Cuba

Senate rejects bid to check Trump on Cuba

Dems picked up one GOP vote — but remain short of a winning majority.

Connor O'Brien

Senate Democrats again lost a bid to curb President Donald Trump’s authority to wield military force — despite making their first inroads with the GOP in weeks of efforts to temper the administration’s foreign policy.

This time, Democrats proposed checking Trump on Cuba, as the president has upped economic pressure on Havana and threatened military action against the nearby adversary.

Republicans succeeded in sidelining the resolution in a 51-47 procedural vote, signaling Trump’s continued sway over the GOP. But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) — who has most recently opposed attempts to hem in Trump on Iran — sided with Democrats, as did Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, as with previous votes on Iran, sided with Republicans to kill the resolution.

The move by Collins — the chair of the Appropriations Committee who faces perhaps the toughest reelection bid of any GOP incumbent — is a notable shift. The Maine Republican has separately signaled that she won’t support further military action against Iran when the conflict reaches a key 60-day legal mark for Congress to authorize continued operations.

In forcing the debate, Democrats — led by Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Adam Schiff of California — argued that Congress should head off another potential conflict, citing Trump’s threats toward Cuba, as the nearly two-month-old war with Iran grinds on with no clear end.

The Cuba vote was the latest in a series of war powers measures to face defeat in the Senate in recent months — including five failed votes on Iran and multiple unsuccessful attempts to check Trump on Venezuela.

Lawmakers, are set to pivot to again debating Iran. Both the House and Senate are expected to vote again to curb the Iran war.

Though futile without GOP support, Democrats have for months signaled they intend to use special war powers votes to force Republicans into politically fraught votes, one of the few levers the minority party can wield.

Ahead of the vote, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Republicans to “do Trump a favor” by voting to rein him in now.

“Republicans must get out in front of a looming catastrophe in Cuba before it gets even worse, as they should have done with Trump’s war in Iran,” Schumer said.

Trump has repeatedly floated a regime change push in Cuba, a U.S. adversary for nearly seven decades, and said earlier this month the Caribbean island nation is “next.”

The Pentagon under the Trump administration has increasingly made the Western Hemisphere a strategic priority, ramping up the U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean late last year and launching a steady series of attacks against vessels suspected of ferrying narcotics. The buildup culminated in a surprise raid into Venezuela that seized then-leader Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro’s ouster halted critical shipments of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, and the U.S. has imposed an energy blockade, with Trump threatening tariffs on nations that provide oil to Havana. The blockade has deepened the nation’s economic humanitarian crisis and ramped up pressure on the government of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, whose state is home to the largest Cuban population in the country, charged Democrats with ignoring human rights violations of Cuba’s government in favor of scoring political points against Trump.

“This president has never said he wants to put boots on the ground,” Scott said. “This is a complete waste of time and it is a complete insult to Cubans in Cuba and Cubans in my state.”

At the same time, the Iran war has put Cuba on the back burner for now, and Trump has signaled the U.S. may not be prepared yet to upend the regime there. Trump last month permitted a Russian oil tanker to dock in Cuba, with the White House citing “humanitarian reasons.” Russia said shortly after that it plans to send a second tanker.

Even hotter.........

Last year was hot. Next year will be even hotter.

Nearly all of Europe was warmer than average in 2025, scientists found.

By Zia Weise

 Europe saw one of its warmest years on record in 2025, scientists found in a report published Wednesday, as the world braces for a major El Niño event likely to send global temperatures soaring even higher.

Intense heat waves swept Europe on land and sea last year, as countries suffered record wildfires, significant glacier shrinkage and widespread drought, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and EU scientists said in their annual assessment of the continent’s climate.

The continent saw its hottest year on record, according to WMO data, which includes Greenland and the Caucasus as part of Europe. The EU’s Copernicus observation program, which excludes those territories, marked 2025 down as the second- or third-hottest year ever.

Depending on the dataset used, up to 99 percent of Europe saw higher-than-normal temperatures last year, the report found. That marked "the first time that almost the entire continent saw above-average annual temperatures,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus' climate change service.

The findings come as the WMO and other organizations are expecting an El Niño — a naturally occurring climate pattern that tends to intensify the effects of human-caused global warming — to develop later in the year, likely driving up temperatures across the world into 2027.

“If you remember, 2024 was the warmest year on record, and that was because of El Niño,” Celeste Saulo, WMO secretary-general, told reporters Monday, while caveating that “we would like to wait until May to see whether this El Niño evolves into a stronger El Niño.”

