HAVANA — Reggaeton boomed in a neighborhood bar in Old Havana on a recent night, when, suddenly, the music stopped and everything went dark. The customers groaned. Another blackout. A U.S. blockade on oil shipments to Cuba has plunged the island into its worst energy crisis in modern history. The country’s already cratering economy now teeters on…
During President Obama’s first term, when the U.S. and Cuba initially made attempts to thaw our icy relationship, I visited the island country as part of an educational delegation. We met with government officials including Mariela Castro, the daughter of then-President Raul Castro, as she was working on pro-LGBTQ+ legislation. We visited the burial site…
WASHINGTON — Before Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi departed for Washington, she told her nation’s lawmakers that her Oval Office meeting with President Trump on Thursday would be “very difficult.” Actually, it was awkward. After a reporter questioned Trump about not warning Japan before launching his “surprise” offensive in Iran, Trump said that surprise was the point….
A deaf 6-year-old boy snatched by immigration agents from Northern California and deported to Colombia this month needs to be returned to the U.S. immediately or he could die, a lawyer representing the child said Wednesday. Attorney Nikolas De Bremaeker said the boy, Joseph Lodano Rodriguez, was “at risk every day that he is not…
MEXICO CITY — The Trump administration has launched an unprecedented immigration enforcement operation across the U.S. to deport people there illegally, but data compiled by a Mexican investigative outlet show that deportations of Mexicans were lower last year than in each of the previous four years. Under the Biden administration, deportations of Mexicans per year reached nearly…
In one of his latest missives on social media, President Trump complained that he wasn’t getting enough credit for “totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise.” “We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time,” he wrote of a war that has crippled the global supply of oil, sharply increased…
WASHINGTON — Six American airmen deployed to operations against Iran were killed after their refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq, U.S. Central Command said Friday, bringing the U.S. death toll in the war to 13, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the heaviest day of strikes yet. The crash involved two aircraft in “friendly airspace,” the Pentagon…
MEXICO CITY — Cuba has begun direct talks with the United States in an effort to solve “bilateral differences” between the two countries, Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel said Friday. The comments, broadcast nationwide in Cuba, are the first confirmation of bilateral talks between two governments that have been fierce adversaries for almost 70 years, since Fidel…
WASHINGTON — Days after he was named Iran’s next supreme leader, and over a week since U.S. and Israeli bombing wiped out much of his family, Mojtaba Khamenei issued his first statement on Thursday demanding vengeance against the alliance over the war it unleashed. He called on Iranian forces to continue thwarting vital shipping traffic through the…
WASHINGTON — Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington says Havana is prepared to enter diplomatic talks with the United States, reiterating the country’s willingness to engage even as tensions escalate with President Trump asserting that the island nation’s government could soon collapse. “We are ready to engage with the U.S. on the issues that are important for the…