Welcome back to the Morning Brief——brought to you by one of America’s largest independent newspapers—The Epoch Times.
It’s Thursday October 22nd, and I’m Keegan Billings.
Let’s jump right in.
Good morning! It’s Thursday. Here are today’s top stories.
• Amid the rise of socialism in some sections of American society, exiles from Cuba and Venezuela spoke with The Epoch Times in a new documentary, “Red Flag,” to detail what life was like under those regimes and to issue a warning to Americans enamored by socialist and communist ideology.
• The Supreme Court declined to allow the Trump administration to immediately enforce a policy that would have curtailed transgender treatments in federal prisons.
• Shares of SpaceX and Tesla Motors took off midweek after Elon Musk floated a potential merger between the trillion-dollar companies.
• NATO will send additional military equipment and aircraft to the Black Sea, following a series of drone attacks on shipping vessels in the key waterway.
• Russia released a retired American teacher who had been imprisoned on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure the release.
NOW, BACK TO OUR TOP STORY:
‘Heaven to Hell’: Cuban and Venezuelan Exiles Warn Against Socialism
Alejandro Rios’s father had a decision to make: It was 1962, his family was living in the United States, and every year they traveled back to Cuba to visit extended family.
But this year was different. The island nation’s leadership had recently been overthrown by communists, and U.S.–Cuba relations were breaking down.
Rios said his father spoke to an official at the Cuban consulate, who warned him: “This is maybe the last time you can go over there and return … but maybe you won’t be able to come back.”
Concerned he might not see his parents again, Rios’s father decided to move the family back to Cuba. It didn’t take long for them to realize something was terribly wrong, but it was too late, and they were trapped.
His family had come to the United States when Rios was five; they returned to Cuba when he was about 12, and it took him three decades to get out again. In 1992, at age 40, Rios fled to the United States with his wife and has lived in Miami since then.
“We lost 30 years of our life,” he said.
Amid the rise of socialism in some sections of American society, Rios and others who escaped communist rule in Cuba and Venezuela sat down with The Epoch Times in a new documentary, “Red Flag,” to detail what life was like under those regimes and to issue a warning to Americans enamored by socialist and communist ideology. (More)
Fidel Castro toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in a communist revolution in 1959.
Ninoska Pérez Castellón told The Epoch Times that, contrary to Hollywood film portrayals, there was no party atmosphere when the revolt broke out in Cuba. Officials were somber, and the people knew something was coming.
Her father, an official with the Batista regime, was summoned for a meeting on Dec. 31, 1958, the night before the government was overthrown.
Castellón recalls her mother immediately putting his passport in his pocket and telling him: “If Batista leaves, you don’t stay. We will be fine, but don’t stay.”
Castellón said. “Sure enough, they get to the meeting; That’s when supposedly the American ambassador had told Batista it was better if he left,” Castellón said.
Batista fled to the Dominican Republic, and her father took a flight to New Orleans.
Castellón said. “And the next morning, it was like [going] from heaven to hell,”
A mob gathered outside her home—some were armed, and some attempted to ransack it.
The rebels kept returning, searching for her father. At one point, two revolutionaries began to argue over who would take possession of the family’s car; one fatally shot the other.
Castellón said that, although she was only eight years old, she immediately understood.
“If these are the good guys and this is a revolution, something is wrong here,” she said to herself. “Sure enough, they come in a few days later, and they confiscate the house.”
Castellón is now a radio host and prominent member of the Cuban exile community in Miami.
The exiles said Castro and Venezuela’s Chavez initially garnered popular support by promising change and prosperity, a tantalizing prospect for the poor who were fed up with government corruption.
But neither dictator delivered on those promises and both countries descended into more poverty.
Rick Gonzalez, an architect in West Palm Beach, Florida, said.
“Here comes Fidel. Oh wow, rock star, right? He’s a rock star. He just shows up. He’s going to fix everything, right? Which is the modus operandi of every socialist and communist,”
Soon after the revolution, government agents arrived at his grandfather Enrique’s farm, ready with paperwork.
Gonzalez recalled. “Here are your bonds,” they told him,
“‘You need to sign them over, so that we’re going to occupy your farm. … Yeah, this is your farm, but you’re generously giving it to the government, so that we can reorganize everything in our authoritarian world that we’re creating here in this country.’ He had no choice.”
