The Herald announces the Student Press Awards 2025 shortlist
In an age of misinformation and fake news, the continuing presence of a strong and independent media has never been more important. With growing security threats, far-reaching power concentrated in the hands of a few, global technology brands and pressures building over finite resources in a world that's rapidly heating up, the role of journalists is becoming more relevant than ever.
Against this backdrop it is essential to identify the next generation of fearless voices and to support those writers, journalists and broadcasters who are willing to seek out the truth and report it with rigorous clarity.
That's the aim of The Herald Student Press Awards 2025 in association with Weber Shandwick, the finalists for which have been announced today.
Read more:
The Herald's Student Press Awards are the chance of a lifetime
These awards have been created in order to encourage the highest standards in journalism and to single out talent amongst students at Scotland's further and higher education establishments. The student newspaper has a proud history of free speech and of providing a solid training ground that has given us some of our finest journalists and the shortlist announced today includes contributors not just of print titles, but also of radio stations and digital platforms.
The submitted articles, podcasts, features, reports and sports bulletins have been scrutinised by a panel of experts, led by Herald editor Catherine Salmond and have been selected for their success in providing fresh insights into well-worn subjects; uncovering new facts and providing thrilling accounts of sporting encounters, and for doing it all in language that is unambiguous and, at times highly entertaining.
The winners of the Student Press Awards 2024 with Editor Catherine Salmond at far left, Gemma Forrester from Weber Shandwick, 2nd left and Callum Baird, editor-in-chief, Newsquest Scotland and Northern Ireland (Image: NQ) Amongst the awards being contested are: Best Use of Digital Media; Design of the Year for newspapers and magazine: Scoop of the Year and Student News Brand of the Year.
There are tangible rewards at stake in the shape of one week's work experience with The Herald editorial team for winners of News Writer of the Year, Features Writer of the Year, Sports Writer of the Year and Columnist of the Year categories, while the winner of The Student Journalist of the Year title will receive a four-week paid internship with The Herald this summer.
Winners will be announced during a ceremony that will take place in The Herald offices in Glasgow on Thursday, 15 May and there is an opportunity for anyone connected with the finalists, their publications or digital platforms, as well as for those from the associated educational establishments, to come along and support them on the day.
Full details of how to take part are available online here.
Find the full shortlist below:
Best use of Digital media
Aidan Gilbride, SPFL News Now, Edinburgh Napier University
Amanda Crawford, UWS Newsroom, University of the West of Scotland
Antonella Valente, The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
Fred Byrne, Gettin' Rowdy with The Gaudie, The Gaudie
Design of the Year (Newspaper or Magazine)
Clive Davies, The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
Hannah Hamilton, The Magdalen, University of Dundee
Morgan Woodfall, The Glasgow Guardian, Glasgow University
Columnist of the Year
Alexander (Sandy) Woodhouse, ENRG, Edinburgh Napier
Emilia Evonne Beatrice Lauder, ENRG & The Broad, Edinburgh Napier University
Hannah Linda Hamilton, The Magdalen, The University of Dundee
Features Writer of the Year
Carlin Braun, Brig Newspaper, University of Stirling
Kulsum Shabbir, Strathclyde Telegraph, University of Strathclyde
Nina Miller, The Glasgow Guardian, University of Glasgow
News Writer of the Year
Eva J Milne, The Jute Journal, University of Dundee
Amelia Boag McGlynn and Fred Byrne, The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
Katherine McKay, Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Odhran Gallagher, Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Sports Writer of the Year
Anya Diggines, Brig Newspaper, University of Stirling
Jack Harris, ENRG, Edinburgh Napier University
John Shiels, The Clyde Insider, Glasgow Clyde College
Oliver Kennedy, The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
Scoop of the Year
David Forrest, The Clyde Insider, Glasgow Clyde College
Edward Jewsbury, Brig Newspaper, University of Stirling
Katherine McKay, Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Odhran Gallagher, Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Student News Brand of the Year
Brig Newspaper, University of Stirling
The Student, University of Edinburgh
The Gaudie, University of Aberdeen
ENRG, Edinburgh Napier University
The Glasgow Guardian, Glasgow University
Hillhead Review, University of Glasgow
Strathclyde Telegraph, University of Strathclyde
Student Journalist of the Year
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Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Miami Herald
Miami-Dade checks to the A3 Foundation are under scrutiny. One was just returned
