Saturday, October 19

The entire island of Cuba is without power after a major power plant near the capital of Havana ran out of fuel, causing a massive power grid failure.

The failure occurred at a power plant powered by fossil fuels, located east of Havana, due to lack of fuel for the plant. Unfortunately, power may not be restored for the country for hours, or even days. The country is home to around 11 million people, but the population has been declining in recent years-- food shortages, high gas prices, and an authoritarian government have led to the evacuation of over 600,000 people to the US alone in the last two years.

Cuba has been facing serious shortages in crucial fossil fuels like oil and coal for weeks, leading to blackouts in cities and towns for long periods of time-- up to 20 hours, in some cases. Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz told citizens to conserve electricity on Thursday night, and he announced that all businesses that require large amounts of power will be temporarily shut down. Schools were also closed until Monday, but he confirmed that hospitals would remain open. However, the fuel soon ran out, and a nationwide blackout ensued less than a day later.

So far, around 20,000 people in Havana have regained power, but the outages are worst outside the city. The government has been attempting to restore power to more unstable areas first-- some parts of Havana are known for publicly protesting during tough times, and the government does not want to anger those citizens and motivate them to protest in the streets.

Cuba has experienced issues with old, aging infrastructure for years, but fuel shortages and high demand for electricity has exacerbated the country's power problem. Officials do not know when the next shipments of fuel will come in, but Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel stated on social media platform X that they are working towards bringing power back and they are giving "absolute priority" to the problem.

Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): Finland has more saunas than cars. In fact, it has 3.3 million saunas and 5.5 million people, meaning that there more than one sauna for every two people living in Finland.

Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep. (William James)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Zest (noun)- Zest refers to an enjoyably exciting quality, or to keen enjoyment itself. In culinary use, zest refers to small pieces of the peel of a lemon, lime, orange, or other citrus fruit used as flavoring.

In a Sentence: His humor added zest to the presentation's admittedly dry material.