Both the WMO and the United Kingdom’s Met Office have said they expect this El Niño to be unusually strong, sometimes dubbed a “super” El Niño. 

“Scientists are telling us that this could be the strongest El Niño event so far this century,” Grahame Madge, a Met Office spokesperson, said earlier this month.  

Each El Niño year has unique effects, intensifying rainfall or droughts in different parts of the world. But they generally push up global temperatures, with the maximum impact typically felt the following year. 

Already, 2026 is shaping up to be the world’s second-warmest year on record, according to some analyses. 

For Europe, the past winter was one of the coldest in recent years, but temperatures are rebounding. Last month was the continent’s second-hottest March on record.

Wednesday’s report confirmed that 2025 marked Europe’s worst wildfire season on record, both in terms of the land burnt and the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the blazes.

Sea temperatures around Europe were the highest on record for the fourth consecutive year. Last year was also one of the three driest years since the early 1990s. Glaciers all across the continent lost mass, with the Greenland ice sheet shrinking by 139 gigatons — equivalent “to losing 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools every single hour,” according to Burgess.

Overall, Europe has warmed by around 2.5 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era, with the continent heating significantly faster than the global average of 1.4 C due to factors including its geography and changing weather patterns, as well as cleaner air and decreasing snow cover reflecting less solar radiation back into space.

The report also found that the area in Europe experiencing winter days with freezing temperatures is declining due to climate change.

“The fact that Europe is warming twice as fast as other continents is worrying, and we need to act on this,” Dušan Chrenek, a senior official in the European Commission’s climate department, told reporters on Monday. “We need to drive transformational change to make Europe significantly better prepared for and more resilient to climate impacts."

Charles saw something much different

Trump saw 2 kings, Charles saw something much different

In only the second such address by a sitting British monarch, Charles called for “unyielding resolve” in defense of Ukraine and discussed the Magna Carta, which declared that even kings must obey the law.

By Alex Gangitano

King Charles III on Tuesday stood before a joint session of Congress and delivered among the most pointed comments any allied leader has given on American soil during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Charles invoked NATO’s Article 5 response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a direct rebuke to Trump’s regular needling of NATO allies as not doing enough for the United States. He called for “unyielding resolve” in defense of Ukraine and pointed to the establishment of the Magna Carta in 1215, which declared that even a king isn’t above the law.

“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time … we answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder,” the king said.

The speech, much like the four-day trip, was meant to be an explicit reminder of the “special relationship” between the two countries and an implicit rebuke of an administration that has dismissed the transatlantic alliance as a necessity of a bygone era.

Charles’ words – including an exhortation of respect for what he called “this citadel of democracy” – were delivered amid the ceremonial platform of a state visit Trump has filled with pageantry: honor guards, a flyover by military jets, elaborate gift exchanges and a black tie dinner.

The king and queen will travel to New York on Wednesday to visit the 9/11 memorial in lower Manhattan for a wreath laying, which New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are expected to join.

Beyond the shade, Charles also praised the relationship between the two countries, and unequivocally condemned Saturday’s shooting attack at a journalism gala, saying “such acts of violence will never succeed.”

Trump noted in his remarks the irony of honoring the British king to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, but claimed, “American patriots today can sing ‘my country ‘tis of thee, great land of liberty’ because our colonial ancestors first sang ‘God Save the King.’” He called the U.K. the closest friend to the U.S. and praised the militaries for fighting together. On the White House X account appeared a photograph of Trump and the king laughing together with the caption, “TWO KINGS,” mocking critics who refer to him as a wannabe monarch in the widespread “No Kings” rallies across the country.

He also said he would be watching the king’s address – only the second such time a sitting British monarch has addressed a joint session of Congress.

In that address, the king made clear he did not forget Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that allied forces stayed “a little off the front lines” in the war in Afghanistan, receiving sharp criticism for it from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other NATO allies.

Charles also directly quoted Starmer, who has clashed with Trump in recent months over the U.K.’s refusal to provide full military support for the U.S. and Israeli operation against Iran. Trump has also taken aim at the UK for not acting to help the U.S. military reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“As my prime minister said last month, ours is an indispensable partnership. We must not disregard everything that has sustained us for the last 80 years. Instead, we must build on it,” the king said.

And he nodded to the impacts of climate change, saying the world must “address the collapse of critical natural systems, which threatens far more than the harmony and essential diversity of nature.”