After Castro’s revolution, the new regime carried out executions by firing squad.
Castellón recalled. “The firing squad began very early in the revolution, like the first days,”
Those executed were not always aware of any charges, she said, and no trial was held.
she added. “At the beginning, they targeted Batista’s regime, but then eventually it became everybody. So it was the guy that spoke against it, the doctor that refused to do something they wanted, the attorney that wanted to defend someone,”
The documentary Premieres on Oct. 28Th
NOW, OVER TO POLITICS:
• The Supreme Court declined to allow the Trump administration to immediately enforce a policy that would have curtailed transgender treatments in federal prisons.
The court did not explain its ruling. Justices Thomas and Alito dissented but did not explain why.
The Supreme Court’s decision is not a ruling on the merits of the prisoners’ currently pending class action and It does not decide whether the policy is lawful.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the emergency application, it asked the justices to put on hold a federal district judge’s order that blocks a Bureau of Prisons policy, that policy shuts down transgender surgeries, hormone treatments, and social accommodations such as makeup and wigs.
The federal government says the policy, is necessary for prison security.
The lead plaintiff in the underlying class action is a man who identifies as female.
Judge Royce Lamberth blocked the policy in June. He issued a written opinion saying that the program statement “amounts to arbitrary and capricious agency action” and that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The act is the federal law that establishes the rules for how agencies make and change policies. When an agency reverses course, a court can block the action if it believes that the explanation falls short of the statute’s requirements.
Lamberth directed the Bureau of Prisons to keep providing hormone treatments and related accommodations to inmates who have a gender dysphoria diagnosis and to inmates who later receive one. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit later declined to stay Lamberth’s order.
Sauer said. “In nullifying BOP’s exercise of its statutorily conferred authority to adopt a policy that prison administrators have determined is necessary to maintain institutional security, the court’s order causes irreparable harm to the government and to the public,”
The policy came after one of President Trump’s Executive Order on Inauguration Day in 2025.
The order, which rescinded several Biden-era executive orders on preferred gender identity, states that the federal government recognizes two sexes, male and female.
It also states that “sex” is not a synonym for gender identity.
• Shares of SpaceX and Tesla Motors took off midweek after Elon Musk floated a potential merger between the trillion-dollar companies.
Wall Street has long assessed the prospect of a merger that would unite two pillars of the on-again, off-again business empire under a single corporate structure.
In an Oct. 20 earnings call with analysts, Musk suggested that combining the two companies would be a “good idea.”
Musk confirmed that the boards of SpaceX and Tesla formed special committees of independent directors to discuss joining the two companies.
But He said
“The special committees have not reached agreement on the terms of any transaction. And obviously there’s no guarantee that they will.”
In addition to merger talks, investors cheered SpaceX’s solid third-quarter earnings, which beat Wall Street estimates.
Daniel Newman, CEO of big tech analyst firm The Futurum Group said
A merger has been widely expected since SpaceX announced its initial public offering earlier this year,
Based on the companies’ long-term vision—colonizing the stars, building robots, and advancing (AI)—their collaboration would likely create many advantages, something Musk acknowledged.
They have also done plenty of business together. SpaceX purchased $1 billion of Megapack batteries and Cybertrucks from Tesla.
Plus, Tesla became a SpaceX shareholder when its $2 billion xAI investment was converted into SpaceX stock.
Musk’s AI model Grok is also installed for free in many Tesla automobiles.
• NATO will send additional military equipment and aircraft to the Black Sea, following a series of drone attacks on shipping vessels in the key waterway.
in an Oct. 20 post on X, Allison Hart, NATO’s principal spokeswoman, said that the assets will support surveillance, reconnaissance, and forensic activities.
The decision came after NATO ambassadors met at the North Atlantic Council, the defense alliance’s main decision-making body, to discuss Black Sea security.
Hart said. “We will continue to stand united and ensure that we are ready and able to address any threat and to keep our one billion people safe,”
NATO’s military spokesman, U.S. Army Col. Martin L. O'Donnell, said that in addition to sending the radar systems, drones, and patrol aircraft, allies will send or have sent intelligence agents and teams to conduct forensic examinations of explosives used against shipping vessels.
NATO has not attributed the attacks to any country.
