What Are Trump’s Plans for Cuba?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Luke Vargas (0:18)

A rocket explosion deals a setback to Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. Plus, the Iran War energy shock sends drivers flocking to Costco gas stations and will survey Washington's options if its Cuba diplomatic pressure campaign fails to dislodge the island's regime.

Ben Hiorns (0:36)

The template here is in Venezuela and Iran already. The US mounted operations to target leaders in those countries, military assets, air bases. And so a similar operation potentially in Cuba would probably target the leadership.

Luke Vargas (0:51)

It's Friday, May 29th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

We begin in Florida where a rocket being tested by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin exploded on a launch pad overnight, sending an enormous ball of fire into the sky.

A spokesman for the Space Force, which oversees the site of the explosion near Cape Canaveral, said there were no injuries or fatalities. The incident involved one of Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rockets, which was being prepared for an upcoming mission after a previous launch earlier this year deployed a satellite into the wrong orbit. The explosion is certain to delay upcoming satellite launches for Amazon and potentially push back other flights, including for NASA. Disney's ABC has complied with an FCC order to apply for early renewals of broadcast licenses for eight of its local stations, but in a strongly worded filing, said it was doing so under protest. FCC Chairman Brennan Carr has called for the early renewals, in part because he believes that Disney hasn't been totally forthcoming in response to requests for information about its DEI initiatives. Disney, meanwhile, has said the Carr is targeting ABC in order to suppress content that the Trump administration finds objectionable. Both The View and Jimmy Kimmel Live have long been sharply critical of Trump and his administration. Requesting early renewals is often seen as a sign that the FCC is preparing to challenge an owner's fitness to hold a broadcast license. In Editor-in-Chief Barry Weiss' latest shakeup of CBS News, the network has appointed New York Times columnist Nick Bilton as the next executive producer of its storied 60 Minutes program and cut ties with correspondents Sharon Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. In December, Alfonsi challenged Weiss' decision to hold a 60-minute segment on an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration had sent Venezuelan migrants, and she said in a statement yesterday that the network's decision to let her contract expire was a punishment for that resistance. In her own statement, Vega accused CBS of censorship, saying that producers had faced pressure to quote, insert political bias into our stories. A CBS News spokesman said those claims were not based in reality.

In Markets News, Costco says that more inflation-weary customers are visiting its stores, driving a sales beat in its fiscal third quarter. While higher costs did pinch Costco's margins, CFO Gary Millerchip predicted that an uptick in traffic to the company's gas stations would fuel future sales.

SPEAKER_4 (3:36)

A lot of members are increasing their frequency of visiting the gas station to top up in between what would have normally been a gap between getting the tank to empty because of the concern about what might the gas price be tomorrow. But we do think over time it's a great way to build loyalty when we look at our members that are engaged in gas with us. They are generally visiting more frequently overall, they're spending more with us overall, and they're also renewing at a higher rate.

Luke Vargas (4:01)

Costco's shares were flat following the report. Well, not so for Dell, which saw its shares jump nearly 40% off hours. That's after the computer hardware maker reported a 144% jump in full year AI revenue on the back of red hot demand for its AI optimized servers. The company also scored a five year Pentagon contract this week as the DOD restructures its digital systems. The contract follows the disclosure of large purchases of Dell stock earlier this year by President Trump's money managers. Since then, Dell shares have risen about 150%.

And trading platform Robinhood is launching new features to let users hand over trading decisions to AI agents. That includes allowing customers to connect agentic tools like Claude or Cursor to a virtual version of their gold credit cards, which could then make online purchases, reservations or book travel.

And while executives say that only stock trades are on the table for now, with options and crypto trading to come later, reporter Hannah Erin Lang said the rollout signals that AI trading agents are hitting the mainstream.