After the A3 Foundation secured more than $1 million from Miami-Dade, the county is getting some of that money back. A $200,000 check issued on July 8 to the politically connected charity was left at a front desk in County Hall last week, a top Miami-Dade administrator said Thursday. The check was never cashed. 'It came in an envelope with my name on it,' said David Clodfelter, Miami-Dade's budget director. The refunded dollars offer the latest mystery in the A3 saga, which started with a Miami Herald article on July 19 questioning how the obscure charity had managed to secure nearly $2 million in public money from the state of Florida and Miami-Dade County and was on the verge of getting millions more from a county parks contract. Formed in the fall of 2023, the A3 Foundation still lists its headquarters in a West Miami townhouse. As of Friday afternoon, its website had no contact information and non-working links on its projects page. While the website does not list A3's leadership, state records show the charity's president is Francisco Petrirena. He works full-time as chief of staff to Miami City Manager Art Noriega. The A3 Foundation first attracted public attention when the Herald reported on last-minute legislation that mandated a vendor give the charity $250,000 a year through 2045. The required payment came from a 20-year management contract giving events company Loud and Live control of a portion of Tropical Park, where the firm helps put on the annual CountryFest rodeo each year. Miami-Dade commissioners approved the contract a day after Levine Cava unveiled a 2026 county budget proposal that slashes about $40 million in nonprofit grants. Herald coverage of A3 prompted Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to say that she'd block the planned payments to the charity in the Loud and Live contract and call for an audit of the charity's spending. County records show her budget office under Clodfelter pushed finance staff to process A3 checks, which were requested by the office of Miami-Dade Commission Chair Anthony Rodriguez. Rodriguez's staff used A3 as a clearinghouse for more than $1 million in tax dollars allocated to CountryFest, the springtime rodeo that's the signature event in his district. Loud and Live said it was paid by A3 for its CountryFest expenses in 2024 and 2025. Through records requests, the Herald obtained three bare-bones invoices that A3 sent to Miami-Dade requesting money for CountryFest expenses. The recently returned check suggests at least $200,000 of the taxpayer funds wasn't needed after all. But that wasn't the message from Rodriguez's staff in recent months as the chair's office pushed for the county bureaucracy to issue the check. 'Good morning David, per our conversation here is the invoice for A3 Foundation for CountryFest,' Aldo Gonzalez, a top Rodriguez aide, wrote in a May 14 email to David Livingstone, an assistant director of the county's Parks Department. 'Can you please process this invoice as soon as possible as we are trying to close out on CountryFest.' Six weeks later, the requested check still hadn't been cut, and Gonzalez pressed Clodfelter, the county's budget director, for the money. 'Need this paid,' Gonzalez emailed Clodfelter on July 3. Attached was the original A3 invoice for $200,000 — the bill that would later generate the check returned to Clodfelter's office last week. It had no receipts or details beyond: 'Payment for CountryFest 2025.' Gonzalez did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. Petrirena did not either. A lawyer for the A3 Foundation, John Priovolos, told the Herald on Friday he would look into questions about the returned check. While Clodfelter said the $200,000 check to A3 was issued and released last month, he did not provide information on who retrieved it originally, so it's not known if the $200,000 check ever physically made it to the A3 Foundation. County records show a staffer for the County Commission picked up at least one other A3 check this year, so it's possible the $200,000 check never left County Hall. County records show Miami-Dade issued about $1 million in checks to the A3 Foundation over the last two years. Paperwork behind the checks show the taxpayer funds were requested to pay for CountryFest. Behind the scenes, the administrator of the Parks Recreation and Open Spaces (PROS) Department's budget was questioning why the foundation was getting so much money for the Tropical Park event, according to emails released this week through a Herald records request. When the request for a $200,000 check to A3 got to Parks Budget Chief Angus Laney, he noted the charity had already been paid $300,000 for that year's CountryFest, held the last weekend in April. That was well over what Parks paid the charity in 2024. 'Please note that last year's payment to the A3 Foundation was $421,000. A 19% growth in compensation seems high,' Laney wrote in a May 14 email to the county budget office. Laney wasn't just managing A3 invoices for CountryFest. He wrote that Parks had also paid $200,000 to the Miami livestock company that put on the event's cattle show. If Parks paid A3 another $200,000 on top of that, the event's cost would hit $700,000 — well over the department's $500,000 budget for CountryFest. At the time, Parks was already under budget strain, with a mandate to cut costs as Levine Cava prepared a 2026 budget proposal that would cut back on department dollars for lifeguards, landscaping and athletic fields. 