Brian Hooker told police that Lynette Hooker fell overboard and that strong currents carried her away
Police in the Bahamas have released without charges a Michigan man who said his wife disappeared after falling overboard from a small boat in waters off the Caribbean island country, authorities said on Monday.
Brian Hooker, of Onsted in southern Michigan, had been in police custody since 8 April – five days – after being questioned by authorities.
Continue reading...Brian Hooker says wife Lynette fell overboard from dinghy but family members have cast doubt on that account
Police in the Bahamas on Monday were set to again interview a US man who said his wife fell overboard from their boat.
In a statement on Sunday to the Guardian, Brian Hooker’s attorney, Terrel Butler, said: “The police have requested another interview with [Brian Hooker] tomorrow.”
Continue reading...Officials said many killed at popular tourist site were young, with more people reported injured or missing
At least 30 people, many of them young, have died and dozens more are reported to have been injured after a crush at a mountaintop fortress in northern Haiti that is a popular tourist spot.
Jean Henri Petit, the head of civil protection for the country’s Nord department, said the incident took place on Saturday at Citadelle Henry, also known as Citadelle Laferrière, a large 19th-century fortress built shortly after the Caribbean country’s independence from France.
Continue reading...Lynette and Brian Hooker, from Michigan, were years into a sailing adventure when Brian said his wife fell overboard
Lynette Hooker bounced around the deck of the docked Soul Mate, smiled into the camera and proclaimed, “We’re finally leaving Kemah,” referring to a Texas port town.
“It’s only been four months,” she said as her husband, Brian, tugged on some rigging as they got ready to set sail.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Dozens of organizations write to Congress after general announced plan to ‘deal with’ those fleeing any humanitarian crisis on the island
Dozens of US and international human rights organizations are decrying the Trump administration’s plans to establish a migrant “camp” for fleeing Cubans at the Guantánamo Bay military base if the island nation’s crisis worsens under pressure from the US, according to a letter to members of Congress on Friday.
The 85 groups plan to submit the joint letter, exclusively shared with the Guardian, to US senators and House representatives, expressing their “profound concern” with comments made last month by a top Department of Defense commander, and describing any prospect of further migrant detention at the base as “deeply troubling and unacceptable”.
Continue reading...John Feeley says US president was ‘flush with victory’ of Maduro capture and could make same mistake in Cuba
Donald Trump is “reaping the bitter fruit” of erroneously thinking that the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, offered a blueprint for toppling the Iranian regime, according to one of the US state department’s most respected former Latin America experts.
John Feeley, a Marine helicopter pilot who later served as the US ambassador to Panama, believed Trump had been “flush with the victory from Venezuela” when he made the ill-fated decision to attack Iran in February, leaving a trail of destruction across the Middle East and dealing a hammer blow to the global economy.
Continue reading...Cuba accuses US of ‘extorting’ countries in pushing them to axe deals with Havana to send doctors on medical missions
Cuba’s foreign minister has accused the United States of “extorting” Latin American countries by putting pressure on them to cancel decades-old deals with Havana for the supply of doctors.
Bruno Rodríguez said the United States was trying to “strangle” the economy of the communist island, which earns billions from its foreign medical missions, after several countries stopped deploying Cuban doctors.
Continue reading...Baby was delivered during Caribbean Airlines flight from Kingston to the US; nationality of child to be determined
A routine passenger flight from Jamaica landed at New York’s John F Kennedy international airport with one more person than it took off with after a woman gave birth in midair, potentially setting up a tricky situation over the newborn’s citizenship.
The “medical event” occurred on a Caribbean Airlines flight from Kingston on Saturday, according to a news release from the carrier.
Continue reading...Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan Jackson denounce ‘collective punishment’ amid vast disruption s from US oil blockade
Two Democratic US lawmakers on Monday called for an end to the “cruel collective punishment” of Cuba after they visited the island to witness the effects of an US energy blockade.
The US House members Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois met with the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, as well as members of Cuba’s parliament during a five-day trip ending on Sunday.
“This is cruel collective punishment – effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country – that has produced permanent damage,” Jayapal and Jackson said in a statement released on Sunday. “It must stop immediately.”
Continue reading...Despite hostile rhetoric Trump let a Russian ship break his blockade – could it herald a Venezuela-style outcome?
