Cuba's pocket-size government ration book has been circulating for more than six decades. It once offered a bounty of products that have dwindled as the island's economic crises deepen. A growing number of Cubans depend on state grocery stores in the socialist country of nearly 10 million people. But the shelves remain largely empty in the state stores that have been diminished by a lack of government resources. Cuba imports up to 80% of its food and prices have soared for basic goods that increasingly are sold in U.S. dollars. Ration books are shrinking quickly as Cubans struggle to subsist on meager salaries and pensions.

A former Miami congressman and close friend of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was convicted Friday in connection with a secret $50 million lobbying campaign on behalf of Venezuela’s socialist government during the first Trump administration. Jurors found Republican David Rivera and an associate guilty on all counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department and conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of its work for former President Nicolás Maduro’s government. The seven-week trial offered a rare glimpse into Miami’s role as a crossroads for foreign influence campaigns aimed at shaping U.S. policy toward Latin America.

The standoff over the Strait of Hormuz has escalated again as Iran reverses its reopening of the crucial waterway and fires on ships attempting to pass. Saturday's developments come after the United States said it would continue its blockade of Iranian ports. The strait's closure threatens to deepen the global energy crisis. Meanwhile, Pakistani mediators are working to organize new negotiations between the countries. Iran says it has received new proposals from the United States. But Iran's deputy foreign minister tells the AP that Tehran isn't ready for new face-to-face talks because the Americans “have not abandoned their maximalist position.”

Human Rights Watch, in a detailed new report, says Chinese authorities are increasing pressure on underground Catholic communities to join the state-controlled official church while tightening surveillance and travel restrictions on all of China’s estimated 12 million Catholics. The report says the heightened pressure is part of a decade-old campaign to ensure that religious denominations and independent churches are loyal to the officially atheist Communist Party. China’s Catholics have been divided between an official, state-controlled church that didn’t recognize papal authority and an underground church that remained loyal to Rome through decades of persecution.