“It may feel like Americans agree on nothing right now, but recent polling tells a different story,” said CEPR on social media. “From raising the minimum wage and strengthening Social Security to affordable housing and healthcare reform, these progressive policies are broadly popular despite the political establishment continuing to ignore them.”

The group pointed to one 2024 poll by the American Communities Project that showed more than 60% of Americans agreed that the economy “is rigged to advantage the rich and the powerful,” while 62% disagreed with the idea of cutting social programs to lower taxes.

Another 2024 poll by The Associated Press found that 91% of Americans supported equal protection under the law and 88% supported the right to privacy, while a 2020 poll by the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School revealed that 89% of Americans expressed strong support for affordable healthcare, 85% felt people have the right to a job, and 93% thought the right to clean air and water is essential.

Analyzing those surveys and other data, CEPR advised policymakers to consider the Majority Agenda as a “roadmap” to passing policies that large majorities of Americans view as major priorities to improve their quality of life.

The report is divided into three sections: Good Jobs, Strong Infrastructure, and Fair Play.

To push for fair, well-paying employment, said CEPR, lawmakers should support policies including:

• Increasing unionization‚ supported by 68% of Americans in one recent poll, through the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, cracking down on retaliation against union members, and repealing or reforming the Taft-Hartley Act;
• Raising the $7.25 federal minimum wage, supported by 86% of Americans; and
• Setting a floor for paid time off from work by strengthening the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The section on strengthening US “infrastructure” looks beyond the traditional definition of the term regarding physical infrastructure projects, pushing for stronger policies that can help working people thrive by ensuring their healthcare, housing, and other basic needs are met.

A stronger infrastructure, said CEPR, would include:

• Guaranteed healthcare for everyone in the US through the passage of the Medicare for All Act, which has been introduced in the US House and Senate numerous times, and a corporate practice of medicine law to stop the corporatization of healthcare;
• A reversal of the trend of federal housing policy directing “too much funding to the wealthy and too little for everyone else,” by ending federal restrictions on the creation of new federal public housing instead of investing in mortgage interest deductions for wealthy homeowners and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, whose benefits are greater for wealthy investors than for low-income renters; and
• An investment in clean energy by reinstating Biden-era regulations and strengthening the Clean Air Act and other environmental protection laws in order to meet the demands of 59% of Americans who view the climate crisis as “very or extremely dangerous,” according to a 2021 poll by the University of Chicago.

CEPR pointed to three areas in which lawmakers could increase “fair play” for Americans:

• Strengthening and supporting Social Security, which Republicans frequently attack as rife with fraud and on the verge of going broke, by diverting some among of general revenue to the program and increasing monthly benefits modestly;
• Passing a constitutional amendment to allow the government to regulate campaign fundraising and spending both by campaigns and outside individuals and artificial entities; and
• Raising taxes on large businesses and the wealthy, as large majorities of Americans believe government should, and restoring funding to the Internal Revenue Service to ensure proper collection of taxes.

“That the US Congress is not debating or introducing bills to address the issues presented here represents a breakdown of democracy, one that comes at a considerable cost to the betterment of life for large swaths of Americans. At the same time, the access to and influence over our democratic processes by the monied class has upended our system of government, and all too often the tyranny of the wealthy minority has reigned,” reads the CEPR report.

“We hope this report stands as a reminder that even in a fraught political moment,” said CEPR, “there is a range of straightforward, broadly popular policy choices that could improve the lives of millions of people.”

A suspect was arrested in San Francisco Friday after being accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of Sam Altman, the CEO of the artificial intelligence firm OpenAI.

The 20-year-old man was found at the OpenAI headquarters about three miles away from Altman’s home, where he was threatening to burn down the building, San Francisco police said.

The device the suspect threw onto Altman’s property in the Russian Hill neighborhood caused a fire on the exterior gate. It was unclear whether Altman and his family were at home.

The suspect was in custody Friday, with charges pending.

Altman’s company and other companies have been under fire as AI has expanded rapidly at President Donald Trump’s urging, with the president issuing an executive order attacking states’ ability to regulate the industry.