'PROS is currently under directive from the Mayor to come in $6.5M below our budgeted subsidy for the current fiscal year,' Laney wrote Gonzalez, the policy and legislative director for Rodriguez, on March 11. On Friday, Clodfelter, the county budget director, released a summary of how Miami-Dade paid for CountryFest this year. He said that in addition to money from Parks and allocations from county commissioners, Miami-Dade tapped promotional budgets for Miami International Airport and PortMiami. If the $200,000 check had been cashed, Clodfelter said, money from those county-owned facilities would have covered the expense. As a result, the check would not have impacted the Parks budget. When he sent the email raising budget concerns, Laney was pushing back on Gonzalez's request for the initial $300,000 check to A3. Laney said he only had $250,000 available for the charity's CountryFest expenses. 'If we were not under that mandate, I might be able to absorb the $50K in question (though my budget is already very lean), but under the current constraints, I cannot approve payment of the $300K invoice until I have access to $50K of additional funding,' Laney wrote. The emails released by Parks this week don't show how the $50,000 gap was resolved for the $300,000 check that was issued to A3 on April 4. County records show that check was cashed. Weeks later, pressure was building on Parks to OK the second A3 check for 2025. 'I need to know if you are going to be able to process this invoice,' Clodfelter, the county's budget chief, wrote in a May 14 email to Maria Nardi, then the Parks director. There's no record of a response from Nardi, but the $200,000 check wasn't issued until early July. On Thursday, Clodfelter said the un-cashed A3 check that was returned last week can no longer be cashed. 'It was returned,' Clodfelter said. 'And I have canceled it.'
Miami Herald
3 days ago
- Miami Herald
As school starts in South Florida, families fear increased immigration enforcement
As South Florida students return to class for the new school year, many parents are not just worried about their children doing well in school and getting along with their classmates. They are also worried about increased immigration enforcement. In Miami-Dade County, where at least 82,000 students are English language learners — many of whom come from 'mixed-status' families, where family members have varying immigration statuses — returning to school can mean anxiety and fear of immigration enforcement actions breaking apart families. 'We have a lot of fear. We go from home to work and work to home,' said Roselia, a Miami-Dade County Public Schools parent of four who is undocumented. She asked the Herald to use only her first name, citing her fears of deportation. Roselia worries that she could be deported and that her four children, all born in the U.S., will come home from school without a parent to care for them. Federal agents can now legally enter schools if they have a warrant or consent, and since local law enforcement has deepened cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, some families say they live in constant fear that a school day could end with a parent or a child questioned by immigration officials, or even in detention. While most removals happen quietly, without teachers or classmates even knowing, the Miami Herald has documented several cases where students have been deported, had their parents deported or now live with the daily possibility of separation — a fear that is reshaping classrooms across South Florida. 'People are getting picked up every day. … Kids are going to go back to school in the fall, look to their left, look to their right, and it's going to be kids missing,' said Frieda Goldstein, an immigration attorney and former U.S. immigration prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice. Adding to the fear is the 287(g) program, which empowers local officers to act as immigration agents. Miami-Dade County Public Schools boasts that it has the largest school police force in the nation. Though there have not been any public conversations about the school police force signing a formal agreement with ICE, immigration advocates fear the possibility. For Cesar Garcia, an incoming middle school teacher at iPrep Academy in downtown Miami, the start of his first year teaching brings both excitement and difficult conversations around immigration. Garcia, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who is now a U.S. citizen, will be teaching critical thinking, personal finance and business. He said that teachers he knows who deeply care about their students are already having difficult conversations about what to do if immigration officials were to show up at school and how best to support students who may be affected. 'I would never let a kid be taken away,' he said. 'As a citizen of the United States and an immigrant, I think everyone in this country has rights, and they need to go through due process. We have seen a huge disregard for following the law — and this is supposed to be law enforcement.' 'I understand we need to address the immigration situation,' he added, 'but I disagree with how it's being implemented.' Two students won't be returning to Coral Springs Elementary School on Monday, the first day of school in Broward County. Geronimo and Salome, a kindergartener and a third grader, were deported alongside their father to Colombia in May, according to their mother, Catalina, and a lawyer representing the mother. Catalina is now awaiting deportation in detention. She agreed to speak with the Herald using only her first name because she fears repercussions while in detention. Catalina, who is from Colombia and has been in the United States since October 2021 with an asylum case in process, was detained along with her children's father, Yohan. When ICE told them that their two children would be detained as well, Catalina had to call a friend to pick up Salome, 10, and Geronimo, 5, from their public school in Broward County, she said. At the ICE field office in Miramar, the children were crying as agents tore Catalina away from her son and daughter, said Goldstein, their lawyer. Catalina said in Spanish that the female ICE officer told her 'hand over your children because they're facing deportation.' After a day in immigration detention, the father and the two children boarded a plane back to Colombia, leaving their mother, life and school in the United States behind. 