President Donald Trump speaks as U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (C) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine look on. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Monday called a proposal to end the war with Iran a “significant step” but “not good enough” to persuade him to end his military campaign.
“They are negotiating now, and they have made a very significant step,” Trump said to reporters as he attended the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. “We’ll see what happens.”
It was not immediately clear which proposal Trump was referring to. The president had touted ongoing negotiations with more “moderate” parties but tensions ramped up over the weekend after the downing of a U.S. fighter plane.
According to a U.S. official and another person close to the ongoing talks, mediators are attempting broker a 45-day ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran ahead of Trump’s latest deadline, which calls for Iran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday or face attacks on bridges and energy infrastructure.
Iran signaled it would not accept the mediators’ proposal on Monday, responding instead with its own 10-point plan, which a U.S. official described as maximalist.
In the past, Iran has said it wants a permanent commitment from the U.S. to end the attacks rather than a shorter-term ceasefire.
Trump has moved the deadline several times citing progress in ongoing negotiations only to renew the threat of military destruction once again.
Both sources downplayed expectations that a deal could be reached in time, saying that so far Iran has refused to cede what it views as its main leverage in the negotiations: control over the Strait of Hormuz and its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
“We are obliterating their country. And I hate to do it, but we’re obliterating and they just don’t want to say ‘uncle.’ They don’t want to cry, as the expression goes, ‘uncle.’ But they will,” Trump said. “And if they don’t, they’ll have no bridges, they’ll have no power plants, they’ll have no anything.”
But the president also seemed to acknowledge that the conflict was unpopular domestically.
“Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, a White House official said the proposal was just “one of many ideas” and indicated that the president had not signed off on it.
Mediators are floating confidence-building measures aimed at bringing both sides closer to an agreement, sources say, and stressing to the Iranian regime that even though Trump has previously moved back deadlines he has set, Tehran would likely need to signal a willingness to make major concessions in order to buy more time for negotiations to play out.
In their public messaging, Iranian leaders have signaled little room for compromise, issuing demands the U.S. views as maximalist.
Mediators have floated the idea that perhaps access to the Strait of Hormuz and the elimination of Iran’s uranium stockpile could be fully resolved after a ceasefire is reached. However, a U.S. official said it appeared highly unlikely the Trump administration could be convinced to accept those terms–particularly on the Strait of Hormuz.
Tom Page-Turner as Bill, Cornelius Brandreth as Maurice, Lox Pratt as Jack, Thomas Connor as Roger, Winston Sawyers as Ralph and David McKenna as Piggy in ‘Lord of the Flies.’ (J Redza/Eleven/Sony Pictures Television)
The official trailer for Lord of the Flies has arrived.
Netflix has released the official trailer for its upcoming limited series adaptation of William Golding’s classic dystopian novel.
Adolescence co-creator Jack Thorne adapted the novel for television, while Marc Munden serves as the show’s director. According to its logline, the show follows how “innocence descends into savagery when a group of English schoolboys becomes desert island castaways.” This series marks the first time this classic story has been adapted for TV.
Winston Sawyers stars as Ralph, Lox Pratt stars as Jack, David McKenna stars as Piggy and Ike Talbut stars as Simon in a show that includes an ensemble of more than 30 boys “playing the desert island camp’s ‘biguns’ and ‘littluns,'” according to a description from Netflix.
The trailer starts with the initial plane crash that causes the young students to become castaways on a desert island. We then see quick glimpses at their means of survival.
Children chant, “Kill the beast!” and “Cut his throat!” as they run amok and hunt on the island.
“We all have to kill the beast,” one boy says at the end of the trailer.
The show features music from Hans Zimmer, Kara Talve and Cristobal Tapia de Veer.
All four episodes of Lord of the Flies will be available to stream on May 4.
U.S. President Donald Trump talks with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as he departs the White House on March 20, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — For more than 60 years, hundreds of thousands of Cuban health care workers have been deployed across the globe.
Under the government’s medical missions program, doctors, nurses, technicians and other staff are sent to countries around the world to provide care to underserved communities, in many cases for a fee.