Experts have warned the expansion of generative AI threatens jobs and democracy, with political campaigns already using the technology to create fraudulent media in advertisements.

Massive, energy-sucking AI data centers have also been blamed for higher household electricity bills and water consumption.

Protesters have rallied against Altman’s company for agreeing to provide its technology to the Department of Defense.

In November, The New York Times reported, a person who had once been associated with the anti-AI group Stop AI “expressed interest in causing physical harm to OpenAI employees,” causing the company to lock down its headquarters.

On Friday, Stop AI condemned the attack on Altman’s house and emphasized that the group “seeks to protect human life.”

“We do not condone any violence whatsoever,” said the group. “We pray everyone involved in this situation puts aside violence and finds peace, and we continue to hope the AI industry stops the development of frontier AI systems in the interest of public safety and the preservation of humanity. To the best of our knowledge, this incident did not involve anyone who has ever been associated with our group. And this action is wholly inconsistent with our values.”

Along with cutting environmental, housing, and health programs and proposing an increase of nearly $500 billion in military spending, President Donald Trump’s new budget proposal shows how the White House “wants to use taxpayer dollars to spy on those who oppose its extremist agenda,” one Democratic congresswoman said Monday evening.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Penn.) was referring to the budget’s description of a new FBI center that is already working to root out what the White House broadly defined as “domestic terrorism” in a federal memo last year.

As independent journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote this week, buried in Trump’s budget request—which includes $12.5 billion for the FBI to invest in counterterrorism efforts and other spending—is the White House’s latest assertion that “domestic terrorists... pose an elevated threat to the Homeland.”

“In recent years, heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased,” reads the budget’s section on domestic terrorism. “Commonly, this violent conduct relates to views associated with anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the US government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility to those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and mortality.”

The views described echo National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), the memo signed last September that directed federal agencies to develop a national strategy to “investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence” in order to stop violent attacks before they happen.

But despite the administration’s singular focus on groups and individuals who hold left-wing, anti-capitalism views and subscribe to belief systems other than Christianity, the National Institute of Justice found that since 1990, 227 attacks motivated by right-wing views killed 520 people, while far-left groups carried out 42 attacks that killed 78 people. The NIJ study was removed from the US Department of Justice website shortly after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk—an event that Trump explicitly blamed on left-wing groups without evidence, and which came weeks before the signing of NSPM-7.

The budget proposal explains that as a result of NSPM-7, the FBI recently created the NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center (JMC), which is run by personnel from 10 federal agencies.

“The JMC is working to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence by integrating intelligence operational support, and financial analysis to proactively identify networks and prosecute domestic terrorist and related criminal actors,” reads the proposal.

Scanlon is one of a small number of elected Democrats who have spoken out about NSPM-7 in congressional hearings and media interviews.

“If anyone can be labeled a domestic terrorist for speech opposing this administration, our First Amendment rights are under grave threat,” said Scanlon recently.

Klippenstein noted that the budget document describes social media platforms and encrypted communications apps as being used by “domestic terrorists” to “recruit new adherents, plan and rally support for in-person actions, and disseminate materials encouraging radicalization and mobilization to violence.”

FBI Director Kash Patel told Congress that anyone who used the Discord channels used by Tyler Robinson, who was accused of killing Kirk, would be investigated by the agency.

Klippenstein noted that the FBI’s domestic terrorism watchlist, which as of last September listed about 5,000 US citizens, reportedly “is growing.”

“If your political views are practically anything other than MAGA, you’re on notice, courtesy of the FBI,” Klippenstein wrote.

The satellite firm Planet Labs told customers, including major news outlets, that it was acting on the Trump administration’s request as it announced it was implementing “an indefinite withhold of imagery” in Iran and across the Middle Eastern countries where the widening conflict started by the US and Israel is unfolding.

The Saturday announcement, said UK rights campaigner Sarah Wilkinson, was a sign that images of the war will be censored “to hide the truth.”

