The Dictatorship
What Puerto Rico’s new governor can learn from Bad Bunny
Six days after Puerto Rico’s outdated infrastructure and colonial politics led to islandwide blackoutsBad Bunny gave the island and the diaspora a massive and beautiful gift: “DEBÍ TiRAR MÁS FOToS” (“I Should’ve Taken More Photos”), which he calls his “most Puerto Rican” album ever. Released Jan. 5, DtMF is currently Billboard’s top streaming album.
As if that weren’t enough, on Monday Bad Bunny handed out another gift when he announced his first-ever residency in Puerto Rico. He’s now the island’s cultural and political pulse, the beating heart of a new generation impatient for change. The title of his residency is “No me quiero ir de aquí,” or “I do not want to leave here.” Tickets for the first nine shows are only open to residents of Puerto Rico and can only be bought in person. Those sales started Wednesday. Tickets for the remaining shows will be available for online pre-sale next week.
The title of his residency is “No me quiero ir de aquí,” or “I do not want to leave here.”
“Tourists come here to enjoy the beautiful places, and then they leave, and they don’t have to deal with the problems that Puerto Ricans have to deal with day to day,” the 30-year-old Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (Bad Bunny’s birth name) told Time magazine in an interview about DtMF. “Translating that analogy to a romance, there are also people who arrive to share [memories with you] and only see the best part of you, the most beautiful part of you. And they leave. They couldn’t see that part of each one of us: the defects, the trauma, the worries, the pains, the wounds of the past. It’s like they were a tourist in your life.”
There’s a deep understanding in Bad Bunny’s music, a feeling that his art offers a vision for all Puerto Ricans, on the island or in the diaspora. Tracks like “Nueva Yol,” a definitive tribute to New York City’s Puerto Rican population, and “La Mudanza” drip with Puerto Rican pride.
“I SHOULD TAKE MORE PHOTOS is more than just a means of liberating the hips; it arrives amid a broader narrative of the island’s struggle for sovereignty, rooted in compounded centuries of Spanish, then American, colonization,” Tatiana Lee Rodríguez wrote in Pitchfork.
She’s right. It’s not just an album. It’s a statement about Puerto Rican unity. A reminder that Puerto Rico won’t be erased, pushed aside or disrespected, no matter how many “garbage” jokes get told by Trump-loving insult comics. This is Puerto Rico’s future, and Bad Bunny is at the forefront, ensuring the island’s identity is never lost.
This “love letter to Puerto Rico,” as one headline about the album puts it, isn’t just entertainment. Working with Jorell Meléndez-Badillo of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Puerto Rico: A National History,” Bad Bunny includes 17 mini-history lessons about the island, one for each song.
“[Bad Bunny] was really interested in having that sort of historical component, so people were not only listening to the songs on YouTube, but learning their history while they do so,” Meléndez-Badillo told the Los Angeles Times.
Unlike the island’s governor, Bad Bunny is the serious one right now. He’s using his music to bring attention to Puerto Rico’s problems
On the same day Bad Bunny brought the house down in a New York City subway station and on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon, Puerto Rico Gov. Jennifer Gonzalez-Columbus”https://x.com/Jenniffer/status/1878908449331032169″ target=”_blank”>was flaunting a letter she wrote to President-elect Donald Trump about Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Maduro, who was responding to Trump’s musings about annexing Greenland, Canada and Panama, suggested that Brazil should “liberate” Puerto Rico from the U.S. González-Colón looked silly for appearing to take Maduro’s “threat” seriously.
The contrast is clear. Unlike the island’s governor, Bad Bunny is the serious one right now. He’s using his music to bring attention to Puerto Rico’s problems: blackouts, displacement, gentrification and a distrust of a political system many see as corrupt and ineffective. He is using his platform to uplift Puerto Rico. Republican González-Colón, who favors statehood and is hoping to convince Trump to pay attention, is not. She’s touted the fact that a congratulatory letter to her from Trump was read at her swearing-in ceremony for governor; even so, despite her desperation to curry favor with the president-elect, don’t expect Trump to entertain demands for Puerto Rican statehood.
Bad Bunny has been a longtime critic of González-Colón and her pro-statehood New Progressive Party (PNP), and has paid for political billboards against her and her party. During one of the gubernatorial debates, Bad Bunny, who has millions of social media followers, made a post calling González-Colón a “liar.”
“I am a vegetarian, but I would eat rabbit,” González-Colón told her supportersas the PNP characterized Bad Bunny as the poster boy of radical leftism.
A kind of reggaeton Bob Dylan, Bad Bunny has won Puerto Ricans’ hearts because he prioritizes them and their interests.
González-Colón won the gubernatorial race with just 39% of the vote. At the same time, in Puerto Rico’s election for U.S. president — which is only symbolic because colonized people’s votes don’t count — Kamala Harris won 73% of the vote to Trump’s 27%. González-Colón catering to Trump and antagonizing the world’s most famous Puerto Rican are unlikely to win her the hearts of people on the island or the diaspora.
