U.S. ends special immigration policy for Cubans

Cuba's opposition plans to go ahead with protests demanding greater freedom and the release of political prisoners. The US has accused Havana of orchestrating a clampdown.

Anti-government protests have broken out in Cuba, with thousands of people voicing their anger over shortages of food and other basic goods. The country is grappling with the worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union and a record number of COVID-19 cases.

Faced with shortages of food and medicine, power blackouts and an economy in crisis, thousands of Cubans staged rare protests last summer. But since then, little has been heard from them. Cuban exiles in the United States are worried about developments on the island.

Cuba Gooding Jr. pleaded guilty on Wednesday (April 13) to a misdemeanor count of forcibly touching a woman at a New York nightclub in 2018, as part of an agreement with prosecutors that spares the Oscar-winning actor any immediate jail time.

The Biden administration has announced the easing of curbs imposed by Donald Trump on travel to Cuba and on remittances that immigrants can send to people on the island.

A controversial public health order invoked by the Trump administration in 2020 to curb the spread of COVID-19 in migrant holding facilities was due to be lifted on Monday. But a federal judge has quashed the move.

A September referendum could see Cuba become the ninth Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage, but the vote's outcome is anything but clear.

A deadly fire at Cuba's main oil terminal Matanzas is still burning days after one of its gas tanks was struck by lightning. Mexico and Venezuela have deployed teams to help contain the blaze.

For the first time since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, Cuba plans to allow some foreign investment in local wholesale and retail trade.

Cubans are increasingly feeling the pinch of the country's worst economic crisis in 30 years. In the capital Havana, people wait for hours in long queues to find something to eat for the day. The pandemic has played a major role in the food shortages, which are compounded by rising inflation and a 60-year-old US embargo. Our France 2 colleagues report, with FRANCE 24's Clémence Waller and Lauren Bain.

In Cuba, the socialist project begun by revolutionary hero and former president Fidel Castro is teetering on the verge of failure.

Since at least 2013, the Nigerian Army has run a secret, systematic and illegal abortion programme in the country’s northeast, terminating at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls, many of whom had been kidnapped and raped by Islamist militants, according to dozens of witness accounts and documentation reviewed by Reuters.