Planet Labs sent an email to journalists who have regularly used the company’s satellite images to report on the US-Israeli bombing of Iran and Iran’s retaliatory actions on Saturday, saying that after receiving a request from the US government, it was “moving to a managed access model... and releasing imagery on a case-by-case basis and for urgent, mission-critical requirements or in the public interest.”

Washington Post reporter Evan Hill suggested the announcement would limit reporters’ access to information from “one of the most important US-based commercial satellite imagery providers on whom most media outlets rely.”

The announcement comes as Iran’s military capabilities have reportedly exceeded US expectations, with US intelligence reporting Iran has retained many of its missile and mobile launchers and casting doubt on the Pentagon’s claims that the US is severely diminishing Iran’s missile stockpile.

The White House’s request for a suspension of satellite imagery was the latest sign that “Trump’s war is going swimmingly,” said podcast host Mark Ames sardonically.

It also coincided with multiple threats over the weekend from President Donald Trump, who said this coming Tuesday would be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one”—with increased attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure unless Iran agrees to a deal on Monday.

A major bridge was destroyed by the US on Saturday, while Israeli forces bombed a significant petrochemical complex, reportedly sending pollution into the surrounding city. At least 13 people were killed in the two attacks combined. A projectile that struck the vicinity of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant also killed at least one person and raised concerns about a larger attack, which “could trigger a nuclear accident, with health impacts that would devastate generations,” as World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the Trump administration’s demand for satellite images to be withheld “will make it much more difficult to monitor US-Israeli bombing there, which seems to be the point.”

Data and imagery collected starting on March 9 will be withheld by Planet Labs. The company previously instituted a 14-day delay on the release of satellite images to ensure they would not be “leveraged” by “adversarial actors.”

Also on Saturday, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli soldiers had “destroyed all of the CCTV cameras” around the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a mission in the southern part of the country where three peacekeepers were wounded in a blast on Friday and several others have been killed since early March, including some by Israeli fire.

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday demanded “maximum military restraint” from the US and Israel as it confirmed reports that strikes had targeted a location close to Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, killing at least one person.

In a statement released via social media, the IAEA relayed a message from Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, who expressed “deep concern about the reported incident.”

Grossi warned that nuclear power plants or nearby areas “must never be attacked, noting that auxiliary site buildings may contain vital safety equipment” and stressed “the paramount importance of adhering to the seven pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during a conflict.”

The IAEA said the attack near the Bushehr plant, Iran’s only operational nuclear power facility, was the fourth such attack since Israel and the US began its invasion of Iran on February 28. The plant lies in a city inhabited by about 250,000 people.

A security staff member was killed by a projectile fragment and a building on the Bushehr site was impacted by shockwaves and fragments. Grossi said that no increase in radiation levels was reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also condemned the Bushehr strike and issued a reminder of the “Western outrage about hostilities near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine” when Russia attacked the site.

“Israel-US have bombed our Bushehr plant four times now. Radioactive fallout will end life in [Gulf Cooperation Council] capitals, not Tehran. Attacks on our petrochemicals also convey real objectives,” said Araghchi.

Al Jazeera reported that at least two petrochemical facilities had been hit by the US and Israel in southern Iran’s Khuzestan province, an energy hub in the country. At least five people were injured in those attacks.

Iranian news agency Mehr reported that the state-run Bandar Imam petrochemical complex, which produces liquefied petroleum gas and chemicals as well as other products, sustained damage.

President Donald Trump said late last month that he would delay any attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure until April 6 and said the delay was “subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.”

He has threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants and other civilian infrastructure if Iranian leaders don’t end the blockade on the oil export waterway the Strait of Hormuz, which they began in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes that started more than a month ago and which has fueled skyrocketing global energy prices.

The threat amounted to Trump warning that he could soon commit a war crime, said international law experts.

As President Donald Trump’s Pentagon pushed Congress to approve $1.5 trillion in new military funding, including $200 billion for the US-Israeli war on Iran, congressional Democrats found that the working Americans whose taxes would fund those appropriations have spent $8.4 billion that otherwise could have gone to groceries, childcare, and other essentials—all at the gas pump.

Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee released a report Thursday—two days after average gas prices in the US reached $4 per gallon, the highest in nearly four years—showing that those higher prices have forced Americans to pay 35% more on gas than they did a month ago, before Trump joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in attacking Iran.

A month after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the war that’s killed more than 2,000 Iranians and well over 1,000 people across the Middle East as the conflict has widened, it now costs $145 to fill up just one gas tank for a Ford F-150 pickup truck—$37 more than it did in February.

An SUV costs an average of $58 to fill up, an increase of $15, while a sedan costs $52 on average—$13 more than it did before the war.

The analysis was released a day after Trump unequivocally stated that, despite his campaign pledge to make life more affordable for Americans, his administration’s priority is “fighting wars,” not ensuring the government provides childcare and healthcare that families can afford.

“We can’t take care of daycare,” said Trump. “It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”

“Families are paying more at the pump because Republicans in Congress would rather spend billions of dollars on a war that raises costs than find ways to actually make life more affordable.”

The advocacy group Unrig Our Economy noted Friday that the war in Iran, which is supported by nearly every Republican in Congress—is just the latest way in which the GOP under the Trump administration has “raised costs and squeezed families.” The Joint Economic Committee found in February that Americans had gotten stuck with the bill due to Trump’s aggressive tariffs on imports, which he had claimed would generate massive revenue—but which actually cost the average family more than $1,700 in one year as companies passed off the higher cost of goods and materials to consumers.

“From the grocery store to the doctor’s office to the gas pump, congressional Republicans are financially crushing working Americans at every turn,” said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.

The committee Democrats also found last month that the average US electric bill rose by $110, or 6.4%, in 2025, driven by Trump’s cancellations of renewable energy projects, his push for liquefied natural gas exports, and his demand for an expansion of artificial intelligence data centers.

“Meanwhile, [Republican] attacks on Americans’ healthcare have sent premiums skyrocketing and put over 15 million Americans at risk of losing health insurance. Now, they want to cut healthcare even more to bankroll their costly and unnecessary war,” said Unrig Our Economy, referring to Republicans’ call to further cut federal health spending to pay for the Iran war.

As Americans have spent more at the gas pump and the White House has offered shifting explanations for why the US continues to wage war on Iran, public approval for the conflict has remained low. Nearly 60% of Americans said late last month that the war has already gone “too far” as the president threatened to escalate further, and 56% of respondents to a poll by Data for Progress said they believe the conflict will benefit Israel, not the US.

This week, two-thirds of people who responded to a CNN poll said they disapproved of the war and did not believe Trump has a clear plan. More than three-quarters said they would not support the Pentagon’s request for $200 billion to fund further military action.

But Trump, who White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles admitted this week has been getting a “rose-colored view” of the war in Iran during official briefings, told reporters Thursday that Americans are so relieved that the US and Israel are attacking Iran and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war that they are not concerned about the financial toll the war is taking on their families.

“We have a country that’s not going to be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months,” said Trump. “They’re feeling a lot safer.”

US intelligence has determined Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

“Families are paying more at the pump,” said Tal, “because Republicans in Congress would rather spend billions of dollars on a war that raises costs than find ways to actually make life more affordable.”

As energy and finance officials from across the European Union prepared to review energy supply levels amid the US-Israeli war on Iran on Tuesday, campaigners from a leading climate action group renewed their call for officials to go further than just releasing oil reserves in order to keep costs down.

Oil giants that have benefited from the growing global energy crisis set off by the US-Israeli attacks and Iran’s retaliatory closing of the Strait of Hormuz should be held to account for their “fossil fuel profiteering,” said 350.org.

After a virtual meeting of energy ministers from the G7 countries on Monday, 350.org called on officials to tax the windfall profits of companies like France’s TotalEnergies, which is estimated to have made $1 billion in profits in just the last month since Iran closed the strait in retaliation for the US and Israeli attacks.

Total has reportedly “monopolized” about 70 crude oil shipments from the UAE and Oman in the last month, as Murban crude prices surged from $70 to $170 per barrel.