The Cuban government has said the missions, or “medical brigades,” have entered countries at war, hit by natural disasters and ravaged by outbreaks of disease, saving thousands of lives.
Critics, including the Trump administration, have held a different view, claiming that the health professionals are coerced into volunteering, partly as a way to bring in much-needed currency, and that their movements are restricted. The U.S. State Department has referred to the missions as “forced labor” and has pressured countries to stop accepting Cuban medical workers.
“The Trump administration, Biden administration and U.N. have all understood that these medical mission programs are a forced labor scheme that exploit Cuban workers,” White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement to ABC News. “These labor export programs abuse the participants, enrich the corrupt Cuban regime and deprive everyday Cubans of essential medical care that they desperately need in their homeland.
Kelly noted President Donald Trump believes “Cuba is a disaster that’s in its last moments of life, and these programs are one of many ways that they repress their own people.”
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not return multiple requests for comment from ABC News.
A White House official told ABC News there is vast opposition to the Cuban medical missions program across political parties, in both chambers of Congress and from international organizations.
The humans rights organization Prisoners Defenders said in 2020 that it submitted a report to the United Nations and the International Criminal Court claiming it has evidence of “a pattern of slavery” on the medical missions.
Countries including the Bahamas, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Paraguay have begun phasing out the missions, reviewing medical cooperation agreements or canceling contracts with the Cuban government.
Some international relations experts told ABC News that there is some truth to the allegations that Cuban medical workers are often closely monitored by Cuba’s government, but that the medics are also providing care to communities that would otherwise not receive it.
History of the program
After the Cuban Revolution began in 1959, many doctors left Cuba for the U.S. Newly installed leader Fidel Castro saw an opportunity to set up programs to train doctors not just for Cuba but to be sent overseas as a type of medical diplomacy, according to John Kirk, a professor emeritus of Latin American Studies at Dalhousie University In Halifax, Nova Scotia, who has written several books on Cuba.
The first medical mission was a small team of doctors sent to Chile, which experienced the strongest earthquake ever recorded in 1960. The first medical brigade was sent to Algeria in May 1963. In the 1970s, medical missions expanded greatly to Latin America and Africa.
Some countries, like Gambia or Haiti — which are poorer — pay Cuba nothing for medical care, according to Kirk. However, richer countries such as Qatar pay the Cuban government a monthly fee, about 25% of which is given to the Cuban medical workers themselves, he noted. Qatar pays Cuba about $9,000 to $10,000 a month for these services, Kirk said.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment on how much countries pay Cuba for the service of medical workers.
Between 1960 and 2023, 600,000 doctors, nurses and technicians participated in this program in 165 different countries, according to the Cuban government.
As of 2024, Cuba had 54 brigades with more than 22,600 medical workers, according to Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba’s communist party.
Philip Brenner, a professor emeritus in the School of International Service at American University, with expertise in U.S.-Cuba relations, said one example of Cuba’s program was Operación Milagro in Venezuela, launched in 2004, to provide ophthalmology services.
“More than 1 million people regained eyesight, and it wasn’t a major operation,” Brenner told ABC News. “These were like cataracts that people had, but they had no access to medical care until the Cuban doctors came in. They served an enormous number of people around the world.”
Criticism of the program
The U.S. government has long been critical of the Cuban medical missions program, claiming health care professionals are forced into it and sending workers overseas deprives Cubans of the medical care they need at home.
In August, the State Department revoked visas and imposed visa restrictions on several Brazilian government officials, former Pan American Health Organization officials and their family members due to “complicity” with the Cuba’s “labor export scheme.”
“These officials were responsible for or involved in abetting the Cuban regime’s coercive labor export scheme, which exploits Cuban medical workers through forced labor,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
Brazil’s government did not respond to the allegations but Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva revoked the visa of a U.S diplomat who sought to visit former President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula said the measure was reciprocal for the U.S. revoking visas in August, according to the Associated Press.
The Cuban government did not reply to ABC News’ requests for comment on these claims.
