US gives Cuban private business owners access to US online payment systems
CNN
The Biden administration is opening up US online payment systems to Cuban private business owners, senior administration officials announced on Tuesday.
The Biden administration is opening up US online payment systems to Cuban private business owners, senior administration officials announced on Tuesday. The change in policy will allow independent private sector entrepreneurs in Cuba to import food, equipment and other goods, the officials explained. It will also make it easier for remittances to be sent to Cuba and help to stem irregular migration from the island, they added. “The administration is now fully implementing the May 2022 commitments to the Cuban people. We believe that the growth of an independent, entrepreneurial private sector in Cuba is fully aligned with our values and is the best hope for generating economic development and employment in Cuba,” a senior administration official said. “And the growth of this sector is also consistent with the President’s guidance to implement measures that will benefit the Cuban people while continuing to minimize resources to the Cuban government.” In 2022, the Biden administration announced a series of policy changes aimed at supporting the Cuban people, including reinstating the Cuban Family Reunification parole Program and increasing consular services and visa processing. The Treasury Department is taking this step by amending the Cuban assets control regulations. The announcement comes about six months before the US presidential elections and how Biden navigates Cuba could carry political implications, given he lost Florida to Donald Trump in the 2020 election. During that campaign Trump repeatedly claimed Biden would turn the US into a “socialist country” if he won, a message that resonated with Cuban Americans.
The US Army officially stood up a new command on Friday to oversee the Army’s activities in the Western Hemisphere in the latest signal of increasing focus on homeland defense.
A former high-level Drug Enforcement agent was indicted on charges of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel.
A federal judge in Florida ordered the unsealing of grand jury transcripts and other records in the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein granting the Justice Department’s request.
The Indiana House approved new congressional maps designed to hand Republicans all nine of the state’s US House seats on Friday, setting the stage for a showdown next week in the state Senate.
Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla said last-minute interference from US President Donald Trump in the country’s closely fought election had damaged his chances of winning and left him trailing as vote counting dragged on.
Vice President JD Vance said he and second lady Usha Vance are largely amused by the online chatter dissecting their marriage, including a recent spate of headlines over photos of her without a wedding ring.
During interviews with the FBI, the suspect arrested in the pipe bomb probe told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters, people briefed on the matter said.
CNN’s 5 Things AM brings you the news you need to know every morning
The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.
As Chad Curry busily ferries his teenage children through the streets of their Chicago neighborhood of West Ridge, he eyes passing vehicles with a skepticism he didn’t have just a few months ago.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.