As Common Dreams reported Monday, 350.org released an analysis showing that spiking oil and gas prices resulting from the US-Israeli war have cost consumers and businesses more than $100 billion in the past month.

“It is obscene that companies like TotalEnergies are making enormous profits from war, while ordinary people’s lives are being shattered and the world faces a spiraling economic crisis,” said Fanny Petitbon, France team lead for 350.org. “At a time of such profound human suffering, no company should be allowed to exploit chaos and conflict for financial gain. The G7’s deafening silence on these windfall profits speaks volumes, signaling a failure to hold corporate greed accountable while the rest of the world pays the price.”

Revenues from taxing windfall profits could “be used to support vulnerable households, accelerate the transition to renewable energy, and fund recovery efforts in regions affected by conflict,” said Petitbon.

“The principle is clear: extraordinary profits made in times of crisis should be redirected for the public good, not concentrated in the hands of a few,” she said.

The ministers from the G7 countries—which include the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy—met virtually to discuss how the war in Iran is affecting energy and commodity markets and inflation. They called on countries “to refrain from imposing unjustified export restrictions” on oil and gas, but did not announce any specific steps they plan to take.

“We stand ready to take all necessary measures in close coordination with our partners, including to preserve the stability and security of the energy market,” the ministers said in a statement. “We recognize the importance of coordinated international action to mitigate spill overs and safeguard macroeconomic stability.”

Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency coordinated the release of 400 million barrels of oil to mitigate the supply shortfall caused by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, from which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply flows.

But gas prices across Europe have continued to rise by 70% nonetheless. In the US, the average price of gas rose to $4 per gallon on Tuesday for the first time since August 2022.

Brent crude oil, which cost about $70 per barrel before the war, has gone up to $119 per barrel, and analysts are projecting prices as high as $200 as the conflict continues.

Monday’s virtual summit was held ahead of an emergency meeting of EU energy ministers, who were told by EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen in a letter Monday that they were “encouraged to make timely preparations in anticipation of a potentially ⁠prolonged disruption” of energy imports.

Jørgensen emphasized in a video posted on social media Monday that the growing energy crisis underscores how a transition away from oil and gas toward renewable sources is crucial for economies as well as the planet.

“We will need immediate targeted measures to combat this crisis, but all of these measures need to be in line with our long-term strategy, which is more renewables as fast as possible,” said Jørgensen.

Materials released over the weekend by the Texas Department of Public Safety regarding a homeland security officer’s killing of 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez last March in Texas appeared to provide the latest evidence that federal agents have misled the public about the circumstances surrounding fatal shootings.

American Oversight, a government watchdog group, revealed last month that nearly a year before the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Martinez was the first known US citizen to be killed by an agent of the Trump administration who was carrying out official duties.

Since then, a grand jury has declined to indict the accused officer, Homeland Security Investigations agent Jack C. Stevens, and American Oversight as well as Martinez’s family and lawyers have demanded that state authorities release the findings of their investigation into the killing, with the watchdog filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

The body camera footage released on Saturday called into question statements that were made by the Department of Homeland Security after Martinez’s killing was publicly revealed, when a DHS spokesperson said the young man “intentionally ran over” an agent.

Internal documents also claimed officers commanded Martinez to get out of his car after he approached the scene of a vehicle accident and that he “accelerated forward, striking a HSI special agent who wound up on the hood of the vehicle.”

The video that was released came from a body camera worn by a South Padre Island, Texas police officer who was one of a number of local, state, and federal agents securing an area after a car accident.

About 21 minutes into the officer’s footage, someone can be heard saying, “Keep going” as Martinez’s car approaches the scene. The car briefly stops for some pedestrians, and officers soon appear to become concerned, running toward the vehicle and shouting, “Stop him” and, “Get him out.”

Martinez’s car appears to be moving slowly, with the brake lights on, as three gunshots are heard and just after.

The video then shows an officer removing Martinez from the car and throwing him on the ground while his friend who was in the car with him, Joshua Orta, is taken into custody.