Ahead of Charles’ trip to Congress, Trump came out of their private meeting— during which gifts were exchanged to mark the centuries-old relationship— declaring “it was a really good meeting” and calling Charles “fantastic” and suggesting it was a “real honor” to meet with him.

He rolled out pomp and circumstance for the king and queen’s arrival, including honor guards from various branches of the U.S. military and an F-35 flyover while Trump and Charles, and their wives, watched from the balcony.

Later Tuesday, the two leaders will attend a black tie state dinner with 100 other guests.

Having a hard time.... Good...

Putin scales back Red Square military parade amid Ukraine war struggles

The Russian armed forces are laboring in the Donbas, while Ukrainian drones expose the Kremlin’s vulnerabilities.

By Veronika Melkozerova

The Kremlin's annual May 9 military parade, celebrating victory in World War II, will not feature tanks, artillery or missile systems as Russia's armed forces struggle to push through defensive fortifications in eastern Ukraine.

Regular Ukrainian drone attacks on key sites across Russia have also exposed vulnerabilities deep inside the country, while Moscow has also struggled to replenish its troop numbers amid the bloody conflict in the Donbas.

"Due to the current operational situation, students of the Suvorov military and Nakhimov schools, cadet corps, and military equipment column will not participate in the military parade this year," the Russian defense ministry said in a statement late Tuesday.

May 9, which marks the Soviet triumph over Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, has become a core symbol of Russia’s modern militaristic ideology and one of its justifications for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 under the pretext of fighting Naziism, which it accuses Ukraine of harboring.

Parades in Moscow have traditionally included columns of troops, dozens of tanks, artillery systems, air defense, nuclear-capable weapons and other military equipment columns.

This year, the parade will include veterans of Russia’s war against Ukraine, some military students, marines and a military aviation show.

While there is limited independent battlefield information, the Ukrainian armed forces regularly update estimated Russian losses in Ukraine.

As of Wednesday, according to Kyiv, Russia has lost more than 1 million troops dead and wounded, more than 11,000 tanks, 24,490 armored vehicles, 40,000 artillery systems, more than 1,300 anti-aircraft systems, 435 jets and 350 helicopters in Ukraine since 2022.

POLITICO was not able to verify those numbers. Independent OSINT analytics from Oryx, a Dutch warfare research group collating verified, visually confirmed information about both Ukrainian and Russian losses during the war, confirmed that as of April 1, Russia had lost more than 24,487 different kinds of military equipment in Ukraine.

Needs to do more

EU says Meta needs to do more to keep under-13s off Instagram and Facebook

Brussels is under pressure to protect kids online as countries move forward with social media bans.

By Eliza Gkritsi

Meta is not doing enough to keep kids under 13 off its platforms and must change the design of Instagram and Facebook, the European Commission said Wednesday.

It’s the second warning to be issued to protect kids under the bloc’s digital rules after the Commission in February accused TikTok of harming teens with addictive design.

Brussels is under pressure from EU capitals to do more to protect kids on the internet as several countries move forward with social media bans.

Should the platforms be found guilty of breaching the EU’s Digital Services Act, they risk fines of up to 6 percent of their annual global revenue.

Meta can now respond to the findings and offer remedies to avoid a fine.

Meta spokesperson Toby Partlett said the company invested "in technologies to find and remove underage users and will have more to share next week about additional measures rolling out soon ... Understanding age is an industry-wide challenge, which requires an industry-wide solution."

The Commission said the measures Meta has put in place on Instagram and Facebook do not stop kids under 13 from accessing the platform. Citing “large bodies of evidence” that 10-12 percent of kids under 13 are on at least one of the two platforms, it said Meta needs to strengthen those measures, change its risk assessment and do more overall to cut risks to kids.

The Commission is working on its own app that platforms can use to verify the age of users, which it will on Wednesday tell EU countries to use. There are “no more excuses” for social media platforms, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this month.

Other parts of the Commission’s almost two-year investigation into whether Meta is breaching the Digital Services Act, including whether Meta is designed in an addictive way, are outstanding.

Trial against OpenAI begins

As trial against OpenAI begins, Elon Musk seeks Sam Altman's ouster

John Ruwitch

A courtroom brawl between two of the tech industry's most powerful leaders, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is underway in Oakland, California in a case that could transform one of the world's most important artificial intelligence companies.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today because the defendants in this case stole a charity," Steve Molo, an attorney for Musk, said in his opening statement.