'There they are in school one day, going to school in Broward County, doing great things, and the next day, their life is ripped apart,' said Goldstein. 'They were very fine … happy… studying,' Catalina said over the phone from detention. Catalina did not have a deportation order, according to her attorney. But she is now awaiting deportation in detention in Louisiana. She wanted to remain in the United States and see her asylum case through but took her lawyer's advice to sign a self-deportation form. But she was told she must wait to actually leave. Catalina was never able to call the school to tell them what happened because phone calls are expensive from inside detention. Even her calls with her children have been limited because of the cost and a bad connection. 'It is very sad,' Catalina said over a broken phone line from detention. Keandra Fulton, the principal at Coral Springs Elementary, said she was unaware of the siblings' deportation or any other deportations impacting students at her school. Upon learning the news, she said, 'It is obviously troubling because our priority is that our students are safe and receiving an education.' 'It makes you wonder how many others could be impacted,' she added. The problem is not unique to Broward. In the southern part of Miami-Dade, two siblings at Redland Middle School were repatriated to their home country of Mexico after their mother was held in detention and then deported, according to repatriation documents obtained by the Herald and email correspondence with the mother. Catalina's family's experience is a cautionary tale for undocumented parents with children in schools, Goldstein said. Immigration advocates and attorneys are advising families to ensure that their emergency contact cards are up to date in case a parent is detained and the school needs to release the child to a friend or family member. Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, the executive director of Hope Community Center, a 50-year-old organization in Central Florida that supports immigrants, said he knows of multiple families where parents were detained while the child was in school. 'It is widespread,' he said, adding that students impacted 'are just in great distress, emotionally speaking.' In Apopka, Florida, near Orlando, Esvin Juarez, a Guatemalan father who'd been living in the United States for over 20 years, was deported after showing up to his immigration check-in. The mother of the family was also detained and eventually deported, according to Sousa-Lazaballet and news reports. Their four children, all American citizens, have been left behind — and the eldest daughter, Beverly Juarez, 21, is now tasked with caring for her three siblings. Renata Bozzetto, the deputy director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, advised all immigrant families to ensure they have a guardianship form filled out that assigns temporary care of children to someone they trust. The form must be notarized, and Bozzetto says it is best to have a lawyer help fill it out, although it is not necessary. Bozzeto's organization offers weekly events where interested participants can get free legal help. Families should also ensure that the name of that guardian is listed as one of their child's emergency contacts on school paperwork. According to a public record obtained by the Herald, at Phyllis R. Miller Elementary in the Upper East Side of Miami, there was an instance in which a student's mother was held in a correctional facility, and the principal needed to sort out who to release the student to. 'We know it is very difficult for a parent to think about a situation where they will not be there, and hopefully nothing bad will happen, but they need to take measures in this moment to be sure they are protected,' said Bozzetto. Roselia, the mother of a 15-year-old sophomore at South Dade Senior High, says she has no plans to attend school events this year. Roselia, who is from Chiapas, Mexico, has been in the United States for 19 years. She met her husband, who is from Guatemala, after they both immigrated, and they have built a family together. Both are undocumented. In the summer, Roselia's daughter Cristal, a 15-year-old sophomore, works alongside her at a small plant nursery in Homestead. Cristal and her siblings were all born in the United States, and her mother tries not to burden her four daughters with the fact that both of their parents are undocumented and live at risk of deportation. When her daughter was in kindergarten, Roselia volunteered at the school to help the teacher with the garden. 'I was always there. We brought food to the schools,' Roselia said. But now, Roselia says the fear of deportation is so strong that she avoids reading the news completely. 'If I read, I won't sleep,' she says. U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a former educator whose Miami-Dade district includes many immigrant communities, said she's alarmed by the immigration enforcement activity around Miami, including the holding of people in conditions she believes are inhumane. 