The internal DHS documents said a second HSI agent Hector Sosa, was struck by the car in his legs, falling over the hood. The footage is taken from behind the car, making it unclear whether Sosa was hit—but it does not show Martinez accelerating.

If an officer was hit, University of South Carolina criminal justice professor Geoffrey P. Albert told the Washington Post, based on the footage of the car it would have been a case of “officer-created jeopardy.”

“The contradictory orders are confusing and may have been a strong influence,” Alpert told the Post. “The speed is slow and doesn’t appear threatening. Could the officer have moved away? At worst, all he has to do is step aside.”

He added that the body camera video raises “a lot of red flags.”

Lawyers for Martinez’s family, Charles M. Stam and Alex Stamm, said in a statement that the videos confirm the 23-year-old’s car “was barely moving when he was shot.”

“He was shot at point-blank range through his side window by an ICE agent who was in no danger,” said the attorneys.

Orta, who was killed last month in an unrelated vehicle accident in San Antonio, provided a witness statement after Martinez was killed, saying “I state clearly and without hesitation that Ruben did not hit anyone,” Orta wrote. “The trooper seemed to be trying to get in front of the car, like he wasn’t moving out of the way when we tried to turn around and leave like the police officer told us to do.”

More than a dozen people have been killed by federal immigration officers since President Donald Trump took office for his second term in January 2025.

In the case of Good, an independent autopsy was conducted as part of a civil investigation into her killing and found “strong evidence” against the agent who shot her, calling into question the Trump administration’s claim that the officer had killed the 37-year-old in self-defense.

A preliminary government investigation into Pretti’s killing did not find that the legal observer had threatened or attacked the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection agents who fatally shot him, as the administration had first claimed.

Both Pretti and Good were immediately denounced as “domestic terrorists” by administration officials.

DHS also claimed that Marimar Martinez, a Chicago resident who was shot several times by a federal agent but survived last October, had “rammed” officers’ vehicles. Body camera footage and text messages from officers later undermined those claims. Federal prosecutors abruptly dropped their criminal case against Martinez weeks after she was shot.

The video of Martinez’s killing in Texas, said columnist Nicholas Kristof, suggests that the DHS account of that incident “may be a lie” as well.

As President Donald Trump on Thursday held the first meeting of the so-called Board of Peace, the international organization ostensibly set up to oversee the Gaza ceasefire plan, contracting documents leaked to the Guardian provide the latest evidence that the board aims to permanently occupy the area that’s been under Israeli bombardment for more than two years.

The documents detail plans for a sprawling military base with capacity for 5,000 people that’s set to be built over 350 acres in southern Gaza, which is currently under Israeli control as stipulated by the ceasefire deal reached in October.

The base would serve as the headquarters for the International Stabilization Force (ISF), a future military force composed of troops from more than 20 countries that have signed on to the Board of Peace—an effort that has not secured support from a number of major US allies including the United Kingdom, the European Union, and key EU members such as France, Germany, and Spain.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at the Munich Security Conference last week that plans for the Board of Peace do not match the original United Nations mandate, which she said “provided for it to be limited in time until 2027, it provided for the Palestinians to have a say, and it referred to Gaza, whereas the statute of the Board of Peace makes no reference to any of these things.”

In Davos last month, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner unveiled the board’s plans for a “New Gaza,” including areas for “coastal tourism” and residential towers.

The ISF, which has been approved by the UN Security Council, would be tasked with securing Gaza’s border and protecting civilians while training and overseeing Palestinian police forces.

But Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian former peace negotiator, told the Guardian that the establishment of a massive military base by the Board of Peace—of which Trump has been named as the permanent leader, according to its UN-approved charter—can only be seen as an act of US occupation.

“Whose permission did they get to build that military base?” Buttu asked.

A Trump administration official denied that US military forces will be stationed at the military base and declined to discuss the contracting documents when asked about them by the Guardian.

“As the president has said, no US boots will be on the ground,” the official told the outlet. “We’re not going to discuss leaked documents.”

The plans viewed by the Guardian detail 26 armored watchtowers, a network of bunkers for troops to go for protection, a small-arms range, and a barbed-wire perimeter.