In his lawsuit, Musk has argued that Altman steered the company they cofounded a decade ago, ChatGPT creator OpenAI, away from its original mission as a nonprofit meant to develop advanced AI for the benefit of humanity and free of profit motives.

The case hinges on a decision early on by OpenAI's founders that they needed to create a for-profit entity to tap capital markets for funding on a scale necessary to build advanced AI. When discussions about who would run the for-profit business broke down in 2018, Musk left.

The following year, OpenAI launched a for-profit division, which has since ballooned in value; at the end of March, the company said it was worth $852 billion.

Now, Musk's lawyers are set to argue that Altman and others enriched themselves illegally through that for-profit conversion.

"They enriched themselves, they made themselves more powerful, and they breached the very basic principles on which the charity was founded," Molo said in court.

According to his suit, Musk is seeking a rollback of that change, and wants Altman, OpenAI President Greg Brockman and financial backer Microsoft to "disgorge" tens of billions of dollars in "ill-gotten gains" that have flowed from it.

Musk is also seeking Altman's ouster as a director of OpenAI's nonprofit board, and removal of both Altman and Brockman as officers of the for-profit company.

As part of his opening statement, Molo asked Musk to stand up, which he did — waving to the people in the courtroom.

"Everybody seems to know Mr. Musk and everybody seems to have an opinion about Mr. Musk," Molo said. But he reminded the jury that they took an oath to put their opinions aside, and thanked them for it. "The case isn't about Mr. Musk, it's about the defendants," he said.

He also filled the jury in on Musk's personal and business history; growing up in South Africa, immigrating to Canada and the United States, and giving a brief overview of Musk's companies including SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink.

Molo said that since college Musk has been concerned about what could happen when computers become smarter than people, and that over the course of the trial, his attorneys would call experts to testify about some of those risks, including the possibility that an AI could manipulate financial markets or disseminate misinformation, or that there could be a "concentration risk" caused by one powerful corporation or small group of people controlling a superpowerful AI.

"As AI became more advanced, Elon became more worried," Molo said, particularly about the idea that the government was not doing enough to curtail these risks. That led him to develop OpenAI along with Altman, Molo said, as a nonprofit intended to develop safer AI. "It wasn't a vehicle for people to get rich," Molo said. "And they wanted the technology to be open."

Musk poured about $38 million into the nonprofit over the course of about 5 years, Molo said. "Without Elon Musk there would be no OpenAI, pure and simple," he said.

Over time, Molo said, Musk and OpenAI's other leaders began discussing creating a for-profit entity to support the non-profit — he compared it to the way a museum store supports a museum.

Initially, Molo said, Musk would have majority control of the for-profit subsidiary, but eventually that would be diminished over time. But the partners could never come to an agreement, and Musk ended negotiations and later resigned from the OpenAI board.

The crux of his dispute with OpenAI, Molo said, is that OpenAI later did a $10 billion deal with Microsoft. At this point, Molo said, OpenAI "was no longer operating for the good of humanity as a whole. It was for profit operating for the good of the defendants."

OpenAI responds

OpenAI has long contended that Musk was onboard with the conversion to a for-profit company.

In an online statement published before the trial began, OpenAI has said Musk was involved in the discussions about converting part of the company to a nonprofit, and that in 2017, "We and Elon agreed that a for-profit was the next step for OpenAI to advance the mission."

OpenAI has also argued online that its mission has never changed. The for-profit entity is a subsidiary of the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation.

The company has framed the dispute as being more of a struggle over control than over the launch of a for-profit arm: Online, OpenAI has said that Musk wanted control of the for-profit company, but "we couldn't agree to terms on a for-profit with Elon because we felt it was against the mission for any individual to have absolute control over OpenAI."

"We're sad that it's come to this with someone whom we've deeply admired—someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, started a competitor, and then sued us when we started making meaningful progress towards OpenAI's mission without him," the OpenAI statement said.

In 2023, Musk launched his own AI company, xAI, now a subsidiary of his aerospace firm SpaceX.

And in court on Tuesday, OpenAI's lead counsel William Savitt hammered those points in his opening statement. "We're here because Mr. Musk didn't get his way at OpenAI," he said. And "because he's a competitor, he will do anything he can to attack OpenAI."

In 2017, he said, Musk wanted to turn OpenAI into a for-profit with himself at the helm. But, he said, "the other founders refused to turn the keys of artificial intelligence over to one person."

