Andrea Rodriguez | The Associated Press

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday condemned U.S. sanctions against Cuba, as he visited the island and met with top leaders during the last leg of a Latin American tour that took him to Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Cuba’s National Assembly has ratified President Miguel Díaz-Canel for a new five-year term, in a decision to maintain continuity as the island faces a deep economic crisis.

Six months after Hurricane Ian devastated 80% of the region’s tobacco infrastructure, farmers are trying to recuperate from the disaster.

Grammy-winning Cuban balladeer Pablo Milanés has died in Spain at age 79. He helped found Cuba’s “nueva trova” movement and toured the world as a cultural ambassador for Fidel Castro’s revolution — though he also sometimes criticized policies he saw as too hardline.

Ten days after the storm left still unquantified devastation across western Cuba, and knocked out the power grid nationwide, many Cubans are still without electricity, water or many basic goods. The destruction from Ian has piled onto the hardship of people who had already been suffering through scarcity and shortages in recent years.

A few hundred Cubans have taken to the streets in Havana demanding the restoration of electricity, protesting more than two days after a blackout hit the entire island following the passage of Hurricane Ian.

A massive fire broke out in Cuba at an oil tank facility in the coastal city of Matanzas, injuring more than 100 people and five in critical conditions. The disaster promises to make the island’s energy crisis even worse.

A vessel carrying more than 800 Haitians trying to reach the United States wound up instead on the coast of central Cuba, government news media said Wednesday. It appeared to be the largest group yet in a swelling exodus of people from crisis-stricken Haiti.