Conspiracyland's "The Strange Story of Havana Syndrome," hosted by Yahoo News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff, is an investigation into the baffling medical ailments-- headaches, dizziness, extreme fatigue and even brain injuries-- that have been reported by over 1,100 American diplomats and spies in recent years, confounding the U.S. intelligence and diplomatic communities. These symptoms are commonly known as Havana Syndrome because they were first surfaced in Cuba more than five years ago though they have long since been reported all over the world. But what and who was causing them remains a mystery. As Conspiracyland documents, the reports about Havana Syndrome were used as a political trigger to upend U.S. relations with Cuba: They set off a chain of events that led the Trump administration to reverse President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with the island nation, a rollback that has continued under President Biden. It also has led to an endless spate of news stories suggesting these health ailments were the result of targeted microwave attacks by a foreign power, with the Russian intelligence services under the control of Vladimir Putin considered the leading candidate. But as Conspiracyland reveals, the real story of Havana Syndrome is starting to look very different than it did at the time.
Rich’s friends and family remember the idealistic political staffer and the last few days of his life. The shooting of Rich at 4:19 on Sunday morning, July 10, 2016, was viewed by Washington, D.C., police as the result of a botched robbery for good reason: There had been seven armed robberies in D.C.’s Bloomingdale neighborhood in the six weeks prior to Rich’s death, a crime spree that the cops believed was linked to a gang of drug dealers in a nearby housing project. And yet, three days after his death, the first fake story appeared: a wild claim on an obscure website that the former DNC staffer was gunned down by a squad of assassins dispatched by Hillary Clinton. But as investigators soon discovered, there was much more to that phony report than anybody suspected.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.