Kirk, the Dalhousie professor emeritus, said of the 270 Cuban medical professionals that he interviewed, most said they volunteered and were not forced to partake in these missions, but he acknowledged it doesn’t mean they weren’t forced.
Sebastián Arcos, interim director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University, said no one is physically forced to participate in these missions, but the conditions in Cuba push many to work in the program to try and earn some money to support their families.
“The other [thing] is, once you participate, once you volunteer for one of these missions, you earn credits with the Cuban regime,” he told ABC News. “Any kind of acknowledgement or respect that you can get from the Cuban government will help your career.”
Arcos said he is familiar with the experiences of those on missions because his wife’s sister, Karem Montiel, was part of a Cuban medical brigade in Eritrea, Africa.
Montiel told ABC News she used to teach embryology at the University of Medical Sciences in Havana and was selected to join a medical brigade in 2010 to teach at Eritrea’s Orotta School of Medicine.
She said she had a good relationship with her students, but criticized the Cuban government’s involvment in the program .
“That is nothing else but slavery, 21st century slavery,” she said. “I was the one doing the work but [the Cuban government is] the one who gets the money. … They own all the Cuban doctors. They make the money, they get paid for those doctors being there, working, and they pay the doctors the bare minimum.”
Montiel said that working as a doctor in Cuba, she was paid the equivalent of $23 per month. She said she was paid more to go on a medical mission but the salary is deposited in a bank account in Cuba, which doctors cannot access until they return to the country.
According to Montiel, the chief of the medical brigade holds on to everybody’s passports. She added that the chief of her mission also accompanied all staff to any immigration appointments they had.
According to Montiel, there are two reasons doctors go on the medical missions: either to get more money and buy things they are unable to buy in Cuba — like computers or TVs — or to attempt to escape Cuba.
Montiel did the latter and left her medical mission early, defecting to the U.S. in December 2010.
“Nobody goes [on medical missions] for the humanitarian reasons to help out the people in need, or the poor people who do not have access to health care,” she said.
She now works as a nurse practitioner in Miami, and her husband and two children have since joined her.
Arcos is also skeptical that the Cuban government is performing the medical missions for purely humanitarian purposes.
“The Cuban government is not really trying to help other people who are less fortunate,” he said. “This is a business for them. They are making money. They are gathering intelligence. They are influencing other governments, and all of this is done on the backs of hardworking people.”
Why is the US ramping up pressure?
For the last several months, the Trump administration has been increasing pressure on governments that receive Cuban medical personnel.
The federal government warned that it could impose sanctions against governments that accept the health workers. The administration said that the program is “exploitative,” with workers forcibly separated from their families, subjected to surveillance, given little pay and under threat if they don’t return to Cuba.
Several countries have recently pulled out of agreements and some that haven’t said the U.S. is pushing them to do so.
During the Second World Congress on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in January, Prime Minister Philip Pierre of Saint Lucia said he’s faced pressure from the U.S. government over not having the Caribbean island’s medical students be trained in Cuba.
“We also have Cubans who come over to work. So, the American government has said we can’t even train them in Cuba. So, I have a major issue on my hand,” Pierre said, according to local reports.
In a statement on Facebook last month, the U.S. Embassy to Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean and the inter-governmental Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States denied speaking with Saint Lucia’s government about international education.
“The United States continues to call for an end to exploitation and forced labor in the illegitimate Cuban regime’s overseas medical missions program,” the embassy wrote.
Kirk and Brenner say the U.S. has signaled in the past that it is looking for a regime change in Cuba and placing a stranglehold on the economy may help achieve that objective.
Both said they believe that stranglehold can be maintained through the energy blockade, which has been in place since January, and by cutting a major source of income for Cuba: the medical missions program.
“Because Cuba does earn hard currency from some of the doctors being sent abroad, one of the ways in which the United States has tried to strangle the Cuban economy is by getting countries to end their medical programs with Cuba,” Brenner said. “Even though those medical programs have benefited the people in those countries, the goal has been very narrow: one of trying to hurt Cuba. And it’s been very effective; it’s one of the ways in which Cuba has lost hard currency.”
What will happen to counties that pull out?
