U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and federal law enforcement officials held a press conference around midday Friday to announce a "Summer Surge" under the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force ahead of America 250 events across the Capital Beltway.
The urgency reflects a decades-long, disturbing pattern of elevated summer violent crime by youths, worsened by failed progressive policies from left-wing officials in the D.C. area and extending into the Baltimore metro area, which have allowed juveniles to terrorize law-abiding citizens with limited consequences.
NBC Washington reporter Mark Segraves, who attended the press conference earlier, said that D.C. law enforcement will "prosecute parents of juveniles breaking curfew"...
DOJ announces “Summer Surge” in DC USAO announces they will now prosecute parents of juveniles breaking curfew. @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/3MYw9U24w0
— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) May 15, 2026Local outlet NBC Washington reports that the summer surge is coming "about two weeks after the D.C. Council chose not to vote on extending Mayor Muriel Bowser's emergency youth curfew zones over the summer."
President Trump issued an executive order in early 2025 that established the task force. He declared a violent crime emergency and temporarily federalized the Metropolitan Police Department by late summer 2025.
DC-Baltimore metro area has a youth violent crime crisis:
D.C. Mayor Imposes Juvenile Curfew After Mobs Of Kids Wreak Halloween Night Havoc
DC Enforces Youth Curfew "To Keep Young People Out Of Trouble"
Citywide Youth Curfew Begins In Baltimore As Mayor Strives To Restore Law And Order
The broader read is that the Trump administration wants safe streets in the D.C. metro area ahead of America 250 events.
Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 22:10Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Cuba’s leader on Monday warned that any U.S. military action against the communist-controlled island nation would cause a “bloodbath” and lead to regional insecurity.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel delivers a speech during a plenary session of the Eurasian Economic Forum in Minsk, Belarus June 26, 2025. Sputnik/Sergey Bobylev/Pool via REUTERS“If it were to materialize, it would trigger a bloodbath with incalculable consequences, plus the destructive impact on regional peace and stability,” Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel said in a May 18 post on X, according to a translation. [ZH: We're sure Palantir and Anthropic calculated it in roughly 8 seconds...]
He also insisted that Cuba doesn’t pose any threat and doesn’t have “aggressive plans or intentions against any country,” but said that it has the “legitimate right to defend itself against a military onslaught.”
In recent months, the United States has imposed significant pressure on the country’s communist regime, blocking oil shipments from Venezuela following the U.S. military capture of then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January.
The Trump administration is pressing Cuba’s leadership to end political repression, release political prisoners, and liberalize its ailing economy.
That prompted Cuban Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy to announce on May 13 that the country had completely run out of diesel and heavy fuel oil, with its power grid entering a critical state. O Levy said Cuba had not received any oil imports since December 2025 until Russia sent about 700,000 barrels of crude oil last month.
A Cuban official on Sunday accused the U.S. government of creating a fabrication following an Axios report, citing what it said was classified intelligence that claimed Cuba has acquired hundreds of drones.
In a post on social media, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez wrote that “Cuba neither threatens nor desires war” and that the country “prepares itself to confront external aggression in the exercise of the right to legitimate self-defense recognized by the UN Charter.”
In a May 18 emailed statement to The Epoch Times, a State Department spokesperson said the Trump administration will move “to protect Americans, our interests and our homeland from any threat.”
“President Trump ... has taken historic action to rid our backyard of uncontrolled migration, dangerous narco trafficking, organized crime, and hostile foreign military presence,” the department spokesperson added.
President Donald Trump has said that after the war with Iran, he will turn his attention to Cuba. He pledged “a new dawn for Cuba” during a speech at a Turning Point USA event in April.
During comments to reporters on May 15 aboard Air Force One, the U.S. president said that Cuba’s leadership “needs help, as you know, and you talk about a declining country—they are really a nation or a country in decline.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe and other U.S. officials visited Cuba on May 14, at the invitation of the country’s communist regime, officials said. An official statement from Cuba’s regime noted that the meeting “took place ... against a backdrop of complex bilateral relations.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department reiterated that the United States would provide Cuba with $100 million in humanitarian assistance and support for satellite internet services “if the Cuban regime will permit it.”
“The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime,” the department said on May 13.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 21:45