Musk sought to merge OpenAI with Tesla, he continued, but the other founders rejected that, too. "They didn't want to be part of a car company that Musk controlled," Savitt said.

"Most importantly," he continued, "One person having control wasn't consistent with OpenAI's mission."

After Musk left, Savitt said, Musk was furious that OpenAI succeeded without him: "Then he launched his own competitor. Then he launched lawsuits."

Savitt said that during the trial, OpenAI's attorneys will produce evidence to show that the OpenAI nonprofit foundation remains in control of the organization and that it's doing good work.

And they will argue that Musk's true interest in this suit is not OpenAI's nonprofit status. "What he cares about is Elon Musk being at the top," Savitt said.

The trial is expected to last around three weeks.

In addition to Musk, Altman is expected to testify, along with Brockman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and several key researchers and engineers involved in OpenAI's launch.

Fuck him again... Orange fucking turd-eater.....

Trump administration challenges ABC station licenses amid Kimmel controversy

By Brian Stelter

As the Trump administration pressures ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel, the Trump-aligned FCC is challenging the network’s station licenses, setting up a legal battle with ABC’s parent company Disney.

“Disney’s ABC is hereby directed to file license renewals for all of their licensed TV stations within 30 days — in other words, by May 28, 2026,” the agency said in an order published Tuesday afternoon.

The order will not affect the local stations right away. It is just the start of a protracted legal process, and ABC has broad legal protections.

Nevertheless, the FCC order is an extraordinary escalation by the Trump administration.

While the FCC asserts that the license review is related to an ongoing probe into Disney’s diversity initiatives, it is being widely viewed as a form of government retaliation for airing Kimmel’s show and resisting Trump’s pressure.

“This weapon certainly hasn’t been deployed against a major broadcaster in many decades,” public interest lawyer Andrew Jay Schwartzman told CNN.

Disney responded to the FCC’s action by saying that “ABC and its stations have a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, emergency information, and public‑interest programming.”

“We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels,” Disney’s statement said. “Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”

Earlier, Disney executives opted not to respond to Trump’s Monday afternoon Truth Social post blaming Kimmel for Saturday’s shooting incident outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and saying he “should be immediately fired.”

But actions speak louder than words, and Disney’s actions have shown support for Kimmel. Airing his show Monday night was the strongest defense of all, particularly because the show was briefly suspended last fall amid an earlier campaign of government pressure against ABC.

Kimmel stands his ground

In his Monday night monologue, Kimmel said his comment last week that has garnered so much criticism in the wake of the shooting — about First Lady Melania Trump looking like an “expectant widow” — was a joke “about the fact that (Trump is) almost 80 and she’s younger than I am.”

Kimmel told viewers, “Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I and as are all of us, because under the First Amendment we have as Americans the right to free speech.”

Kimmel’s monologue has racked up millions of views on YouTube and has garnered him widespread praise from TV critics and free expression advocates.

It also attracted even more criticism from the White House on Tuesday, with communications director Steven Cheung assailing Kimmel for not apologizing, and insisting that ABC “needs to fire him immediately.”

Then came word of the FCC license examination.

The FCC is the US government agency that manages the use of public spectrum by granting licenses to local radio and TV stations. Licensees apply for renewals every eight years, and licenses are virtually never revoked.

But in the Trump era, the FCC is wielding its power in new ways.

Tuesday’s order involves the eight ABC stations that Disney owns and operates in cities such as New York and Chicago, not the 200-plus ABC-affiliated stations across the United States that are owned by other companies.

The eight licenses in question aren’t due for renewal for years. But FCC chair Brendan Carr signaled last month that he might take this step, writing on X, “The Communications Act authorizes the FCC to call in licenses for early renewal.”

A rare move with little precedent

The FCC had not filed an early-renewal order in decades, according to a source familiar with the matter, until Monday, when the agency took action against a small station license holder called Bridge News.

Both Bridge and Disney will now go through a lengthy hearing process, giving the stations multiple chances to respond.

“The legal standard for denying a license renewal is almost insurmountable,” Schwartzman told CNN, adding that “a hearing and subsequent judicial review would take years, during which time the broadcaster can continue to operate as normal.”

The FCC said in its Tuesday paperwork that it has been investigating Disney’s ABC stations “for possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules, including the agency’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination.”

Carr, following the president’s lead, has depicted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at companies like Disney as discriminatory and has pushed media companies to abandon those programs.

