An on-the-ground look at Cuba's ongoing crisis

Reporting from Havana, Tibi Saizaya says power outages now last 18 to 20 hours, often returning only in the middle of the night. Havana’s streets are quieter and emptier: a tourist area that once held a long line of vintage American cars had only two, and drivers said customers were rare. Many Cubans Saizaya met four years ago have emigrated. Access to foreign currency determines who can buy food, medicine, batteries, solar panels, or generators; a full-time surgeon earns roughly $10 a month, while a generator costs $500 to $700. On the same block, one home may be lit while its neighbor is completely dark.

Cubans are selling homemade food and secondhand possessions outside their homes because full-time salaries do not cover basic needs. At the same time, loosened restrictions have allowed businesses such as electric-tricycle services to appear. One entrepreneur who repairs electric tricycles and cars receives 20 to 30 calls daily but can handle only about 10. Saizaya says demand is clear, yet equipment, fuel, and backup power require money that most Cubans do not have. Residents told her they want change after more than 60 years under the same system, but many reject the U.S. oil blockade and President Trump’s talk of military force because ordinary people are paying for the standoff.

In Mumbai, the Why Loiter group marked the Hindu festival of Navratri by gathering in a public park, walking between parks, and urging women to occupy public space without a practical errand. Organizer Soumya Mishra says men can loiter normally, while women are expected to be outside only for a purpose because they lack safety and security. The protests followed a September gang rape of a 17-year-old near a Delhi college and broader demands for justice. SafetyPin’s Sonali Vyas argues that better lighting, sidewalks, transportation, and inclusive design help everyone; putting more women in public-facing transit jobs can also make women feel safer using buses, trains, and water metros.

Sociologist Shuli Kumar says infrastructure is not enough: patriarchy is embedded in households, local government, and the state, and existing safety laws are not enforced equally. Dalit and tribal women face especially high levels of sexual violence, while marginalized women often cannot afford legal proceedings and see low conviction rates. In Himachal Pradesh, Jagori operates Nari Adalat, a women-led people’s court where trained women paralegals provide counseling, mediation, and plans for resolving disputes ranging from economic problems to sexual assault. Participants often prefer it to police stations because the women hearing their cases are community members rather than authority figures. A government network of similar courts has also been established in several northern states.

Jane Little joined a Canine Jets flight from Teterboro, New Jersey, to England carrying eight humans, 10 dogs, and a cat named Graham, who had to remain in a crate while the dogs occupied seats beside their owners. Founder Adam Golder says pandemic disruptions helped launch the business, and demand surged after the U.S. election; flights from the U.S. to Britain and Europe were sold out. Since 2023, Canine Jets has flown more than 5,000 pets, at an average cost of $9,000 one way to Europe. Passengers included a retiree moving his daughter’s dogs after research funding cuts and a woman whose pet-health paperwork made her miss a Queen Mary sailing.

At Gallion Beach, reporter Hannah Schnatterly saw mangroves stripped to cracked trunks and branches after Hurricane Melissa destroyed roughly a quarter of Jamaica’s mangrove forests. The forests’ lattice-like roots act like bent steel reinforcing bars, slowing storm waves, while also cooling coasts, supporting fisheries, and storing carbon. Restoration is obstructed by debris including a toilet, an industrial sink, a crushed BMW, and 40-foot shipping containers lodged in the roots. Experts say development, climate change, and sea-level rise had already thinned the forests. Jamaica’s government has increased conservation efforts and issued its first national mangrove plan, but the hurricane set protection work back about a decade, and regrowth to former strength will take at least 10 years.

The World Health Organization added Barbados to the 26 countries and territories recognized for eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV. From 2022 through 2024, 98 percent of pregnant women in Barbados received prenatal care, HIV testing, and antiretroviral treatment when needed. No children were born with HIV during that period. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Barbados demonstrated universal health coverage by offering free services to every pregnant woman, regardless of nationality, while respecting patients’ rights and privacy.

After winning more than 40 percent in Saxony-Anhalt’s September election, the far-right AfD proposed abolishing gender studies, creating an institute for “critical research on Islam,” reducing student councils’ power, cutting climate initiatives, and replacing bachelor’s and master’s degrees with the traditional German diploma. Higher-education experts called the proposals interference in academic affairs and warned that abandoning the Bologna system would make German qualifications harder to compare internationally. Otto von Guericke University rector Jens Stracke said the change would be disastrous for a school with 5,500 international students, nearly half its enrollment, many in English-language master’s programs. Indian students feared they would choose the U.S., Canada, or Australia instead.

Novaya Gazeta closed its Moscow newsroom after its landlord refused to renew its lease and state pressure made reporting impossible, another sign of Russia’s shrinking space for independent media. Armenian investigative journalist Edik Baghdasarian said the closure also ended collaborations across a global investigative network. His outlet HEKT has prompted criminal cases and the return of illegally privatized forest land near the tourist city of Zaghkadzor. During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenia’s National Security Service labeled one of his frontline reports “fake”; a domestic court rejected his challenge, and he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. U.S. aid cuts also forced his investigative media school to close, though he hopes to find new support.

Liberian American musician Mon Rovia was born during Liberia’s first civil war, lost his parents, and was taken to the United States by a missionary family while some siblings remained behind and two became child soldiers. A return visit at age 12, during the second civil war, exposed him to a burned airport, UN forces, and child soldiers carrying AKs and RPGs through Monrovia. Back in Tennessee, he struggled with addiction, drinking, depression, and poverty before crying unexpectedly during one of his pastor father’s sermons and feeling years of emotion release. His four-EP cycle follows that journey from “The Wandering” through “Trials” and “The Dying of the Self”; he later released the album *Bloodline*.