For countries that pulled out of Cuba’s program, the experts said they expect to see worsening health conditions.
“We’d have to expect to see more chronic disease and more people dying from disease that otherwise they wouldn’t die from because of the lack of help from Cuba,” Brenner, from American University’s School of International Service, said.
“The United States had previously provided some assistance to these countries through USAID but, under [the Department of Government Efficiency], USAID was essentially destroyed, and the medical programs that the United States had haven’t been resumed,” Brenner said.
Not all counties are pulling out of agreements, however. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday that she will keep an agreement with Cuba’s government and continue to have Cuban doctors working in Mexico.
Kirk noted that Mexico currently has about 3,000 Cuban medics in the county. He added that if Mexico does pull out of its agreement with Cuba, it will be “a major blow, symbolically, politically and financially.”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks from the Cross Hall of the White House on April 1, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will hold a news conference Monday in the White House briefing room, where he’s expected to give more details on the “daring” weekend rescue of a U.S. airman whose fighter jet was shot down over Iran.
Trump teased the upcoming briefing at the White House Easter Egg Roll.
“Those two pilots were incredible, brave, and we thank them,” Trump said.
Looming large over the president’s upcoming comments, however, is his latest deadline for Iran to make a peace deal or reopen the Strait of Hormuz — by 8 p.m. ET Tuesday — or face massive U.S. attacks on critical infrastructure, including energy and water facilities.
“Right now they’re not too strong at all, in my opinion,” Trump said of Iran at the Easter event. “But we’re soon going to find out, aren’t we?”
Trump told ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott on Sunday that if no peace deal is reached with Iran in the next 48 hours, “we’re blowing up the entire country.”
But in a profanity-laced post on his social media platform early on Sunday, Trump told the Iranian regime, “you’ll be living in Hell” if it did not open the critical maritime shipping channel for oil and trade.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” Trump wrote in the post.
Experts have warned that possible attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute war crimes and violate international law, a claim Iran makes as well. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when pressed on the issue last week, told reporters: “Of course, this administration and the United States Armed Forces will always act within the confines of the law.”
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said in a post on X that if the U.S. attacks power plants, then Iran would deliver “a decisive, immediate, and regret-inducing response.”
Amid the threats of escalation, questions remain about the status of talks between the U.S. and Tehran, after President Trump said last week that the U.S. was carrying out negotiations with “much more reasonable” leadership.
Asked about reports of a new draft proposal that includes a 45-day ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a White House official told ABC News on Monday: “This is one of many ideas, and POTUS has not signed off on it. Operation Epic Fury continues. President Trump will speak more at 1 p.m.”
When asked about the ceasefire proposal, Trump said at the Easter event that he’s seen “every proposal.”
“It’s a significant step, it’s not good enough but it’s a very significant step,” Trump said.
Iran said it will not accept a ceasefire without “suitable guarantees,” a Pakistani security official told ABC News.
Steve Bannon, former adviser to Donald Trump, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Grapevine, Texas, US, on Friday, March 27, 2026. (Photographer: Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday vacated contempt-of-Congress charges against ex-Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who had refused to honor a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 , 2021, attack, and later served a four-month sentence.
The Court did not explain its decision. There were no noted dissents.
In a brief order, the Court noted that the Trump Justice Department has moved to drop the indictment against Bannon and returned the case to a lower court for dismissal.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
A soldier of the Unmanned Systems Forces prepares a ‘Salut’ drone on March 31, 2026 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. (Nikoletta Stoyanova/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Ukraine launched more cross-border attack drones than Russia in a one-month period for the first time since the start of the ongoing war in 2022, according to daily data published by the Ukrainian Air Force and Russian Ministry of Defense, which was analyzed by ABC News.
Russia’s defense ministry reported downing 7,347 Ukrainian drones during March, the highest monthly total ever reported by Moscow and an average of 237 craft each day. The defense ministry only publishes figures of Ukrainian drones it claims were shot down.
Ukraine’s air force, meanwhile, said its forces faced 6,462 Russian drones and 138 missiles of various types across the course of the month, of which 5,833 drones and 102 missiles — around 90% of drones and just under 74% of missiles — were intercepted or suppressed.
