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President Trump continues to dangle potential military action against Cuba, appearing to be emboldened by his administration’s interventions in Venezuela and Iran.

After the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, Mr. Trump warned that he had his sights set on Cuba. Standing alongside Mr. Trump at a news conference about the raid on Jan. 3, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the regime should be “concerned.”

Since Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was assassinated in U.S. strikes on Iran in February, Mr. Trump’s rhetoric against Cuba has escalated. On March 16, Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he believed he would have “the honor of taking Cuba.”

“Taking Cuba in some form, yeah,” he said. “Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it — I think I could do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth.”

“Cuba’s going to be next,” Mr. Trump told reporters Sunday on Air Force One.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has been more direct about the administration’s possible goals in Cuba, testifying to Congress in January, “we would love to see the regime there change,” saying it would be of “great benefit” to the U.S. Weeks later, Rubio said Cuba has to “change dramatically.”

“I mean Cuba has an economy that doesn’t work and a political and governmental system that can’t fix it,” Rubio said on March 17 in the Oval Office. “The people in charge, they don’t know how to fix it. So, they have to get new people in charge.”

Rubio reiterated the need for economic reform and political reforms on Tuesday, telling Fox News the administration will “have more news on that fairly soon.”

“You cannot fix their economy if you don’t change the system of government,” he said.

For now, experts on the region view the threats of military action in Cuba as bluster, saying it would involve much more effort than in Venezuela because of the political structure. Forcing gradual economic change, along with the resignation of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, through the threat of economic collapse and other sanctions is a more likely scenario, they said.

“I think there are a number of factions within the administration where some would be happy to do a deal with most of the existing Cuban government if it gave greater access to businesses, and particularly to Cuban Americans to come back and invest,” Paul Hare, who served as the British ambassador to Cuba from 2001 to 2004, told CBS News. “The other faction, I think, is insisting on a complete regime change.”

A small blast outside a pro-Israel Christian center in a central city in the Netherlands is under investigation.

The explosion on Friday night caused limited damage at the Israel Centre, which is run by Christians for Israel, a non-profit in the city of Nijkerk, police said. No one was injured.

Police appealed for witnesses and said nobody has been arrested.

“Investigations revealed that a person dressed in black placed the explosive device,” the police added in a statement.

In a statement on its website, the group expressed shock and said the blast fits a pattern of attacks on Jewish sites that are intended to sow fear.

“The damage was limited, but the impact is significant,” the group said in a social media post, according to AFP. “The fact that this took place on the eve of Easter, the most important celebration for Christians, makes it all the more poignant.”

Police cautioned it was too early to determine a motive for the incident. An investigation was ongoing and no arrests have been made so far, they added.

The incident comes after a string of similar nighttime attacks in Belgium, Britain and the Netherlands that have heightened concerns over antisemitism in the wake of the war in the Middle East.

Ambulances run by Jewish volunteers were set on fire in London, a car was torched in Antwerp, synagogues were hit with explosives in Liege and Rotterdam, and a Jewish school was targeted in Amsterdam, since the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began in late February.

The attacks have been claimed by a little-known Islamist group with possible links to Iran.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was concerned about planned concerts in London by rapper Kanye West, who has a history of antisemitic outbursts and released a song called “Heil Hitler.”

The 48-year-old hip-hop artist, who in recent years has become known just as Ye, is scheduled to headline the Wireless Festival in London this summer. His planned three-night engagement at the rap and R&B festival in July is part of a European tour.

Starmer told The Sun newspaper on Saturday that it was “deeply concerning Kanye West has been booked to perform at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism.”

He added that “antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted firmly.”

Pepsi, which was originally the Wireless Festival’s main sponsor, said it has “decided to withdraw its sponsorship” of the event, CBS partner BBC News reported. But Pepsi was still listed as a headline sponsor on the festival’s website on Sunday. As BBC News noted, a description on the festival’s website also said: “Pepsi MAX are a long-standing partner of Pepsi MAX presents Wireless Festival and look forward to creating more musical moments together.”

PepsiCo, the parent company of Pepsi, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP, according to the news outlet.

Jewish organizations and London Mayor Sadiq Khan have criticized West’s planned appearances at the festival since organizers announced it on social media last month.

Other legs of West’s European tour have proved controversial, too, with the mayor of Marseille in France saying he was “not welcome” for a concert there in June.

West has expressed regret over his antisemitic rants, which he blamed on his bipolar disorder.

In May 2025, he released a song called “Heil Hitler” to mark the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

The song was banned by major streaming platforms.

President Trump and top national security officials shed new light on the daring rescues of two American airmen who were shot down over Iran last week, detailing the intense effort that extracted both men from enemy soil.

Speaking at a news conference at the White House, Mr. Trump also said that he believes the Iranians are negotiating “in good faith” amid a renewed diplomatic push to strike a deal that would stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The president has given the Iranians until 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday to reach an agreement on opening the strait before targeting power plants and infrastructure.

Mr. Trump said the effort to locate the downed airmen was “one of the largest, most complex, most harrowing combat searches — I guess you would call it a search and rescue mission — ever attempted by the military.”

The American F-15E fighter jet was shot down by Iranian fire on Friday. The plane’s pilot was located and rescued that same day, but the second crew member, a weapon systems officer, remained missing in Iran’s mountainous terrain. The president announced early Sunday morning that the weapon systems officer had also been rescued.

The operation involved more than 150 planes and more than 200 munitions, CBS News reported earlier Monday. The stranded officer had only a handgun to defend himself.

Joined at the White House by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump said he “ordered the U.S. armed forces to do whatever was necessary to bring our brave warriors back home” soon after the jet was shot down. He revealed that the F-15 was brought down by a “handheld shoulder missile, [a] heat-seeking missile.”

Israel hit parts of southern Lebanon Wednesday, with many of the strikes targeting areas near the coastal city of Tyre, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.

A residential building was struck at dawn, killing four people in Tyre, where a drone strike targeted a car, although it wasn’t clear who the intended target was in the vehicle.

Elsewhere, Israel hit a post of the Islamic Health Committee paramedics, one of various social programs operated by militant group Hezbollah, NNA reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said Lebanon and Israel continue to trade fire because Lebanon isn’t part of the two-week ceasefire agreed by Washington and Tehran. The statement contradicted information released by Pakistan, which served as a mediator for the agreement.

Lebanon’s army warned displaced people against returning to the country’s south on Wednesday, with Israel still launching attacks, French news agency AFP reported.

Pro-Iran armed factions in Iraq announced on Wednesday a two-week halt to their attacks on “enemy bases” in the region after the start of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran.

“The Islamic Resistance in Iraq announces the suspension of its operations in Iraq and the region for two weeks,” the alliance said in a short statement on Telegram.

Iraq later reopened its airspace, which it had closed due to the war, its state news agency said.

It will take months for jet fuel supplies and prices to normalize even if the Strait of Hormuz remains open, the director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said Wednesday.

“It will still take a period of months to get back to where supply needs to be given the disruption to the refining capacity in the Middle East,” Willie Walsh told reporters. “I don’t think it’s going to happen in weeks.”