Cuba: Havana boxing gym becomes shelter as Cuba faces domestic crisis, new US sanctions.

SHOTLIST: HAVANA, CUBA (JUNE 5, 2026) 1. VARIOUS OF DAMAGED BUILDINGS / PEOPLE WALKING AT STREETS 2. VARIOUS OF CUBANS LIVING IN BOXING GYM 3. VARIOUS OF CUBANS SPENDING TIME IN DARKHAVANA, CUBA - JUNE 5, 2026: Cubans left homeless by the country’s chronic housing crisis are living inside a makeshift shelter at a Havana boxing gym, highlighting the island's severe domestic strains just as a new round of US sanctions sparked a furious diplomatic row. The sports facility has been transformed into a temporary living space, with displaced families using fabric partitions to carve out room-like areas and arrange their remaining household belongings. Inside, residents prepare meals and try to cope with suffocating summer temperatures, gathering under artificial light after dark. Cuba’s prolonged economic crisis has left local authorities struggling to address deteriorating infrastructure and a massive housing shortage in the capital. The US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions Thursday on Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and several members of his inner circle, including relatives of former leader Raul Castro. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Diaz-Canel, his wife Lis Cuesta Peraza and her son Manuel Anido Cuesta to the Specially Designated Nationals list. The designations also target Alejandro Castro Espin, the son of Raul Castro, and his own son, Raul Alejandro Castro Calis. US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Washington intends to "handle" Cuba once the administration concludes its efforts regarding Iran. The president asserted that he simply wants Cuba to be a "nicely run country that can feed its people. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel condemned the US for its "aggressiveness and perversity" after Washington imposed new sanctions on him, members of the Castro family, and other senior Cuban officials. Diaz-Canel and other Cuban officials rejected the measures as part of a longstanding US effort to destabilize the island nation, while Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the sanctions were interventionist and would fail to create divisions within the country. "Every US action aimed ​at creating a ​scenario of ⁠conflict between the two countries is doomed to failure," Rodriguez said.