[MUSIC]
The White House made him the face of its deportation campaign. >> And now, if herel judge in Tennessee is dismissed the criminal case against Kilmer of Briego Garcia. >> Am I Sharasko? >> And I'm Scott Simon, and this is up first from NPR News.
[MUSIC] >> The judge said the prosecution was vindictive and singled out the acting attorney general for criticism. We have details. >> Also, what Cuba's diplomatic representative to the US has to say
about Washington's demands for her country. >> Our independence are sovereignty. Our right to sell determination, our legal order,
political system that won't be never on the table.
>> And a look at electricity rates as we enter warmer weather. >> So please stay with us.
“We've got the news you need to start here weekend.”
[MUSIC] News shows, new music, new movies, keeping up with pop culture sometimes feels like a full-time job. Thankfully, over at pop culture happy-hour, it's literally our job. We break down what's actually worth watching, listening to,
and pretending you already knew about. So the next time someone says, "Did you see that?" You can say, "Yeah, obviously." Follow NPR's pop culture happy-hour wherever you get your podcasts. >> And we'll start today with Cuba and the pressure
of the US is bringing to bear on Havana.
Washington has announced criminal charges against former president Raoul Castro at the same time a US aircraft carrier was moving through the Caribbean. >> Speaking to NPR, the Cuban ambassador to the United States.
“Leonis Torres Rivera says, "Cubin is not want to war with the United States."”
>> Cuba is a country of peace. Cuba is not a threat to the US. Cuba wants only to have a future that is decided by the Cubans. Without interference. >> NPR international correspondent, Ader Parolta,
is covering it all. Ader, thanks so much for being with us. >> Hey, good morning, Scott. >> Please begin by reminding us with some of the details about what's happened so far this week. >> Yeah, I mean the United States seems to be pulling out all the stops to bring the Cuban government
to the table. They're showing the military muscle with the arrival of the aircraft carrier nimmits to the Caribbean this week. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also introduced measures targeting US resident family members of senior Cuban officials.
In one prominent case, he revoked the green card of the sister of a senior military official who oversees Gaisa and that's a Cuban military-owned conglomerate. And he said that the days of families of regime leaders leading lavish lives with quote, "stolen blood money" are over. Of course, the biggie was that the US brought criminal charges against Raul Castro,
the former president of Cuba, and the man who is still arguably the most powerful man in the country.
The US has accused him of murder and conspiracy prosecutors alleged that in 1996 when Raul Castro was a defense minister, he ordered the downing of two civilian aircraft flown by the Miami-based Cuban American group brothers to the rescue. Three US citizens and a US permanent resident were killed. >> When Ader, when we shut at the top, Cuban ambassador,
Charles NPR, that means she told you that Cuba does not want interference. What else did she have to say? >> Ambassador Leonis Torres Rivera started by pointing out that these planes were not merely humanitarians. She said, and this is true that they had been violating Cuban airspace for years.
“>> Will the US will allow a single airplane flying Washington City for example?”
>> The US government knew what was going to happen and did nothing to prevent that. Army General Raul Castro is a leader of the Cuban revolution. Why lead respected admire is the living history of the Cuban revolution, and is someone that is sacred for a Cuban. We will defend Raul as we will defend sovereignty and independence till the end.
>> Words like living history and sacred for our Cubans doesn't sound very negotiable. >> Yeah, I think that's right and I think when the ambassador says, we will defend Raul Castro until the end. We have to think about Venezuela. I remember the United States indicted former President Nicolás Maduro before they sent
US troops to swoop in and depose him by bringing him to a jail in New York. And the Cuban government has said over and over that all of these actions by the United States are not about democracy and Cuba that they're not about seeking justice. They've said these actions are about justifying a military intervention. So I asked the ambassador, what is Havana willing to put on the table
to keep something like that from happening? >> You're ready to negotiate on everything, including what the US has been asking for for decades, multi-party system more recently, a change in presidency. >> We are ready to sit and engage with the US to talk about bilateral issues.
There are red lines regarding our independence, our sovereignty,
our right to sell determination, our political system that won't be never on the table.
“As we don't ask the US to put on the table, your political system, your legal system,”
because that's up to the American people. >> And that message was reinforced in Havana on Friday. The Cuban government gathered thousands of supporters near the US Embassy. Cuban president Miguel Diaz Canel was there, and they chanted Viva Raul in Batria Omuerte, which translates to homeland or death.
>> And Pierre Jadiff, we're all to thank you so much. >> Thank you, Scott. [MUSIC] >> The criminal charges against Kilmar, a breakout Garcia, are dismissed.
A breakout Garcia is a Salvadoran immigrant, the Trump administration wrongly deported last year.
>> The federal judge in Tennessee who made the order yesterday to scrap the Trump administration's criminal charges, it's quote, "and abuse of prosecuting power." >> Member Station WPLNs, Mariana Buckeyeau joins us. Thanks for being with us. >> Thanks for having me.
“>> And remind us, please, what were the charges a standing against the Brao Garcia?”
>> The Justice Department had charged him with human smuggling around this time last year, after a breakout Garcia had won his deportation case. That was when the Supreme Court ordered that he be returned to the U.S. after the government deported him, despite a court order to keep him in the country over fears of gang violence in his native El Salvador.
When he got back, a breakout Garcia was immediately taken into custody. Those criminal charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop here in Tennessee, in body camera footage played for the court. A breakout Garcia can be seen driving in SUV with nine other men, prosecutors pointed to that as evidence of human smuggling,
alleging that a breakout Garcia was paid to drive people would cross the border into Texas. A breakout Garcia's lawyers argued that the government's criminal case was retaliation because of the embarrassment it caused the Trump administration. After he won his deportation case, he became a sort of galvanizing force for critics
of the president's hard-line immigration policy. His lawyers asked the court to dismiss the charges under a vindictive prosecution claim. And the judge apparently agreed. I would say yes and no, but it's more yes and maybe essentially the court found
that there was a presumption of indictive prosecution. That means not enough evidence for it to be definite that the government's actions were a form of retaliation but enough to drop the charges. In his ruling judge, Waverley Crenshaw took issue with the timeline in particular. So again, a breakout Garcia was pulled over in 2022.