When a sanctioned Russian oil tanker, the Anatoly Kolodkin, docked at Cuba’s Matanzas oil terminal on Tuesday, unloading 700,000 barrels of crude, it was not immediately clear why the ship had been allowed to pass through Donald Trump’s oil blockade.
In January, the US president had proclaimed on social media: “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO!” yet last week he told reporters, “If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem with it” – and waved the Russian ship through.
Continue reading...Nearly 6,000 people forced to flee, human rights group says, as it criticises ‘abandonment’ from authorities
At least 70 people have been killed and 30 injured during an attack in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region, significantly more than official estimates, a human rights group has said.
Police initially reported 16 dead and 10 injured, while a preliminary report from civil protection authorities suggested 17 had died and 19 were wounded.
Continue reading...Female named Rounder surrounded by family members when about to give birth to her second calf
Scientists have managed to film a sperm whale giving birth while other female whales worked together to support the mother and her newborn.
A team from Project Ceti, an international effort seeking to understand how whales communicate, was in a boat near a pod of 11 whales off the coast of the Caribbean island of Dominica on 8 July 2023.
Continue reading...Two convoy vessels that were supposed to get to Havana by Wednesday have made it to Cuba, says US Coast Guard
Two sailing boats that went missing while carrying humanitarian aid to Cuba have safely reached the Caribbean island, the US Coast Guard said on Friday.
Earlier in the day Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, had said his country would do everything it could to save the people on the two boats that disappeared while travelling to Cuba from Mexico.
Continue reading...Navy searching for two boats that left Isla Mujeres last week bound for Havana with nine crew members of different nationalities on board
Mexico’s navy said on Thursday it had activated a search-and-rescue operation in the Caribbean to locate two sailboats carrying humanitarian aid to Cuba after the vessels failed to arrive in Havana as scheduled.
In a statement, the navy said the two boats left Isla Mujeres, in the Mexican Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, last week bound for Havana with nine crew members of different nationalities on board.
Continue reading...Members call for reparatory justice as landmark resolution aims for ‘political recognition at the highest level’
The United Nations has voted to describe the transatlantic chattel slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations as “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs”.
The landmark resolution passed on Wednesday was backed by the African Union (AU) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom). It had been proposed by Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, who said: “Let it be recorded that when history beckoned, we did what was right for the memory of millions who suffered the indignity of slavery.”
Continue reading...National power outage is making life extremely difficult and may force Havana into biggest economic changes in 67 years
Just a few hours after a nationwide electricity blackout struck Cuba, Donald Trump hinted at an even darker future for the island’s rulers.
The country’s entire electricity system had collapsed on Monday afternoon, leaving about 10 million people without power. Emergency teams were still struggling to restore it when the US leader made his latest threat.
Continue reading...Ten million people left without power in latest of outages that sparked violent protest last weekend
Cuba’s national electric grid has collapsed, the country’s grid operator has said, leaving approximately 10 million people without power amid a US-imposed oil blockade that has crippled the island’s already obsolete generation system.
The grid operator, UNE, said on social media on Monday that it was investigating the causes of the blackout, the latest in a series of widespread outages that last for hours or days and that last weekend sparked a rare violent protest in the communist-run country.
Continue reading...Rare action began peacefully but ‘degenerated into vandalism’ according to state-run newspaper
Five people have been arrested in Cuba for acts of “vandalism” after a small group of protesters broke into a provincial office of the Cuban Communist party and set fire to computers and furniture.
The incident, which also affected a pharmacy and another shop, took place in the town of Moron, a little more than 300 miles (500km) east of Havana.
Continue reading...Negotiations aimed to ‘find solutions to the bilateral differences’ between the countries, Miguel Díaz-Canel said
Cuban officials have held talks with the US government, the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, confirmed on Friday, amid growing pain inflicted by a punishing US fuel blockade and frequent power failures.
“These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations,” Díaz-Canel said in a prerecorded statement to senior Communist officials.
Continue reading...In Miami, president calls for regional cooperation to counter Chinese economic and political interests
Donald Trump changed the channel from Iran to the western hemisphere on Saturday, convening a gathering of Latin American leaders at his Miami-area golf club to discuss regional interests and establishing what he called a “counter-cartel coalition”.
“Just as we formed a coalition to eradicate Isis, we now need a coalition to eradicate the cartels,” he told 12 regional leaders gathered at what the White House called the “Shield of the Americas” summit.
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