Cuba

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel told NBC News’ Meet the Press that he would not step down in his first interview with a U.S. network, a portion of which was broadcast Thursday.

If the recent Silicon Valley Bank rescue was controversial, the Federal Reserve’s actions to stop a bank run in Havana 97 years ago seem scarcely believable. It is a once-confidential tale of millions of dollars in $5 and $10 bills sent barreling to Key West on Flagler’s Train to Paradise, before crossing the Florida Straits in a tense, liquor-soaked journey on a Cuban gunboat.

Hundreds of Cuban women have gathered in Havana to decry a U.S. energy embargo and other measures imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump that are strangling the Caribbean island. Tuesday's rally was organized by the Federation of Cuban Women. It is a massive organization with close ties to the government and the Communist Party.

Two U.S. lawmakers are calling for a permanent solution to Cuba's crises after witnessing the effects of a U.S. energy blockade during an official visit to the island.

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.