Cuba Pressure, Abrego Garcia Charges, Cooling Costs

0:01The White House made him the face of its deportation campaign. And now a federal judge in Tennessee has dismissed the criminal case against Kilmer Abrego-Garcia. I'm Ayesha Rascoe. And I'm Scott Simon and this is Up First from NPR News. 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 U.S. has to say about Washington's demands for her country. Our independence, our sovereignty, our right to self-determination, our legal order, our political system that won't be never on the table.

0:41And a look at electricity rates as we enter warmer weather. So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

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1:36MidiHealth, committed to helping women in midlife with paramenopause and menopause care. Accessible via telehealth visits at joinmidi.com. This message comes from Capital One with the Venture X Card. Earn unlimited double miles, a$300 annual Capital One travel credit, and access to airport lounges. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Details at CapitalOne.com. And we'll start today with Cuba and the pressure the U.S. is bringing to bear on Havana. Washington has announced criminal charges against former President Raul Castro at the same time a U.S. aircraft carrier was moving through the Caribbean.

2:18Speaking to NPR, the Cuban ambassador to the United States, Lianas Torres-Rivera, says Cuba does not want a war with the United States. Cuba is a country of peace. Cuba is not a threat to the U.S. Cuba wants only to have a future that is decided by the Cubans without interference. NPR international correspondent Eder Peralta is covering it all. Eder, 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.

2:57They're showing their military muscle with the arrival of the aircraft carrier Nimitz to the Caribbean this week. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also introduced measures targeting U.S. 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 Galesa, 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 U.S. 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.

3:37The U.S. has accused him of murder and conspiracy. Prosecutors allege that in 1996, when Raul Castro was defense minister, he ordered the downing of two civilian aircraft flown by the Miami-based Cuban-American group Brothers to the Rescue. Three U.S. citizens and a U.S. permanent resident were killed. When Ada, when we said at the top Cuban ambassador tells NPR, that means she told you that Cuba doesn't want interference. What else did she have to say? Ambassador Llanes 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.

4:19The U.S. will allow a single airplane flying Washington City, for example. The U.S. government knew what was going to happen and did nothing to prevent that. Army General Raul Castro is a leader of the Cuban Revolution. Widely respected, admired is the living history of the Cuban Revolution. And in someone that is sacred for Cubans, we will defend Raul as we will defend sovereignty and independence till the end. Words like living history and sacred for all 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.

5:02I remember the United States indicted former President Nicolás Maduro before they sent U.S. 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 in 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 U.S. has been asking for for decades, multi-party system, more recently a change in presidency.

5:40We are ready to sit and engage with the U.S. to talk about bilateral issues. There are red lines regarding our independence, our sovereignty, our right to self-determination, our legal or political system that won't be never on the table. As we don't ask the U.S. to put on the table your political system, your legal system, because that's up to the American people. And, you know, that message was reinforced in Havana on Friday. The Cuban government gathered thousands of supporters near the U.S. embassy. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel was there, and they chanted, Viva Raul, en patria o muerte, which translates to homeland or death.

6:26And Pierre Zeta Peralta, thanks so much. Thank you, Scott.

6:34The criminal charges against Kilmara Abrego Garcia are dismissed. Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran immigrant the Trump administration wrongly deported last year. The federal judge in Tennessee who made the order yesterday described the Trump administration's criminal charges as, quote, an abuse of prosecuting power. Member Station WPLN's Mariana Bacayau joins us. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. And remind us, please, what were the charges standing against Abrego Garcia? The Justice Department had charged him with human smuggling around this time last year after Abrego Garcia had won his deportation case.

7:13That 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, Abrego 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, Abrego Garcia can be seen driving an SUV with nine other men. Prosecutors pointed to that as evidence of human smuggling, alleging that Abrego Garcia was paid to drive people who had crossed the border into Texas.

7:51Abrego 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 hardline 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 vindictive 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.

8:32In his ruling, Judge Waverly Crenshaw took issue with the timeline in particular. So again, Abrego 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. Miranda, you've been covering this case since last year.

9:10Did 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 Abrego Garcia 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 Abrego Garcia's case as if he had been convicted, since under the law, he's innocent until proven guilty.

9:57And how's 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 Abrego Garcia, he currently stands to be deported. His lawyers are fighting a separate immigration case that will determine where he's deported. Mariana Bacayau with our friends at Member Station WPLN in Nashville. Thanks so much. Thank you.

10:34Finally on the podcast this Memorial Day weekend, summertime cooling during an affordability crisis. The price of electricity is climbing as we enter months of warmer weather. That points to sharply higher utility bills. And that's especially true in southern parts of the country where bills are expected to jump by double digits. NPR chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley joins us now. Welcome to the podcast, Scott. Good morning, Aisha. 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 6 % over the last year, up 39 % over the last five years.

11:18So every kilowatt costs you more. Then on top of that, many families are likely to use more kilowatts 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 cost of rent. But now it's the cost of electricity that families are struggling 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.

11:59And 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 springing up as a result of the artificial intelligence boom. I talked to Robin Westfall, who lives about halfway between Houston and Galveston, near the hot and muggy Gulf Coast.

12:36She has seen utilities trying to beef 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 beneficial, 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 bracing to pay even more for power this year. A generator is expensive, and that would be on top of regular power bills.

13:16What 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 an eye on their grocery bill. She says she might have to skip that gallon of Blue Bell ice cream that she would like. I also spoke with Matthew Kolb, 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, Kolb has a full-time job, and he's in the Army Reserves, but money is tight.

13:51So he's taken to donating plasma a couple of times a week just to help pay the bills. We have two kids under two between keeping them in diapers, making sure they have food. And with the recent spikes in gas prices, higher utilities in the summer always kind of stretches us a little bit and makes budgeting a little more of a complicated feat. One sign 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 shutoffs on the hottest days of the summer, but most states don't have restrictions like that.

14:29You know, having your power shut off is really painful, so most people will 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 NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks so much. You're welcome.

14:48and that's up first for saturday may 23rd 2026 i'm scott simon and i'm aisha roscoe dave mistich produced today's podcast with help from diana douglas danica pineda and martin patience our editor was ed mcnolte assisted by ariel plotnik tara neal gigi duban and rafael In the control room today, our director, Michael Radcliffe, and our technical director, Zovang Genhoven, who has engineering support from Zach Coleman. Shannon Rhodes is our senior supervising editor. Our executive producer is Evie Stone. Our deputy managing editor is Jim Kane. Tomorrow on the Sunday Story, local moves to combat climate change.

15:31So thanks for listening here in the podcast feed. You know, we got so much more for you on your radio. To find your local NPR station, just go to stations.npr.org. You won't regret it. Yeah, while you're still sitting there, go.

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