Cuba president talks tough about Trump as nation braces for US attack: ‘If we need to die, we’ll die"

Ryan King / NEW YORK POST  

WASHINGTON — Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel revealed that his island nation is bracing for an attack from the US and declared that he is willing to die resisting President Trump.

Since last December, the US has imposed a blockade around Venezuela as part of its Operation Southern Spear effort, and used that to cut off oil supplies to Cuba, which has since plunged further into an energy crisis.

“I don’t think there would be any justification for the United States to launch a military aggression against Cuba, or for the US to undertake a surgical operation or the kidnapping of a president,” Díaz-Canel told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, per a translation.

“If that happens, there will be fighting, and there will be a struggle, and we will defend ourselves, and if we need to die, we’ll die, because as our national anthem says, ‘dying for the homeland is to live.’” 

The Trump administration has privately signaled to Cuba’s communist government that Díaz-Canel must go, the New York Times reported. Read more here.

Iranian-Americans issue chilling warning to U.S. as they celebrate deportation of regime offspring

Benjamin Brown / NEW YORK POST  

Iranians celebrating the cancellation of visas for Islamic Regime relatives living luxurious lives in the U.S. have warned the seven deported so have are just “the tip of the iceberg.” 

Shayan Khosravanifarahani, a journalist and activist, praised State Secretary Marco Rubio for taking action against those who have ties to the regime, telling The Post that for too long they’ve living comfortably using money stolen from the Iranian people. 

He said the families of the regime were ”using American” to platform their propaganda, lobby, get educated and generally live a safe, more comfortable life.

On Saturday, Rubio revoked the green card of Seyed Eissa Hashemi, who is an an adjunct associate professor teaching at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and the son of ”Screaming Mary” Masoumeh Ebtekar, the twisted propaganda mouthpiece for terrorists who stormed the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Read more here.

Artemis II successfully splashes down, completing historic lunar mission — and another giant leap for mankind

Alex Oliveira and Anna Young / NEW YORK POST

Artemis II spectacularly splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday evening — concluding mankind’s historic return to the moon and completing the first steps toward walking on the lunar surface again.

The capsule perfectly plunked down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego precisely at 8:07 p.m. ET, with the dangerous reentry going off without a hitch as giant orange and white parachutes slowed the zooming capsule for a gentle splashdown at 19 mph.

The crew — Cmdr. Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch — are all in “excellent shape,” NASA said, calling their landing a “perfect bullseye” that was less than a mile from their target.

“Yesterday, flight director Jeff Radigan said we had less than a degree of an angle to hit after a quarter of a million miles to the moon. And their team hit it,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya. “That is not luck — that is 1,000 people doing their job.”

Artemis II’s peak velocity hit a staggering 24,664 mph — not quite enough to break Apollo 10’s record for fastest reentry in 1967 at 24,791 mph — but impressive in and of itself.Read more, see photos, and video here.

Trump urges Netanyahu to scale back Lebanon strikes — as Israel set to negotiate with Beirut

Ronny Reyes /NEW  YORK POST

 

President Trump urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale back the strikes in Lebanon that are threatening to undo the fragile cease-fire with Iran — with the Jewish state agreeing to negotiate with Beirut next week.

The president called his Israeli counterpart on Wednesday and called on him to be a helpful partner ahead of the high-stakes US-Iran talks slated to begin Saturday in Pakistan.

“I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump told NBC of his phone call with Netanyahu.

Vice President JD Vance struck a similar tone on Wednesday, telling reporters in Hungary that Israel had agreed to rein in its attacks following one of the most intense bombings of the war on Wednesday that left more than 250 people dead in Lebanon in just 10 minutes. 

 

The US and Israel have both insisted that Israel’s fight against Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group based in Lebanon, is not covered in the two-week cease-fire, but following Trump’s request, Netanyahu said Israel would open the channels for cease-fire talks.

‘Forgetting the people’: Iranians fear regime will become more brutal after ceasefire

Ending the war prematurely “could embolden the Iranian authorities, making them more repressive and self-assured,” warned Kako Aliyar, a member of a Kurdish Iranian opposition party.

Danielle Greayman-Kennard / THE JERUSALEM POST 

Iranians fear that the two-week ceasefire could stall momentum to topple the Islamic regime, potentially emboldening authorities and worsening repression, diaspora-based Iranians told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Kako Aliyar, a member of the leadership committee of the Kurdish Iranian opposition party Komala, who fled Iran at age 16 and joined the Kurdish opposition at 18, said that while war “is never desirable,” there was “no viable alternative” to removing the Islamic regime.

The war “inevitably carries risks for civilians,” but so too does the regime’s “killing, torturing, and persecution” of its own population, he continued.

“As Kurdish people, we have opposed the Islamic regime in Iran for nearly five decades, often in isolation and without external support,” he explained.

“For this reason, any weakening of the regime is generally perceived positively among us. Although we have had no direct involvement in the current war, there is a widespread sentiment among Kurds and Kurdish political parties that, after almost half a century, the time may have come for us to live freely and secure our legitimate rights within Iran,” Aliyar continued.

US military 'loading up and resting,' Trump says, as Iran tests ceasefire

President Donald Trump says the U.S. military is biding its time Thursday as Iran tests the boundaries of the ongoing two-week ceasefire. Trump says the U.S. will keep troops stationed in the Middle East until a wider peace deal is approved.

Covered by: Anders Hagstrom / Fox News 

 

Trump warns US forces will stay near Iran until lasting deal is secured

President Donald Trump said late Wednesday that U.S. forces would remain near Iran until a lasting peace agreement is finalized.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the U.S. military would be on standby until a “REAL AGREEMENT” with Iran is secured.

“All U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel, with additional Ammunition, Weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded Enemy, will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with,” Trump wrote.

“If for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the ‘Shootin’ Starts,’ bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before,” he added. Read more here.

Eligible young men will automatically be registered for US military draft later this year

Victor Nava / NEW YORK POST 

 

Congress approved automatic registration for the draft last December as part of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, must-pass legislation that authorizes funding for military personnel and operations.

The federal government plans to automatically register eligible men for the military draft beginning in December, according to a proposed rule published last week. 

The Selective Service System (SSS), the government agency that maintains the database of draft-eligible Americans, submitted the “automatic registration” rule change to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on March 30.  

“This statutory change transfers responsibility for registration from individual men to SSS through integration with federal data sources,” the agency notes on its website. “SSS will implement the change by December 2026, resulting in a streamlined registration process and corresponding workforce realignment.” 

Under federal law, most males between 18 and 25 years old are already required to register with the Selective Service System in case a military draft is authorized.