The documents also describe plans to conduct a “geophysical survey” of the site planned for the military base to identify “subterranean voids, tunnels, or large cavities”—likely a reference to tunnels used by Hamas—and includes a “Human Remains Protocol.”

“If suspected human remains or cultural artifacts are discovered, all work in the immediate area must cease immediately, the area must be secured, and the contracting officer must be notified immediately for direction,” reads the document.

The bodies of about 10,000 Palestinians are believed to be buried under rubble across Gaza, according to the exclave’s civil defense agency. Israel’s bombardment of Gaza—which has continued with attacks since the ceasefire was reached last October—has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians and damaged approximately 81 of all structures in the exclave, according to the UN Satellite Center. The agency said in October that 123,464 buildings were classified as “destroyed.”

On Thursday, Trump spoke at the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace about plans for the body to “strengthen up the United Nations” and “almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly.”

He also said the US would be paying $10 billion into the Board of Peace but did not explain how that investment would be funded or whether Congress, which would have to approve the funds, had been consulted.

The meeting, said one organizer with the grassroots group People’s Forum, was a “petrifying projection of imperialist dystopia.”

“Trump and the Board of Peace’s plan,” they said, “is to enact neo-colonialism in Gaza and across occupied Palestine through an Israeli and international police force, and nothing more.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long sought regime change in Cuba, and new reporting from Drop Site News on Monday suggested he may be intentionally misrepresenting the Trump administration’s current policy in the communist country to achieve his goal.

The outlet reported that, based on the accounts of five Cuban and US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the “deal” that President Donald Trump has said is likely to be finalized soon is not being pursued in any high-level, official diplomatic discussions.

Soon after issuing an executive order that labeled Cuba an extraordinary threat, accused it of harboring terrorists, and threatened other countries with sanctions if they provide oil to the Cuban government, Trump said his administration is “talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens.”

But one senior White House official explained to Drop Site that “he’s saying that because that’s what Marco is telling him.”

If the public and the president himself believe that high-level negotiations are taking place, “in a few weeks or months, Rubio will be able to claim that the talks were futile because of Cuban intransigence,” Drop Site reported, asserting that Rubio is “deliberately” blocking Trump from the talks and misleading him.

A lie like the one Drop Site‘s sources alleged, said reporter Ryan Grim, “would be a defining scandal in any other administration.”

The idea that talks are taking place has been “accepted as fact” in Washington, DC, reported the outlet, which pointed to Politico‘s recent reporting that said the son of former Cuban President Raúl Castro traveled to Mexico for talks with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Politico‘s article was sourced to a Cuban dissident blogger and a “single, fantastical Facebook post made by a Spain-based Cuban journalist.”

Drop Site noted that while Trump is currently threatening Cuba’s economy and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people with an oil blockade, having cut off the Venezuelan oil supply to the island after ordering an invasion of the South American country over a month ago, he doesn’t appear to be driven by an “ideological confrontation with Cuba” and in fact holds potential financial interests in normalizing relations with the country because he holds a registered trademark for a Trump property in Havana.

Rubio, whose family immigrated to the US from Cuba before the Cuban Revolution—but didn’t flee Fidel Castro’s takeover as he claimed early in his political career—has long called for regime change in the country.

The US State Department refuted the accounts of Drop Site‘s five sources and told the outlet that diplomatic talks—which Cuban leaders have said they are entirely open to holding—are taking place, but did not provide evidence or details.

“As the president stated, we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal. Cuba is a failing nation whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela and with Mexico ceasing to send them oil,” the State Department press office said.

That claim contradicted a comment from Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, who told CNN last week that the government has had “some exchanges of messages” with the White House.

“We cannot say we have set a bilateral dialogue at this moment,” he said.

Drop Site News’ reporting indicates, said Cuban-American organizer and New York City Council candidate Danny Valdes, that “Marco Rubio is personally overseeing the starvation of an entire nation,” while Cuban leaders “want dialogue and a way forward, without surrendering their sovereignty.”