The added presence comes in response to several Black Sea incidents in which drones struck cargo vessels.
Earlier this month, a number of cargo ships were hit off the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea in the space of one week.
On Oct. 13, the Guinea-Bissau-flagged HS Dignity was sunk, and the Chelsea 3, sailing under a Maltese flag, registered in Odesa, and Ukrainian-owned, was also struck.
Drones struck two other cargo ships in the same waters on Oct. 6.
Bulgaria said that Russia was likely behind recent incidents off its waters. Russia’s ambassador to Bulgaria, Eleonora Mitrofanova, said at the time that she had no information from the Russian Ministry of Defense about attacks on commercial vessels.
On Oct. 15, drones struck two chemical tankers near Romania’s Black Sea coast, setting them both ablaze.
The vessels were anchored near the Sulina Canal, which links the Danube River to the Black Sea. It is a major export route for Ukraine.
Romanian President Nicusor Dan called the situation in the waters “serious.”
Dan said.
“Commercial ships are being attacked and sunk. Seafarers killed, injured, and missing, very close to the shores of Romania and Bulgaria,” Dan said. “Lives, global trade, and critical infrastructure are at stake.”
• A purported polling firm whose polls were listed by a slew of outlets, including The New York Times, has said that all but one of its surveys were not real.
Wedgewood Polling said in a statement on Oct. 20 that it was developed by people who previously worked in the poll sector and wondered how easy it would be for a fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and “expose how little scrutinization exists in media and public commentary.”
The entity said that its surveys often did not have any real data behind them, but they were nonetheless included in poll averages by the NY Times and some other outlets.
Wedgewood Polling said
“Our fabricated numbers were given instant credibility across national media platforms—including being cited on air and in reporting by outlets such as MS Now,”
Wedgewood Polling said. “The ease with which unverified figures were absorbed into mainstream political narratives highlights a systemic breakdown in media vetting and data aggregation.”
The surveys largely favored Democrats, including having Democrat candidate Abdul El-Sayed ahead of Republican candidate Mike Rogers in the race for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan.
Wedgewood Polling conducted a single legitimate poll, in Nebraska, that served as a baseline to compare against fake data.
Wedgewood Polling said it did not intend to mislead the public or sway an election, and that the purpose was to spark changes in the polling and media industries.
The NY Times said in an editor’s note on Wednesday that it removed the 15 Wedgewood Polling polls it had previously featured. The paper said it added the polls after sending a series of questions regarding identities of the pollsters, the methods they used, and other issues, and receiving answers.
• State authorities arrested the mayor of the central Florida city of Kissimmee, charging her with grand theft and organized fraud over funds she received from a COVID-19 relief program.
State Attorney General James Uthmeier accused Mayor Jackie Espinosa of illegally granting herself, her husband, and family members $50,000 from a city program she created that was meant to boost small businesses recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Espinosa created, funded, expanded, and promoted the Kissimmee Business Boost 2.0 for small businesses and submitted her applications before anyone else on the first day it opened, which prosecutors alleged violated state law.
The mayor and her family own several local businesses, including the Adanse, Real Estate Gallery, Matador Tacos and Tapas, and Empresas Espinosa. At the time of the applications, they also owned Kissimmee Diner.
Espinosa was handcuffed outside her home and taken to the Osceola County Jail, where she remained on Wednesday afternoon, according to jail records.
She is charged with one count of grand theft and one count of defrauding to obtain property, first- and second-degree felonies, according to Uthmeier.
Espinosa maintains her innocence, her lawyer Migdalia Perez told The Epoch Times.
Perez said in an emailed statement.
“This case involves a publicly approved grant program administered by city staff, not a secret scheme to steal taxpayer money,”
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The United States’ first nationwide surge against food-assistance fraud has led to charges against more than 40 suspects in schemes worth $45 million so far.
On Oct. 21, at the Cincinnati FBI office, Vice President JD Vance and other officials told reporters about the results of the seven-week, multi-agency enforcement effort.
Vance called SNAP “one of the most important social service programs that we have in the United States of America.”
Ensuring that fellow citizens and American children do not have to go to bed hungry is “one of the most important and sacred things that our tax dollars go to,” he said.
he said, noting that members of his own family benefited from these important programs while he was growing up in an underprivileged home.