In a recent podcast taping with Katie Miller, wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Carr said the investigation of Disney has surfaced evidence that “suggests” the company was “dividing and categorizing employees based on race and gender.”

He said “that could raise character questions about the company,” seemingly justifying a review of Disney’s licenses, since the FCC is charged with evaluating the “character” of license-holders.

The FCC sent a “letter of inquiry” to ABC about its daytime talk show “The View” earlier this year, signaling an investigation into whether “equal time” rules were violated. Liberal commentary on “The View” has long fueled conservative complaints about media bias.

When the process is the pressure

The FCC’s enforcement powers are limited, which is why numerous analysts — and the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner Anna Gomez — have suggested that the process is the intended punishment.

Gomez said Tuesday, of the reported plan to take action against Disney, “This is unprecedented, unlawful, and going nowhere. This political stunt won’t stick. Companies should challenge it head-on. The First Amendment is on their side.”

Press freedom advocates say Disney has numerous legal lines of defense.

“The First Amendment and the FCC’s mandate do not permit the agency to use broadcast licenses as weapons to punish broadcasters for constitutionally protected content they air,” Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement. “Brendan Carr was once a serious communications lawyer, and has repeatedly and correctly said that the FCC has no role in policing content, whether news reporting or comedians’ late-night jokes.”

“Carr’s decision to abandon his principles to kiss up to Trump to advance his career does not change the law that Carr knows full-well applies,” Stern added. “The FCC is neither the journalism police nor the humor police. This is nothing but illegal jawboning intended to intimidate ABC into kissing the ring.”

Oh fuck him......

Former FBI Director James Comey indicted over alleged ‘threat’ against Trump

By Hannah Rabinowitz, Kristen Holmes, Holmes Lybrand

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted Tuesday over a photo of seashells that officials said threatened President Donald Trump, marking the administration’s second attempt to prosecute one of his largest political opponents, three sources first told CNN.

The indictment was brought in the Eastern District of North Carolina. An arrest warrant was issued for Comey by a court clerk.

Comey faces charges of making a threat against the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, according to court documents.

The charges come with a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

“He publicly posted a photograph on the internet social media site Instagram which depicted seashells arranged in a pattern making out ‘86 47’, which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States,” the indictment says.

Trump has long pressed for his political adversaries to face charges, including the former FBI director he sees as a key leader in the perceived effort to “weaponize” justice system against him.

Last May, Comey posted a photo on social media of shells on a beach writing out the numbers “86 47,” which critics said referred to taking out or killing Trump.

When used as slang, the number 86 can refer to getting rid of or tossing something out. Trump is currently the 47th president. Comey posted the photo of the shells, writing in the caption, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

In a press conference Tuesday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche talked about the case as an example of the Justice Department’s effort to prosecute people who make threats against the president.

“Over the past year, this department has charged dozens of cases involving threats against all sorts of individuals,” Blanche said. “We take these seriously. Every single one of them.”

When asked by CNN’s Evan Perez why the Justice Department requested an arrest warrant in this case, Blanche pointed to the grand jury in North Carolina.

“The Department of Justice does not issue arrest warrants, grand juries do,” he said. “And so the grand jury returned an indictment and arrest warrant, I expect that there will be communication with Mr. Comey’s counsel, and we’ll go from there. This case will proceed like hundreds of others do every year.”

The court docket includes a request for an arrest warrant submitted with Justice Department letterhead, with no signature from the grand jury.

Almost immediately following his post, Republicans and administration officials went full bore in their criticism of Comey at the time, with then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announcing Comey would be investigated by the Secret Service over what she said was a call “for the assassination” of Trump.

The Secret Service brought Comey in for an hours-long interview with agents in Washington, DC, an uncommon step by the agency over a non-specific threat. Comey told investigators he saw the shells on a beach in North Carolina.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Fox News following Comey’s post that the former director should be “put behind bars for this” and that she was “very concerned” for Trump’s life.

Comey removed the post the same day, writing on social media that he assumed the shells represented “a political message” but “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence.”

“It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” he wrote.

Legal and security experts have told CNN such a case against Comey may be fruitless, especially given the country’s free speech protections.

A second indictment

The case against Comey marks a newly reinvigorated effort by Trump’s Justice Department to convict the former director, who became a staunch critic of the president following his firing by Trump in 2017 over the Russia-meddling investigation.

