2026-05-21
Supreme Court rules on Cuba cruises. French court convicts Air France, Airbus. SpaceX preps IPO test.
Good afternoon. A quiet morning broke into actual news by lunch. Courts handed down verdicts. Companies filed for money. The usual.
Lunch Brief
8-1 ruling upholds a $440 million judgment against four cruise lines—Carnival, MSC, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian—for using Havana docks between 2016 and 2019. Even conservative justices agreed.
Federal charges alleging he shot down civilian planes in 1996. The indictment is the US escalating pressure on the regime. Castro remains in Cuba; extradition is not happening.
Both found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the Rio-Paris flight that killed 228 in 2009—France's worst aviation disaster. The verdict ends a seventeen-year legal reckoning.
Polis reduced the sentence of former election clerk Tina Peters. His own party rebuked him in a virtual meeting. Peters walks free next month anyway.
Nepal side, clear weather, spring season. The mountain has done this before, but not quite this crowded.
Chair Ken Martin released the postmortem on Thursday. He didn't endorse it. He just wanted transparency. The document exists. Draw your own conclusion.
Tehran said Thursday it was reviewing Washington's latest position on ending the war. Trump told reporters he'd wait days for 'right answers' but threatened renewed attacks if Tehran refuses a deal. Both sides still measuring each other's resolve.
Daniel Leonard, 25, was picked up at an LA residence Wednesday. The allegation: violating the order. The rest is court records.
- Philippines issues arrest warrant for fugitive senator
- Germany proposes 'Associate' EU status for Ukraine
- SpaceX readies Starship test before historic IPO
- Blockchain.com files confidentially for IPO
- Britain's bond market is jittery. Politics is messier.
- Taiwan president accepts Trump call offer, breaking protocol
- Samsung distributes $26.6B chip bonus to avert strike
- Samsung union suspends strike after bonus agreement
- Anthropic's Code with Claude shows coding's future.
- DNA study finds 1.3M living relatives of colonial settlers
"Standard noise. Calibrate accordingly."
"The wire took a breath. Don't get used to it."
Courts ruled. Companies filed. Starship tested. Markets waited.
Back at 6:00 PM ET with the night owl brief.