And I'm Virginia Allen. The Cuban regime has done everything in its power to put an end

to the pro-democracy protests in the country. There are still more than 700 protesters being

detained in Cuban prisons. John Suarez, the executive director of the Center for Free

Cuba, joins the show today to discuss the tactics the Cuban Communist government is using

to maintain control in the country. And what hope remains for a free Cuba?

But before we get to Virginia's conversation with John Suarez, let's hit our top news stories of the day.

On Thursday, President Biden signed a measure that would raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion.

The debt ceiling increase comes after the Senate voted Tuesday 50-49 to pass the measure after

Democrats and Republicans reached a deal to avoid a filibuster. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck

Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to a one-time exemption from the

filibuster to approve the debt ceiling hike with a simple majority vote. Later that same Tuesday,

the House passed the bill to 21-209, sending it to the president's desk design.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had previously warned Congress that the federal government

could default on its debt if the debt limit wasn't raised.

YouTube has cancelled conservative talk show host and comedian Stephen Crowder for the

remainder of the year. Crowder is host of the Louder with Crowder podcast and talk show.

This week, he received an email from YouTube informing him that he would be banned from the

platform for the rest of 2021. Crowder discussed the cancellation on his show this week and shared

the discussion on Twitter. In the email to Crowder, YouTube said the video titled

The Left Hates Elon Musk, because he's too based, contained content that was in violation of

YouTube's anti-hatespeech policy, but YouTube did not provide any details on what the platform

found to be hate speech. This is not the first time YouTube has censored Crowder earlier this year.

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