In September of last year, the Justice Department first brought charges against Comey, accusing him of lying to Congress over leaks to the press. The case was dismissed late last year by a federal judge who found that the interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia had been improperly appointed, having skirted approval from the Senate.

Comey’s attorneys declined to comment for this story.

The former director fell out of favor with Trump before he was first elected president, as Comey’s agency investigated the Trump campaign and ties to Russia. Comey was fired in the months after the inauguration.

Since his firing, Comey has become an ardent critic of Trump and key enemy of Republicans in the White House and Capitol Hill.

Maurene Comey lawsuit continues

Earlier Tuesday, a judge allowed a lawsuit brought by Comey’s daughter Maurene, a former high-profile New York federal prosecutor challenging her firing from the Justice Department, to move forward in federal court.

Maurene Comey alleges she was fired as retribution because she is the daughter of the former FBI director. She is seeking back pay and to have her legal fees paid.

She worked on some of the most prominent prosecutions by the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, including the prosecution of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez.

On July 16, two weeks after a jury convicted Combs of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, Maurene Comey received an email from Washington informing her she was fired “pursuant to Article II” of the US Constitution.

‘Weaponization’ efforts

Comey’s indictment comes as Blanche has picked up the pace in bringing cases that the president has publicly jockeyed for.

In his first week in office, Blanche oversaw the release of the Weaponization Working Group’s first report — one that alleged the Biden Justice Department was biased in how it went after abortion protesters. The department fired four prosecutors who worked on the cases.

He has made changes to the prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan – one of the most important cases to the president.

And on Tuesday, the Justice Department has been taking steps that are likely to please Trump.

The DOJ is planning to subpoena Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ bodyguards, according to a person familiar with the investigation. Willis prosecuted Trump and many others over their efforts to change the results of the 2020 election.

The Justice Department also charged a former senior official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases with concealing records during the Covid-19 pandemic. Republicans have long gone after officials who led the pandemic response over failures, real and perceived, and before leaving office, President Joe Biden pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci – the biggest target of all.

OPEC+ exit

UAE's OPEC+ exit may prompt others to follow, expert says

By Mustafa Qadri

The UAE’s exit from OPEC+ could prompt other members to follow suit in an effort to break from the cartel’s production restrictions, an expert has said.

“If there is a time to leave, now is the time,” Robin Mills, CEO of Qamar Energy, a Dubai-based consultancy, told CNN’s Becky Anderson. “You might see Kazakhstan leave as well. That’s another significant producer that wants to grow.”

The UAE has long pushed for higher OPEC and OPEC+ production quotas as it sought to expand capacity well beyond the levels assigned to it by the cartel.

Mills said the quotas have capped the UAE’s output to around 3.2 million barrels per day, suggesting production could almost double without its constraints.

OPEC is a group of oil-exporting nations that coordinates production to control supply and set prices. OPEC+ is a broader coalition that includes Russia and other countries that aren’t members of OPEC.

Nice to hear someone's making MORE profit.................

BP profits more than double on oil price impact of Iran war

By Hanna Ziady

BP’s profits more than doubled in the first three months of the year, as the company’s oil traders made the most of the wild swings in oil prices triggered by the Iran war.

The UK energy giant reported a first-quarter profit of £3.2 billion ($4.3 billion), up from £1.4 billion ($1.9 billion) in the first three months of 2025.

The boost reflected an “exceptional” oil trading result, BP said in an earnings statement Tuesday. Traders benefit from big changes in oil prices, known as volatility, if they can accurately predict the direction of travel.

Improved margins in its oil refining business also helped, as did a stronger performance from its midstream business, which handles the storage and transportation of oil and natural gas. The company’s shares gained 2.8% in London to trade at £5.88 ($8).

CEO Meg O’Neill — who took the helm at the beginning of April and is the company’s first female chief — said BP was “working relentlessly” to maintain reliable production. “We are working with customers and governments to get fuel where it’s needed, helping minimize disruption,” she added.

Brent crude oil climbed above $110 a barrel for the first time since early April Tuesday. The global oil benchmark was trading at around $73 just before the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28. It stood at $60 at the start of the year.

Meanwhile, the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, a campaign group, called for a windfall tax on firms profiting from the Iran war-related energy crisis. “These astronomical profits are a startling reminder that when conflict drives up the price of oil and (natural) gas, energy companies profit and households pay,” the group’s co-ordinator Simon Francis said in a statement.