'I think that a lot of children and a lot of families are living in a state of fear, and that should not be the case,' Wilson said. 'This is not who we are as a nation.' 'I don't want Miami-Dade to become so terror-ridden that [families] are scared to go to school,' she added. 'Children should go to school, they should be safe, they should be protected, they should be in school learning.' The superintendent for Miami-Dade County Public Schools has said there have been no known incidents of ICE or other federal immigration agents showing up at school campuses. But a source within the district confirmed there was one instance where ICE agents were questioning construction workers who were at a school site. The workers were contractors, not district employees. The superintendent for Broward County Public Schools also said there have been no instances of ICE showing up at schools. Nonetheless, parents like Roselia are fearful. Videos and news reports of immigration agents picking people up outside of courts make them wonder: Could they also do the same outside school campuses? Before an executive order signed on the first day of Donald Trump's presidency, schools, hospitals and churches were considered 'protected areas,' and federal officials could not enter the spaces. But that has all changed. Law enforcement enforcing immigration laws can now legally enter a school site with a judicial warrant, and there have been examples of agents attempting to enter schools, including in the nation's second-largest school district, in Los Angeles. Districts across the state and country have offered different guidance and protocols to principals regarding how firmly they will uphold the law and what they would do if officers enforcing immigration laws were to show up on campus. The procedures and interpretation of the law and guidance vary widely. Lee County Schools, on Florida's Gulf Coast, for example, has a policy that ICE officers can interrogate and arrest any 'alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or remain in the United States.' Miami-Dade has said that it will follow all local, state and federal laws. A document shared with the Herald that was sent to Miami-Dade school principals in January reminds administrators that all students, regardless of immigration status, are legally entitled to a free and public education. It also notes that the school cannot maintain any information regarding a student's or parent's immigration status and that students cannot be interviewed by any officer seeking to enforce immigration laws without a warrant signed by a judge, a parent's consent or a court order. It also advises principals to contact the school attorney if there is ever an interaction with law enforcement. But there has been no such reminder of policies publicly posted or sent out to parents, and immigration advocates say vague protocols can create fear. 'The absence of guidance is an issue,' said Bozzetto. Complicating the matter is the fact that the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office and many other local law enforcement agencies in South Florida are now enrolled in the 287(g) program, which deputizes local officers to enforce immigration policies — meaning there are more eyes on the street as parents take children to and from school and after-school activities. The school districts provide bus transportation to and from school, but there is not always transportation available for after-school activities, and parents and children without legal status are often most at risk of being stopped and questioned while driving. One of the most common ways immigrants get arrested in Florida is for driving without a license, a misdemeanor charge that has ended up with people being detained. Miami-Dade Schools Police, the largest school police force in the nation, has not signed on to the 287(g) program, and the Broward Sheriff's Office did not explain how its relationship with the public school system will be impacted by its own 287(g) agreement. Some of the school resource officers in Broward are from the Sheriff's Office. Fulton, the principal at Coral Springs Elementary, says she has noticed a drop in attendance but that it's hard to attribute to parents being afraid to send their children to school because there has been a decline overall due to more students attending charter and private schools. A data analysis of attendance records from Miami-Dade Public Schools between January and March did not show a trend of declining attendance, even at schools with the highest number of recent U.S. arrivals. Bozzetto said that during a recent town hall, a member of the Haitian American community in Miami discussed the idea of virtual school in order to avoid the risk for students of attending in person. In Palm Beach County, there was a high school student who was scared to attend school because she was worried about putting her mother, who is from Brazil, at risk, according to Bozzetto. 'What we don't want is for kids to be out of school for fear,' said Bozzetto. Luisa Santos, a Miami-Dade school board member who was once an undocumented student herself, says she hopes that undocumented students or students with parents who are not permanent residents can find solace in knowing that she, too, was once scared to show up at school for fear of deportation. 'I have felt firsthand what it means to be extremely afraid. There's real fear, and it is probably 100 times stronger now,' said Santos. 'I will do everything in my power to make sure students are not worried,' she said. 'Schools are sacred spaces for learning.'
