What is going on with Fidel Castro? The former Cuban President has been rather... candid, lately, admitting gay persecution was his fault and condemning anti-Semitism. Most recently? He told a reporter that the Cuban model of economics "doesn't even work."

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro told the Mexican newspaper La Jornada that "If someone is responsible" for the persecution suffered by Cuban gays after the 1959 revolution, "it's me." In response, gays named a San Francisco neighborhood in his honor.

The New York City school system has banned former teacher Nathan Turner for taking five students on an unauthorized field trip to Cuba in 2007. Turner resigned in 2008, so whatever, and besides, he had a good reason.

Fresh off his first public appearance in four years, Fidel Castro tonight will take to the airwaves with a well though out theory: The US will soon unleash a "sinister fate" on the world... by nuking Iran and everyone else.

A Cuban blog has posted the first known photos of Fidel Castro in public since he fell ill four years ago and relinquished the presidency to his younger brother, Raúl. An angry Miami Herald editorial is forthcoming. [Washington Post; pic]

[Remember Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban kid who became the center of a custody controversy in 2000? Well, that's him, now, with Cuban President Raul Castro, officially marking the ten-year anniversary of his return to Cuba. Pic via AP.]

In America, it's very formulaic: pitcher beans batter, batter charges pitcher, benches clear, and serious physical altercations are usually avoided. Not in Cuba! In Cuba, the pitcher runs for dear life as the batter maniacally chases after him.

It's time for another Gawker Book Club meeting: Ann Louise Bardach will be discussing her new book Without Fidel: A Death Foretold. Our topic today at 4pm: how Perez Hilton caused havoc in Miami by falsely reporting Fidel's death.

A U.S. envoy held unpublicized meetings with Cuban leaders. It's obviously socialism, not overdue diplomacy.

As Perez Hilton readers know, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro died two years ago today, when he fell off some cliffs in New Zealand while filming a movie with Jeff Goldblum. Despite that, the Cubans keep releasing new photos of him!

A guy in Miami made up a fake woman's online profile and lured Fidel Castro's son into sexy internet chats. Big news, or just like every other unintentionally male-on-male sexy internet chat?

Cuba will begin performing sexual reassignment surgeries it was announced today, a year after a nationwide ban on the operation was lifted. To cover the story, AFP photographer Adalbert Roque took shots of some transsexual women in Havana, which are intriguing and lovely in an odd, quiet way. A gallery:

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro gave ABC News White House correspondent Jake "The Octogon" Tapper a shout-out in his unreadable column in some state-controlled newspaper.

It's unlikely that the average Cuban will be catching Ron Paul mania on YouTube, but there will be more cries of "Viva la revolucion!" being uploaded from official sources thanks to a fiber-optic line running across the Caribbean from Cuba to Venezuela, to be completed in 2010. And, naturally, Cuban telecommunications vice minister Boris Moreno is blaming the current lack of access on Fortress America:

Two of the revolutionary hero (to some) Che Guevara's kids said this week that they've had enough of their dad being used as a branding icon for advertisers of all stripes. "The appropriation of the figure of Che that has been used to make enemies from different classes" is "embarrassing," said one of his daughters. That's true. But Che's image today is largely made up of consumer products, that people buy in solidarity with a complicated man whose popular representation is—to say the least—highly simplified. Below, ten of the most important Che items that any dedicated revolutionary should own. Get em before they're outlawed.

Fidel Castro has "resigned" as the ruler of Cuba, but he hasn't been seen in public for 19 months, so don't believe anything you read in the mainstream media until brave Perez Hilton explains to you how this means Castro is even more dead. (In the attached picture, Castro is shown holding a book published about a month after Perez's groundbreaking scoop that he was dead, click through for a larger picture.) UPDATE: At 6:30 AM, Perez confirmed that "Castro Steps Down!!!!!!!" Approximately 10 seconds later, his site receives the first in a long, ongoing series of comments along the lines of this one, number 42: "How can he step down if he's dead???? Perez what's going on?? Please bring us op to date!!"

Apparently, the golden age of government-journalist payola didn't end with radio host Armstrong Williams and "marriage expert" Maggie Gallagher taking cash to push political agendas. Ten Miami journos — three from El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language paper run by the Miami Herald's corporate owner — have been paid by the U.S. for appearances and punditry on Radio Mart and TV Mart . Both Mart s are themselves United States government entities created to broadcast pro-American propaganda at Cuba. Icky! The top earner was Cuba columnist Pablo Alfonso, who took home almost $175,000 since 2001 in exchange for his program hosting duties. Alfonso, plus another El Nuevo Herald staffer and a freelancer, were kicked to the curb. Several of the reporters were hardly contrite, such as Channel 41's Juan Manuel Cao ($11,400 this year): ''There is nothing suspect in this ... I would do it for free. But the regulations don't allow it. I charge symbolically, below market prices.'' Way to take a hit for the team, fiscally speaking. Of course, given that El Nuevo Herald has long been regarded with serious hostility by Cuba's government already, it's not like these columnists were deviating much (if at all) from their paper's regular editorial stance. Why not make a little extra dosh on the side for the same material? It's almost patriotic.