A kind of reggaeton Bob Dylan, Bad Bunny has won Puerto Ricans’ hearts because he prioritizes them and their interests above everybody else. The politicians haven’t always done that. But after decades of U.S. colonialism, an attitude like Bad Bunny’s must be taken by anyone serious about the island’s liberation.
Julio Ricardo Varela is an award-winning journalist and the founder of The Latino Newsletter.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz, with President Donald Trump saying the two crew members abroad were “fine” after the incident involving the strategic waterway, which remains under a chokehold by Iran.
What caused the crash remained unclear Tuesday morning in the Middle East, which was still reeling after Iran and Israel exchanged fire the previous day in the biggest blow yet to the straining ceasefire in the Iran war. Iranian state media, relying on foreign reporting, acknowledged the crash without elaborating.
Since the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran on Feb. 28, the war has shaken the global economydriven up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including foodmore expensive. Officials have been unable to turn the April ceasefireinto a deal to permanently end the conflict.
Trump, speaking to journalists at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after watching the NBA Finals on Monday night, acknowledged the crash.
“The pilots are fine. Yeah,” Trump said. “Nobody injured. We are going to issue a report tomorrow. But the pilots are fine.”
The New York Times first reported that a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter went down near the strait in unclear circumstances. The U.S. military’s Central Command and the Defense Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Apache helicopters have been a key asset for the American military as it enforces a blockade on Iranian crude oil shipments and tankers, seeking to pressure Tehran into reaching a deal. The helicopters also have been used by the United Arab Emirates to shoot down Iranian drones during the Iran war.
Trump insists an Iran deal is coming
Trump also expressed renewed optimism over negotiations with Iran.
“We have a good chance” of signing a deal in “two or three days,” Trump said. But he didn’t provide any details on why there was reason for new optimism.
“We’re very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal,” the president said. “If we go and bomb — which we could do very easily if we want, and we spend another two or three weeks bombing — they’ll have nothing left whatsoever. But you won’t have the strait open for months.”
He added: “If we do the bombing, you know, a lot of people are going to be killed. Who wants to do that? I don’t.”
Mediators, led predominantly by Pakistan, have been trying to weeks to get a deal across the line. However, both Iran and the U.S. have taken hard-line positions.
The U.S. wants to see Iran give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is believed still to be entombed in the country after American airstrikes in the 12-day war in 2025. But Iran is refusing that and demanding relief from sanctions. It also wants the release of frozen assets even before a final agreement is in place, something rejected by Trump.
The Dictatorship
Trump says ‘not possible’ for Pratt to fall short in ‘rigged’ LA mayor’s race. He’s wrong.
UPDATE (June 8, 2026, 9:25 p.m. ET): Los Angeles Council member Nithya Raman will advance to the November general election in the mayoral race to face the incumbent, Karen Bass, after overtaking ex-reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the primary, The Associated Press projects.
President Donald Trump and some of his top allies are repeating a familiar but false refrain: An election is “rigged,” as evidenced by their preferred candidate’s poor performance.
This time, their focus is on ex-reality TV star and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt.
On the night of the Tuesday primary, Pratt maintained a 9-point lead over his closest challenger, LA Council member Nithya Raman, leading his supporters to believe he would proceed to the November runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. But as mail-in ballots trickled in throughout the week, Pratt’s lead over Raman steadily narrowed, and by Sunday night, she had overtaken him by less than 1 point, with more than 80% of votes counted, according to The Associated Press. (The AP has not yet projected the second-place finisher to proceed to the runoff as of Monday afternoon.)
To Trump and his MAGA allies, a democratic socialist’s surge over a registered Republican with no political experience in a deep-blue city can only be indicative of one thing: fraud.
“No way this could have happened. Rigged Election!” Trump wrote on Truth Social early Monday morning.
A few hours later, Trump followed up with another Truth Social post.
“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!” he wrote.
Far-right activist Laura Loomer, a close ally of the president, told her 1.9 million followers on X on Saturday that the election “is being stolen from [Pratt] in real time!”
Benny Johnson and Elon Musk have also reposted several right-wing accounts suggesting Raman’s rise must be the result of fraud. Meghan McCain, who is a conservative commentator but also a frequent Trump critic, also injected doubt into the election results.
But election experts are not surprised by Raman’s slow rise as vote counting continues.
Why California vote counting takes so long
A poll released by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Los Angeles Times in late May suggested Pratt and Raman would be competing neck-and-neck to proceed to the runoff, and several strategists long predicted Pratt — a registered Republican backed by MAGA — would face an uphill battle in the blue city.
The mechanics of how Angelenos’ votes are counted also explain Raman’s rise: California elections officials have 30 days from Election Day to come up with the vote count, and mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received up to seven days after the election are eligible to be counted. (If mail-in ballots are missing signatures or have signatures that do not match those on file, state law requires election officials to contact voters to verify their signatures, adding more time to the process.)