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Miami Herald
‘Criminals in power': Members of Congress react to news of Cuban military's secret hoard
Cuban American Republican members of Congress from Miami said they will work to freeze Cuban government assets abroad and put more pressure on foreign governments helping the regime in Havana, after a Miami Herald investigation revealed that the Cuban military has hoarded billions of dollars sitting in unknown bank accounts. The Herald obtained secret accounting documents from GAESA, the conglomerate run by Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, showing that it had $18 billion in current assets in March last year, of which $14.5 billion were deposited in unidentified bank accounts and GAESA's financial institutions. The Herald's reporting raises questions about the government's narrative blaming the U.S. embargo as the exclusive cause of the country's severe economic crisis and the Cuban military's role in the ongoing humanitarian crisis. GAESA runs businesses in several sectors, including tourism, banking, trade and retail, and can tap into many of the island's revenue streams in foreign currency. The military conglomerate and several of its companies are under U.S. sanctions--meaning their assets in the U.S., if any, are frozen--but even so, it has managed to generate billions in revenue, the documents show. GAESA's financial statements obtained by the Herald show the conglomerate made $2.1 billion in net profits during the first quarter of 2024 and $7.2 billion during the first eight months of 2023, all while the island's electrical grid collapsed repeatedly and the government asked the United Nations for humanitarian aid to provide milk to young children. Reacting to the revelations, Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez, said he would work with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also a Cuban American, to 'hold the regime and its accomplices accountable.' 'The regime in Cuba is not only murderous and cruel, but profoundly corrupt,' Giménez told the Herald. 'The dictatorship is quick to blame U.S. policy for its woes, but it has billions of dollars tucked away in banks while the Cuban people suffer. These funds were stolen from the Cuban people, and we will use all the diplomatic and legal tools available to freeze the regime's assets and shame complicit foreign governments who profit off the continued oppression of the Cuban nation.' To implement a recent presidential memorandum, U.S. agencies are expected to issue regulations that would allow imposing secondary sanctions on foreign companies engaging in transactions with Cuban military-owned entities. U.S. Rep Mario Díaz-Balart said a bill he introduced last month to fund the State Department and other foreign operations for fiscal year 2026 would deny U.S. aid to governments or entities engaging financially with military-run entities in Cuba. 'While the regime in Havana blames the embargo, secret records show the Cuban military is swimming in cash,' Díaz-Balart said on a publication on X. 'My Appropriations bill makes sure not a dime from the U.S. taxpayer supports them and blocks aid to anyone bankrolling or doing business with the regime's oppressive security forces — full stop.' U.S Rep. María Elvira Salazar took issue with the Cuban government's denunciations of the U.S. embargo, which Cuban officials say denies the government the resources to buy foo and medicines and maintain the power grid. 'Cuba's real blockade is the Cuban dictatorship,' she said in an X publication commenting on the Herald story. 'While the regime blames the U.S. for blackouts, hunger, and medicine shortages, it's sitting on billions through its military empire, GAESA. That money isn't used to feed the people or fix the grid, it's used to suppress them.' 'The Castro mafia doesn't need help, they need to be eradicated from power and held accountable,' she added. 'Cubans' suffering is not caused by the embargo. It's caused by the criminals in power.' While that sort of rhetoric coming from Miami politicians usually prompts a reaction on government-controlled media in Havana, the Cuban government has been conspicuously silent. The Cuban government has also not responded to the information reported by the Herald about GAESA's finances. GAESA's finances are treated as military secrets, are not shared with other ministries or government agencies and are outside the purview of the government's comptroller, who is not authorized to audit them. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not reply to a request for comment for the story, nor the country's government comptroller, and the accounts of senior diplomats who actively comment on U.S-Cuba relations or revelations published in U.S. media have been muted on the subject. On Tuesday, when the Herald published the investigation, Cuba's leader Miguel Díaz-Canel tweeted about sports, the birthday of a renowned Cuban choir director and the war in Gaza.