But the government didn't file charges against him until nearly two and a half years later when it became clear the Trump administration had to bring him back to the U.S. At that point, according to internal memos from the Justice Department, the case became top priority for the DOJ. And one prosecutor, high up in Nashville's U.S. Attorney's office,
asked the DOJ not to prosecute and ended up resigning in protest.
“Are any of you been covering this case since last year?”
Did you see any signs the judge would rule this way? Judge Crenshaw asked tough questions of both sides in court. But he seemed skeptical of prosecutors going back and forth on whether they wanted to keep a brugogarcia in the U.S. to face trial or just deport him. Immigration and customs enforcement agents were parked outside the courthouse for most of the hearings.
A decision on where he would go, pending trial, dragged out for months because the DOJ said they had no control over what ICE would do and whether he would be deported before trial. The judge also warned the Trump administration not to publicly comment on a brugogarcia's case as if he had been convicted since under the law he's innocent until proven guilty.
I'd have the government reacted to the ruling. The Justice Department plans to appeal and DHS in a statement said this decision is quote naked judicial activism. As for a brugogarcia, he currently stands to be deported. His lawyers are fighting a separate immigration case that will determine where he's deported.
Miranda Bakayau with our friends at Member Station WPLN and Nashville, thanks so much. Thank you.
Finally on the podcast this Memorial Day weekend, summertime cooling during
and affordability crisis. The price of electricity is climbing as we enter months of warmer weather that points to sharply higher utility bills.
That's especially true in southern parts of the country where bills are expec...
by double digits. MPR chief economics correspondent Scott, Horsley joins us now. Welcome to the podcast, Scott. Good morning, Asia. So what's driving that climb in electricity costs? It's really a one-two punch. Electricity prices have been rising faster than inflation overall.
Power prices are up about six percent over the last year, up 39 percent over the last five years.
So every kilowatt costs you more than on top of that, many families are likely to use more kilowatt this summer because forecasters are predicting hotter than usual weather. Mark Wolf runs the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. He says his members are increasingly hearing from middle-income families who are having trouble
“with their utility bills. I think this ties into the broader issue of affordability.”
It's not just food, it's not just the costs of rent, but now it's the cost of electricity. That can't wait to start with. The federal government does have a program to help low-income families cover their utility costs, but the funding for that program has been flat for the last
three years. And with electricity prices climbing rapidly, the aid money just doesn't
stretch as far as it used to. And why is electricity itself so expensive? Well, again, it's kind of a combination of factors. Part of it is the cost of natural gas, which is a main fuel for generating electricity. That's gone up. Part of it is utilities trying to harden their power grids to handle more extreme weather. And part of it is the fast-growing demand for electricity from all those power-hungry data centers that are spring up as a result of
the artificial intelligence boom. I talked to Robin Westfall who lives about half way between Houston and Galveston near the Hot and Muggy Gulf Coast. She has seen utilities trying to be up their power grid, but she still worries about rolling brownouts that can knock out the power for several hours on the hottest days of the summer. And if it's during the day, it's miserable. We ended up buying a generator that's been official, but we did have to spend money
so that we could survive in the heat if the power grid goes off. Westfall is an elementary school teacher. She says her summer electricity bills last year were above $300 a month. And she's racing to pay even more for power this year. A generator is expensive. And that would be on top of
“regular power bills. What if people told you about how they're handling these costs?”
Well, in Westfall's case, she and her husband are cutting corners elsewhere. Maybe not going out to eat as often. They're keeping on on their grocery bill. She might have to skip that gallon of blue bell ice cream that she would like. I also spoke with Matthew Cole, who lives in Northwest Arkansas. His wife and older daughter really struggle with the heat there. So they do try to keep the house cool even though last year that meant paying about $250 a month for electricity
during the summer. Now, Cole has a full-time job and he's in the army reserves, but money is tight. So he's taken to donating plasma a couple of times a week just to help pay the bills. We have two kids on the tube between keeping them in diapers and making sure they have food.
And with the recent spikes in gas prices, higher utilities in the summer, always kind of strikes
as a little bit. And makes budgeting a little more of a complicated feat.
“One side of the hardship every year about 13 million Americans fall so far behind on their”
power bills that the electricity is temporarily turned off. Now, some states prohibit shut off on the hottest days the summer, but most states don't have restrictions like that. You know, having your power shut off is really painful. So most people do whatever it takes to get it turned back on. Even if that means missing a payment on some other bill or taking out a costly payday loan. That's impure. Scott Horsey Scott. Thanks so much. You're welcome.
And that's the first for Saturday, May 23rd, 2022, six. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Aisha Roscoe, Dave Mystitch produced today's podcast with the health from Diana Douglas, Dana Coppinaida, and Martin Patience. Our editor was Ed McNulty assisted by Ariel Plotnik, Taraniel, Gigi DuBan, and Raphael Nam. In the control room today, our director, Michael Radcliffe, and our technical directors of Angonovo, who has engineering support from Zach Coleman.
Shannon Rose is our senior supervising editor, our executive producer is Evie Stone, our deputy manager, editor is Jim K. Tomorrow on the Sunday Story, local moves to combat climate change. So thanks for listening here in the podcast feed. You know, we got so much more for you on your radio to find your local MPR station, just go to stations.mpr.org. You won't regret it. Yeah, why you're still sitting there, go.
