In today’s newsletter: The 17 Americans who were aboard a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship have arrived in the U.S., one with mild symptoms. Trump is frustrated by the Cuban regime’s ability to maintain power, sources say. And food stamp cuts in Arizona offer a warning to the nation.
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Here’s what to know today.
American passengers from hantavirus-hit cruise ship arrive back in the U.S.
The 17 Americans who were aboard the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship Hondius have now arrived back in the United States. A State Department plane carrying them landed at Omaha Eppley Airfield in Nebraska at about 2:30 a.m. ET today, and the passengers were due to be assessed and monitored at a nearby medical center.
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Two Americans traveled in the plane’s biocontainment units “out of an abundance of caution,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
One passenger has tested positive, while another with mild symptoms will be taken to a separate health facility for treatment, it said.
“Upon arrival at each facility, each individual will undergo clinical assessment and receive appropriate care and support based on their condition,” the department said.
The Spanish Health Ministry said in a statement that the results for the passenger who HHS said tested positive were “not conclusive.”
The Dutch-flagged Hondius departed Argentina on April 1 with almost 150 on board on a nature sightseeing mission via some of the world’s most remote points. It arrived early Sunday at the island of Tenerife, the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands off the coast of west Africa. Its long and arduous journey saw six confirmed cases and two suspected cases of the disease, usually associated with rodents, and the deaths of three passengers.
Here’s what else we know.
More on hantavirus:
- The bird-watching community is pushing back on fears that an Argentine city known for its biodiversity played a role in the hantavirus outbreak.
Trump is growing impatient as Cuban regime clings to power
President Donald Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the Cuban government’s ability to maintain power despite months of sustained U.S. pressure, sources told NBC News.
The president has been pressing his advisers about why his administration’s efforts to tip the regime into collapse have not yet succeeded, according to two U.S. officials, a former U.S. official and three people familiar with the discussions.
The Cuban government has shown little sign of conceding power or offering concessions, despite U.S. sanctions, the military operation on Venezuela — a key ally — and diplomatic talks.
White House officials believe the regime could still fall by the end of this year without military intervention, but Trump has found that timeline insufficient, three sources said. In response to the president’s frustrations, the Defense Department began updating plans for possible action.
Read more of our exclusive reporting here.
More on international conflict and security:
Trump rejected Iran’s response to a U.S. proposal to bring an end to the war in the Middle East, calling the message “totally unacceptable” on Truth Social. The president did not offer details about the response, which Iranian state media reported was sent through Pakistani mediators.
As the standoff hikes oil prices, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told NBC News’ yesterday that the Trump administration is “open to all ideas” to lower the cost of gas, including suspending the federal gas tax.
The families going hungry because of food stamp cuts
The line outside a suburban office building was already 15 people long when Tiffany Hudson showed up at 7 a.m. with her 7-year-old son.
Like others there, Hudson had come to the Arizona Department of Economic Security office in Surprise, a Phoenix suburb, to find out why the food stamp benefits for her and her two children were cut off after the state began implementing new eligibility requirements under Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
“It’s been really hard. We’ve been going to food banks every week,” Hudson said. She’s a single mom and part-time caretaker who had received about $600 a month in food assistance. Her benefits stopped without warning three months ago. “We’re eating less, we’re eating more frozen stuff.”
Since the law was enacted last summer, about 3.5 million people have fallen off the SNAP rolls nationwide as of January, according to federal data. No state has seen a more dramatic drop than Arizona, where the crisis offers a warning for other states.
Read the full story here.
Read All About It
- U.S. and Chinese authorities jointly arrested five suspects in a cross-border smuggling and trafficking operation, Beijing said Monday, touting the cooperation ahead of Trump’s state visit this week.
- First on NBC News: A new lawsuit against OpenAI alleges ChatGPT enabled the 2025 FSU mass shooting by giving the suspect tips on how to use guns and draw national attention.
- Six people were found dead in a cargo train boxcar near a Laredo, Texas, rail yard, officials said. The cause wasn’t immediately clear.
- Video released by airport officials shows the moment a Frontier passenger jet struck a person on a Denver International Airport runway.
- Britney Spears reflected on her “spiritual journey” in an Instagram post following her guilty plea to reckless driving.
Staff Pick: One man’s viral plan to revive Spirit Airlines
While scrolling on TikTok the Saturday Spirit announced it would cease operations, my feed was flooded with former workers and patrons mourning the loss of their jobs and the airline. But by Sunday, sentiments seemed to have changed — there was suddenly hope.
The source of that hope was Hunter Peterson, a 22-year-old voice actor and former MrBeast staffer, selling the dream of a publicly-run airline, a cooperative Spirit 2.0.
For a pledge as low as $45, you could join a movement that could change the airline industry forever if it succeeds. It sounds like a pretty good deal. Especially when some people feel a form of financial “FOMO” — from missing out on buying Apple stock in the 80s, Bitcoin in the 2000s, or Gen Z’ers like me, who sometimes feel like they missed their chance to buy a house back in 2008 when most of us were still in diapers or elementary school. For many online, this sounded like a chance to be a founding investor in something meaningful, which explains the $337 million in pledges Spirit 2.0 secured as of Saturday.
Millions of views and multiple high-traffic-related website crashes later, Peterson seemed to realize he needed to hunker down and figure out if his viral idea was even possible. And in this article, I wanted to understand the very same thing.
— Dalila Muata, newsroom coordinator
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