Vance said One alleged fraudster known as “Shawty Dread” is connected to $4.4 million in alleged fraud against the SNAP program,
The suspect allegedly used his ill-gotten gains to fund a lavish lifestyle, which included purchasing a private jet, officials said, adding that the suspect flaunted his expensive purchases on social media.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said About 220,000 Americans could have eaten for the entire month of October with the stolen SNAP funds,
he said in a statement.
“Every instance of SNAP fraud has two victims: families in dire need and taxpayers,”
At the news conference, Blanche emphasized the impact fraud has on its direct victims, as exemplified by one real-life story that he said stands out to him. A woman with children aged 3 to 12 took them to the grocery store and loaded up a cart with food. But when she tried to pay for the purchases with a SNAP card, Blanche said, the cashier informed her: “There’s no money. You can’t buy this food.”
Unbeknownst to the woman, fraudsters had found a way to siphon all of the funds from the card. As a result, the woman was not only humiliated in front of her children, but also ended up having to take out a loan to put food on the table, Blanche said.
• New Mexico authorities sued two men who worked for sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a bid to block the men from benefiting from Epstein’s estate.
Darren Indyke, who was Epstein’s lawyer for more than 20 years, and Richard Kahn, Epstein’s accountant beginning in the mid 2000s, helped conceal the operations of Epstein’s criminal enterprise, New Mexico’s attorney general alleged in the civil complaint.
Kahn, for instance, told bank compliance officers that Epstein’s payments of tuition for young women were not “red flags for abuse or trafficking,” while Indyke signed off on payments to girls and young women, according to the complaint.
The pair violated federal and state law by participating in a sex trafficking venture and receiving proceeds from racketeering activity, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died in federal prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The trafficking is alleged to have taken place in part on a ranch in New Mexico. A co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted and is serving a prison sentence.
Indyke and Kahn are now co-executors of Epstein’s estate—valued at over $107 million—and beneficiaries of a trust that inherits assets from the estate.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez asked the federal court to find Indyke and Kahn improperly made money from the enterprise and order them to disgorge all money they received as a result of illegal practices. He also requested damages to people injured by the racketeering, payment to the state for costs associated with its investigation and prosecution efforts, and an order blocking distribution of money from the estate as the case proceeds.
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NOW MOVING ONTO WORLD NEWS:
• Russia released a retired American teacher who had been imprisoned on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, President Donald Trump said after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure the release.
Witkoff revealed Stephen Hubbard, a native of Michigan, had been freed during talks with Putin in St. Petersburg to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.
Witkoff told Putin during the meeting.
“Our whole nation sends their thanks because of Stephen Hubbard—because of you, he’s going home to his family,”
Putin said that the former educator was already at Pulkovo Airport in the city, ready to depart Russia, state news agency TASS reported.
Witkoff thanked Putin for releasing the 74-year-old and confirmed he planned to meet with him at the airport.
Hubbard’s release comes after Trump said he had asked the Russian president to set him free while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Oct. 20.
Asked about the case of the teacher, Trump said he didn’t want to talk about it “but everybody has been after Hubbard for a long time, long before I got here.”
“And just remember that question for a couple of days from now, OK? Because I do things that nobody else can do,” he said, adding people should “watch what happens.”
Following Hubbard’s release, Trump said it was secured without the United States needing to give anything in return, calling it an “unprecedented situation for Russia,” in an Oct. 21 post on Truth Social.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to resume U.S.-mediated peace talks with Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Oct. 21, following in-person talks with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff at the grand imperial palace in St. Petersburg.
The talks, which will be at a technical level, could resume as early as Nov. 10, the Kremlin said, and could take place in Abu Dhabi. They would be focused on how to guarantee the security of Russia and Ukraine upon the end of the war.
The last round of three-way peace talks took place in February.
• British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has reversed the Labour government’s previous ban on new oil and gas licenses and approved the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea, as the UK seeks to boost its energy security.
During a visit to Scotland in August 2025, U.S. President Donald described the oil and gas reserves in the North Sea as a “treasure chest” that the UK should urgently unlock.
The British government, in a statement, said the Jackdaw decision is expected to increase domestic gas production by about 6 percent at its peak, protecting hundreds of jobs, and adding an estimated 2.9 billion pounds ($3.88 billion) to the UK economy.
