Cuba

The Cuban government says it will release 2,010 prisoners in a move that comes while the Trump administration puts extreme pressure on the island's government with a suffocating oil blockade. The announcement Thursday said the pardons were a "humanitarian gesture" in connection with Holy Week and didn't mention mounting pressures with the U.S. The government said the prisoners affected are foreigners and Cubans but didn't name them.

Cuba's deepening economic crisis is pushing struggling families into hunger and forcing them to rely on donations and the black market. One Havana mother says she sometimes has no lunch for herself and her daughters, as fuel shortages, daily blackouts and cuts to rationed food impact families across the island.

A Russian vessel laden with 730,000 barrels of oil has docked at the Cuban port of Matanzas, the first time in three months that an oil tanker reached the island. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump allowed the shipment to proceed despite its ongoing energy blockade.

President Donald Trump says he has "no problem" with a Russian oil tanker off the coast of Cuba delivering relief to the island, which has been brought to its knees by a U.S. oil blockade. When asked if a New York Times report that the tanker would be allowed to reach Cuba was true, Trump said: "I told them, if a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem whether it's Russia or not."

The U.S. and Cuban governments have been at odds since the conclusion of the Cuban Revolution 67 years ago. From my perspective as an expert on Havana-Washington ties, however, this moment seems different.

The U.S. and Cuba have been at odds — economically and sometimes militarily — since the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959. But the current crisis is among the most difficult Cuba has faced since then.

It's a major source of revenue for the island. And it's controversial. Now countries are sending Cuban doctors home in response to pressure from the Trump administration.

The crisis in Cuba, driven by systemic mismanagement and intensified by a U.S. oil blockade, spurred a group of liberal activists to travel to the country. But some commentators and conservative politicians denounced the trip as performative and said the activists mocked the Cuban people by staying in luxury hotels and traveling in air conditioned buses.

Speculation is mounting about who, if anyone, might replace Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes for change in Cuba's leadership. He still has two years left in his term —- but some experts and a growing number of Cubans doubt he'll make it. Experts say two Castro cousins have come into focus as potential replacements.

The first ship of an international flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to Cuba has arrived in Havana loaded with solar panels, bicycles, food and medicine as the island's economic and energy crises deepen. Some 30 people were aboard the first of three ships expected to arrive in Cuba as the island grapples with severe blackouts, a crumbling power grid and a U.S. energy blockade.

The Cuban government announced that Cuban nationals living abroad can invest in and own private businesses on the island. But it laid bare a reality that many refuse to acknowledge: the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba creates layers of restrictions for Cubans in Florida, even if they were “crazy” enough to want to invest in their nation of birth.

As Cuba grapples with a crumbling power grid and heightened tensions with the Trump administration, Havana’s top diplomat said Sunday that the Cuban military is ready to defend itself against the U.S.