Happy Tuesday Everyone! Today’s newsletter: 1,203 words…4.5 mins
🗞 Today’s Edition: American Communists Throw Food At Cuban Kids, The King's Coming To America, Mullin Sworn In, Taliban Frees American Prisoner, Elon's Chip Factory, DarkSword… & much more!
❓Do you who America’s youngest President is? It’s probably not who you think. Scroll down to find out…
📜THE HIGHLIGHT
One killer insight to stash in your back pocket
Left: The CodePink convoy, Center-top: Still of clip showing activists throwing food at Cuban kids; Center bottom: Hasan Piker streaming from his hotel room; Right: Activists enjoying their concert
🏨 Communism Tourists Check In — Cubans Still In The Dark
650 leftist activists descended on Havana to protest the real oppressor of the Cuban people. No, not the communist government overseeing 67 years of poverty, mass emigration, and political prisoners — they’re protesting American policy.
Their weapon of choice: 5-star hotels, solidarity concerts, and throwing food at children to make them dance on camera.
➡ What happened:
The “Nuestra América Convoy”—backed by CodePink, The People's Forum, and Progressive International—landed in Havana (~March 21).
650+ delegates, 33 countries, ~20 tons of aid.
Big names: Hasan Piker, Isra Hirsi.
Met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, pushed to end the U.S. embargo.
💥 The Internet’s Blowing Up:
🎙 Hasan Piker (Twitch streamer, Mamdani’s friend, net worth: millions):
Livestreamed from a generator-powered suite at the Gran Hotel Bristol Meliá Collection while Cubans endured 20-hour blackouts.
He wore a $5,000 outfit to explain why capitalism is bad.
🚨The viral moment: Hasan Piker and other convoy members approached kids in the streets, tossing cookies and candy, to make them smile and dance — then filmed it for content. These viral clips were covered by Sky News and others.
Cubans online warned each other to keep their children away.
Critics called it exploitative and tone-deaf.
💃 Solidarity Concerts & Parties: The delegation also attended/held events, concerts (including by Irish hip-hop act Kneecap); while Cuba faced blackouts and shortages.
🖐 Also in attendance: Isra Hirsi (daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar), a DSA delegation, and UK’s Jeremy Corbyn.
💡 Bottom line: Americans who enjoy free speech, free assembly, and the right to leave — used all three to fly to Cuba and tell the world it's Washington's fault.
♟️THE CHESSBOARD
Geopolitics Decoded In 3 Moves
Throwback to President Trump and First Lady Melania’s historic State Visit to the UK in 2025. Left to right: First Lady Melania, President Trump, Their Royal Majesties the King and Queen; PM Kier Starmer and First Lady at Windsor Castle
👑 The King Is Coming — And Congress Cleared Its Calendar
King Charles III is expected to make a State visit to the U.S. around April 27–29, just ahead of America's 250th birthday — and it's a big deal wrapped in a slim itinerary.
First British Royal to address Congress since Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 — Charles will speak to a joint session in the House chamber. House Republicans already reshuffled their schedule to keep members in town.
The program: White House State dinner with Trump, a New York stop, and a possible third location — all compressed to accommodate the King's ongoing cancer recovery.
💡 Bottom line: The empire that lost America is coming back to help it celebrate — and Congress is rolling out the red carpet.
🥷Taliban Frees American...Calls It a "Goodwill Gesture"
Dennis Coyle, a 64-year-old Colorado academic, was dragged from his Kabul apartment in January 2025 and held for over a year. This week, the Taliban released him — framing it as "humanitarian sympathy" ahead of Eid.
Qatar and the UAE helped broker it; former U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad flew to Kabul first.
The U.S. formally designated Afghanistan a "hostage diplomacy" state earlier this month — putting it in the same category as Iran.
💡 Bottom line: When you grab a 64-year-old professor and release him 14 months later as a "gesture" — that's not diplomacy. That's a hostage program with better PR.
⛽ Philippines Hits Record Fuel Prices — Declares Energy Emergency
Iran's Hormuz blockade isn't just a Middle East problem. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared a national energy emergency as fuel prices cracked P100 per liter — roughly $6.50/gallon in American terms — for the first time, a direct ripple from a war thousands of miles away.
What it unlocks: Under Philippine law, the government can now temporarily seize control of oil firms, impose price caps, and freeze further hikes — tools last used after a 2009 typhoon.
Context: 98% of Philippines’ oil comes from the Gulf.
💡Bigger picture: The Senate is debating suspending power market mechanisms entirely as supply chain fears deepen.
🗽THE EMPIRE FILES
Political Drama From DC To NYC
🥊 Trump's New Homeland Secretary Gets Sworn In — Inherits A Mess
Sen. Markwayne Mullin was sworn in as Secretary of Homeland Security today, confirmed 54-45 in a Senate vote where Sen. Rand Paul said No and 2 Democrats said Yes. He takes the keys on March 31.
What he's walking into: A partial DHS shutdown affecting 100,000 of 250,000 employees, with the President refusing a funding deal unless Democrats back his SAVE America Act voting reforms.
The full inheritance: ICE, TSA, FEMA, and the Secret Service — all in one inbox.
⚡Mullin stated he’d work 365 days at keeping the homeland safe regardless of whether the state was blue or red.
✈️ Delta Pulls Congress's VIP Perks
Six weeks into the DHS shutdown, 50,000 TSA officers are working without pay and airport lines are a nightmare.
Delta's response: Strip members of Congress of their "red coat" escorts and priority perks. No more special treatment beyond whatever your SkyMiles status actually earned you.
CEO Ed Bastian has publicly called out Congress for using TSA agents as "political chips" in the shutdown fight.
⚡Congress created the chaos — Delta just made sure they have to stand in it.
🤖 CODES & POWER
Tech Wars, Crypto Chaos, and AI’s Black Mirror Moments
🏭 Musk Bets $25B To Never Buy A Chip From Anyone Ever Again
Elon Musk announced "Terafab" — a $25 billion semiconductor plant in Austin, Texas, jointly built by Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI.
"We either build the Terafab or we don't have the chips."
The goal: produce every chip his empire needs in-house, from Tesla vehicles and Optimus robots to SpaceX satellites and xAI data centers.
⚡This is a full vertical integration with 2-nanometer technology, targeting 1 million wafers a month, and it reduces dependency on all suppliers including Samsung.
📱DarkSword: A Hacker Toolkit For Your iPhone Just Leaked On GitHub
A exploit kit called DarkSword — previously used by Chinese and Russian state-sponsored hackers — just got leaked publicly on GitHub.
It targets iPhones running iOS 18.4 and older, hijacking messages, emails, and location data through a single malicious link.
No app download required. It extracts everything in minutes, then self-deletes.
Hundreds of millions of unpatched devices currently vulnerable. A second leaked kit, Coruna, chains 23 separate exploits targeting iOS 13 through 17.2.1.
⚡Fix? Update to iOS 26 immediately. That's it. That's the whole fix.
📺 FUN FACTS & TRIVIA
America’s Youngest President
Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest U.S. President in history at just 42 years and 322 days old—after President McKinley’s assassination in 1901.
JFK, in comparison, was 43 years and 236 days in 1961 at inauguration.