UK Energy Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh said the project could start supplying gas to British homes and businesses from as early as the end of this month.
She announced the decision in Aberdeen, Scotland, which is 150 miles west of the Jackdaw field. Adura, the company responsible for Jackdaw, is a joint venture between Shell and a Norwegian company, Equinor.
• UK police have rearrested two men, suspected of working for Iran’s intelligence service, for allegedly plotting to attack a U.S.-run air base in England last month.
on Sept. 27 Counter terrorism police were alerted to the suspicious activity by a local farmer in Gloucestershire, England, who reported three suspicious vehicles heading toward RAF Fairford, about 100 miles west of London.
A 24-year-old British national and a 25-year-old dual U.K.–Iranian national were arrested under the country’s National Security Act, according to the National Counter Terrorist Policing unit investigating the case.
None of the suspects’ names has been released, including the five other suspects. Counter terrorism police have stated that all are males in their 20s.
Laurence Taylor, head of the National Counter Terrorism Policing unit, said in a statement on Oct. 20.
“This is very much a live investigation, and our evidence gathering continues, but at this time our position remains the same; we consider it highly likely that there is Iranian state involvement.
• Israeli authorities have detained a group of activists, including a Democratic U.S. congressional candidate, in the contested West Bank.
Brad Lander, who is running to represent New York’s 10th Congressional District, was in the West Bank on Oct. 21 along with activists from the group Rabbis for Human Rights when they were detained. Their visit comes amid recent violent altercations between Palestinian groups and Israeli settlers.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed that their personnel had helped detain a group of activists near the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit on Oct. 21. The Israeli military stated that the group, which was out to participate in the local olive harvest, had failed to coordinate their arrival with security forces beforehand.
the IDF stated.
“Due to the security risk posed by conducting an uncoordinated harvest near an Israeli community, IDF soldiers, Border Police forces in Judea and Samaria, and officers from the Judea and Samaria District Police arrived at the scene and detained those present,”
In a post on X, Lander said Israeli authorities have since released him from custody with a warning but are still holding several activists from his group.
The West Bank’s olive harvest has become the recurring scene of violent altercations between Palestinians and Israeli settlers over the years.
• Italy approved a raft of security measures on Oct. 20, including a crackdown on taking part in violent protests, in the wake of unrest that swept through its northern cities at the weekend and widespread riots in neighboring France.
A new offence of violent participation in a demonstration, together with tougher penalties for rioters, and fines for parents whose children take part in vandalism and looting, has been introduced by the Italian government.
The weekend saw rioting in a number of cities in the north of Italy, including the financial capital Milan, where gangs of mainly young people went on the rampage on Oct. 17, smashing windows, stealing from shops, and attacking police.
Many wore hoods, while some of those on the streets started fires in bins and looted stores in the center of Milan. Pockets of violence spread to other northern cities, including Bologna, Brescia, Bergamo, and Turin.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
“There is nothing revolutionary about vandalizing and stealing., as she unveiled the tough new measures.
Anyone who takes part in a group of at least five people and endangers public safety during protests now faces up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of 20,000 euros ($22,460) under the new measures, which come into effect immediately.
Penalties increase if people are injured or faces are concealed, while authorities are given powers to order swift compensation for any damage inflicted. In the case of minors, their parents can be held liable.
Police now have the right to detain youths aged between 14 and 17, even if they have not committed a crime, where there is evidence they pose a danger to the public, extending powers that previously applied only to adults.
The government said it would deploy 500 Army troops alongside police in Milan until the end of 2026, amid fears among authorities of further violence at demonstrations planned for the coming weekend.
Most stores in Milan’s Via Montenapoleone shopping district, home to luxury brands including Chanel, Tiffany, and Dior, had removed merchandise from their windows by Oct. 19, while many shops boarded up their windows.
Milan police said that some 2,000 youths participated in the Oct. 17 riots, including a large contingent of Italians and foreigners.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, head of the co-ruling conservative League party, wrote on X on Oct. 20, following the announcement of the new measures, that immigrants could be stripped of their citizenship if they took part in violent protests, while those seeking leave to remain in Italy would have their applications denied.
And before we leave, here are some words of wisdom to start the day…Today’s quote is by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
He said,
“No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
