President Trump said that U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are in discussions with Cuba’s Communist regime as the island nation faces worsening economic conditions, Bloomberg reports.

Reuters: “Garbage has begun to pile up on street corners in the Cuban capital of Havana, attracting hordes of flies and reeking of rotten food, in one of the most visible impacts of the U.S. bid to prevent oil from reaching the Caribbean’s largest island.”

The Economist: “As Russia’s war against Ukraine enters its fifth year, the economy that sustains it has been transformed in ways that will be difficult—perhaps impossible—to reverse without another crisis. Westerners keep waiting for the Russian economy to collapse. It won’t.”

“But nor will it recover. It has entered what mountaineers call the death zone: the altitude above 8,000 metres at which the human body consumes itself faster than it can be repaired.”

“Iran’s economic meltdown, which around the new year triggered protests that threatened the regime’s grasp on power, is getting worse,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“A harsh crackdown on the demonstrations and the threat of U.S. military intervention have dragged the country’s currency lower, crippling daily life for millions.”