Results posted on election night are based on in-person ballots cast at voting locations, both on Election Day and before, as well as mail-in ballots received before Election Day, according to the California secretary of state’s office. Subsequent counts include votes cast by provisional ballots, ballots from voters who registered and voted on the same day and the mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days of the election.
“This is not unusual,” Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, told MS NOW on Monday regarding the shifting results in the race.
Yaroslavsky pointed to the 2022 LA primary, when Republican turned centrist Democrat Rick Caruso was ahead of Bass on primary night before she pulled ahead a week later. In the November runoff, Bass ultimately beat Caruso by nearly 10 points. Nearly 85% of voters also voted by mail in that primary, contributing to the delay in Bass’s rise.
“It’s clear, it has always been the case, that Republicans and more conservative voters vote early, [and] working people, more progressive people vote late,” Yaroslavsky said.
And with more votes still to be counted, Yaroslavsky predicted Raman’s lead over Pratt would expand even further.
‘No evidence’ of cheating
Dean Logan, LA County’s registrar-recorder and county clerk, told CNN on Sunday that officials have “no evidence or examples” of cheating in the mayoral race.
“I think what we’re seeing, unfortunately, is carrying out of a narrative that has become the game play in national politics in the United States, and that is prior to the vote count being completed, take shots at the process, so if the outcome turns out different than what you want, you don’t accept that, you challenge the process,” Logan said.
Yaroslavsky agreed, telling MS NOW, “What the president is basically saying is, ‘When I win, it’s legit, when I don’t win, it’s fraud.’ That’s not the way it works.”
Logan told BLN the outcome would be clear within “days,” adding, “I know it’s frustrating, but this is really about making sure that every eligible ballot in this election is counted and counted correctly.”
In the meantime, other conspiracies are circulating, including some promoted by Pratt himself.
Pratt suggested on Sunday nightfor example, that the approximately 43,000 votes Raman gained between Tuesday and Sunday came from homeless people. In another social media post on Sunday, Pratt wrote: “They’re not the only ones who know where to find votes.”
Spokespeople for the Pratt campaign did not immediately respond to questions from MS NOW on Monday seeking clarification about the candidate’s claims.
Other conservative influencers have also falsely said Raman “conceded” the race at her primary night rally. But as MS NOW covered in real timeRaman did not concede the race. Instead, she warned her supporters that it would take time for the votes to be counted and that they may not get a favorable outcome.
“Tonight may not give us a final answer on this race. Many thousands of votes will be counted in the days ahead, and we may not get an answer we like,” she said.
In a statement provided to MS NOW on Monday, Raman said, “We are encouraged by the latest vote count and remain grateful to the thousands of Angelenos who have powered this campaign.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
The Dictatorship
Lawsuit seeks to stop the UFC fight on the White House South Lawn for Trump’s birthday
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal lawsuit seeks to halt the upcoming UFC fight card on the White House South Lawn in a mixed martial arts show timed for President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and part of the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
The filing Saturday by the Public Integrity Project on behalf of two Virginia residents contends the Trump administration’s authorization of the June 14 event was unlawful. The lawsuit says such approval violated National Park Service regulations prohibiting sporting events on federal parklands, Congress did not consent to the towering arch overlooking the event space and no environmental review was conducted before the construction.
“This is fundamentally a private, commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments for private gain,” said Brendan Ballou, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “And that is what is motivating this lawsuit.”
The White House said in a statement that the legal challenge was “an obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory” attempt to prevent Trump from hosting the fight and that the event was “no different than the various other White House-hosted events on the South Lawn and properly permitted events on the Ellipse and National Mall throughout the year.”
UFC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage on the South Lawn. Trump has said the finished UFC project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.” Additional large screens broadcasting the fights will be set up in a park at the nearby Ellipse, and the UFC has said it plans to issue as many as 85,000 free tickets to accommodate spectators at both locations.
The octagon and surrounding structures are the latest project in the White House building boom Trump is leading.
- Republican leading AI effort has ambitious timeline for getting his bill through the House
- Senate funding action stalled amid partisan stalemate on totals
- Republicans hope Trump retreats on Pulte to save spy law
- House Republicans gather congressional scorekeepers to discuss Reconciliation 3.0
- White House sends Blanche’s attorney general nomination to Congress
- US to reach $41T debt ceiling as soon as late winter, forecasters predict
- Trump says pilots are fine after U.S. helicopter crashes near Strait of Hormuz
- Trump says ‘not possible’ for Pratt to fall short in ‘rigged’ LA mayor’s race. He’s wrong.
- Trump ‘thunderously booed’ while attending NBA Finals Game 3 in New York City
- US to reach $41T debt ceiling as soon as late winter, forecasters predict
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