Ukraine, therefore, faced a daily average of just over 208 drones and four missiles during March, according to the data published by Kyiv.
ABC News cannot independently verify the data released by either Russia or Ukraine. It is possible that both sides may seek to exaggerate the effectiveness of their air defenses, or to amplify the attacks against them as proof that their enemies are not interested in pursuing a peace deal, experts have suggested.
The combined tally of 6,600 Russian drones and missiles reported by Ukraine’s air force across the month marks a new record high for a single month of Russian long-range attacks.
Ukraine’s air force publishes what it says is a daily tally of Russian drone and missile strikes, including information as to how many munitions were intercepted and how many hit targets.
Russia launched the month’s largest overall attack in a 24-hour period by either side. Ukraine’s air force said Moscow launched 948 drones and 34 missiles into the country on March 24.
Long-range drone and missile strikes have been a key element of the conflict as both Kyiv and Moscow seek to degrade the other’s economy and undermine their ability to prosecute and fund the ongoing war. The strikes have continued despite the resumptions of U.S.-brokered peace talks.
Russia has thus far been able to launch more drones and missiles into Ukraine, with Ukrainian leaders citing Moscow’s nightly barrages as a severe threat to the country’s strategic position. But March’s data suggests the balance may be shifting more in Ukraine’s favor, as Kyiv’s long-term efforts to expand its drone and missile capabilities bear fruit.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been clear on Kyiv’s plans to expand Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities.
“Our production potential for drones and missiles alone will reach $35 billion next year,” Zelenskyy said in October. “Despite all the difficulties, Ukrainians are creating their national defense product that, in certain parameters, already surpasses many others in the world.”
“Never before in history has Ukrainian defense been so long-range and so felt by Russia,” Zelenskyy added. “We must make the cost of war absolutely unacceptable for the aggressor — and we will.”
To date, the majority of Ukrainian strikes are believed to have been conducted using relatively cheap, Ukrainian-made drones. Increasingly, Ukraine is also using interceptor drones designed and built by Ukrainian companies to intercept incoming Russian strike drones.
Ukraine is now producing its own cruise missiles — most notably the Flamingo, which Kyiv says has a range of more than 1,800 miles — but its drone arsenal still accounts for the vast majority of projectiles reported shot down by the Russian defense ministry, according to daily data published by Moscow.
Over the past year, Ukraine has put a special focus on attacking Russian oil refining and transport facilities, hoping — according to Ukrainian leaders — to cut into a key funding stream for Moscow and its military.
Ukraine’s most high-profile attacks of March came at Russia’s Baltic Sea ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk — key oil export hubs. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the strikes as “terrorist attacks.”
Zelenskyy in February said Russia’s energy sector is “a legitimate target” for attacks by Ukraine, because Russia uses revenue from sales of oil to procure weapons used to attack Ukraine.
“We do not have to choose whether we strike a military target or energy,” Zelenskyy said while addressing students at the National Aviation University in Kyiv. “He sells oil, takes the money, invests it in weapons. And with those weapons, he kills Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian officials have broadly sought to downplay the Ukrainian attacks, with most reports of damage or casualties attributed to falling debris from intercepted drones, rather than craft that found their mark. When Russian officials do acknowledge damage, they often describe the strikes as “terrorist attacks.”
But plenty of publicly available information — including video footage and photographs of the attacks — indicate that a significant number of Ukrainian drones do penetrate Russian air defenses and impact at sensitive military and industrial sites.
Meanwhile, drone incursions into neighboring countries — among them NATO allies — have raised concerns of the war spilling over into non-combatant nations.
NATO aircraft are regularly scrambled in NATO nations like Poland and Romania in response to Russian drone attacks along Ukraine’s western borders.
Allied officials have reported Russian drone violations in Romania, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Russian drones have also overflown Moldova, which is not a NATO member. Russian officials have denied responsibility for such incursions.
Stray Ukrainian drones have been reported falling in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
ABC News’ Fidel Pavlenko contributed to this report.
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