HAVANA (AP) — A small town in far eastern Cuba was recovering Tuesday from flooding that killed at least six people after Oscar crossed the island’s eastern coast as a tropical storm with winds and heavy rain.
Cuba's capital was partially illuminated after a large-scale blackout generated a handful of protests and a stern government warning that any unrest would be punished.
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A cook looks in on a resident during a massive blackout after a major power plant failed in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A man walks down the street holding slices of pizza during a massive blackout following the failure of a major power plant in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A person fishes along the boardwalk as waves crash during a power outage in Havana, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Residents pass the time at the malecon during a blackout following the failure of a major power plant in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
People play dominoes on the street during a power outage in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Residents stand outside their homes to avoid the heat indoors during a massive blackout after a major power plant failed in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A woman buys soup from a street vendor during a power outage in Havana, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on state television that rescue and recovery work continued in the town of San Antonio del Sur and officials hadn't yet entered some flooded areas.
People in Havana collected subsidized food Tuesday and said the country faced an intensive recovery period.
“There are lines everywhere you go,” city resident Carlos López said. “You get to a place and there are obstacles and obstacles.”
Tropical Storm Oscar disintegrated as it headed toward the Bahamas after making landfall in Cuba as a Category 1 hurricane. The remnants were expected to drop up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain across the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Modesto Hernández, who lived in central Havana, said Tuesday that “we don’t know anything about what is going on.”
“These problems need to be solved now,” he said. "We are in bad shape.”
Díaz-Canel warned on national television Sunday that “we're not going to allow any vandalism, or let anyone disturb people's tranquility."
The prolonged nationwide blackout that followed a massive outage Thursday night was part of countrywide energy problems that led to the largest protests in Cuba in almost 30 years, in July 2021. Those were followed by smaller local protests in October 2022 and March 2024.
All are part of a deep economic crisis that has prompted the exodus of more than half a million Cubans to the U.S., with thousands more heading to Europe.
The Cuban government and its allies blame the United States' 62-year-old trade embargo on the island for its economic problems but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that the Cuban government’s “long-term mismanagement of its economic policy and resources has certainly increased the hardship of people in Cuba.”
Power remains relatively cheap but increasingly unavailable. The Cuban government on state television Monday night said that it’s producing 1300 megawatts when peak demand can hit 3 gigawatts. Authorities said by Monday afternoon that about 80 percent of Havana had intermittent power but people remained fearful.
Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy said in a news conference he hoped that more reliable electricity would be restored by Tuesday morning but classes remained closed through at least Thursday.
He said that Oscar would bring “an additional inconvenience” to Cuba's recovery since it would affect key Cuban power plants, such as Felton in the city of Holguín, and Renté in Santiago de Cuba.
Many of Havana's 2 million people resorted to cooking with improvised wood stoves on the streets before their food went bad in refrigerators. People lined up to buy subsidized food and few gas stations were open.
The failure of the Antonio Guiteras plant on Friday was the latest problem with energy distribution in a country where electricity has been restricted and rotated among different regions at different times.
The blackout was considered to be Cuba’s worst since Hurricane Ian hit the island as a Category 3 storm in 2022 and damaged power installations. It took days for the government to fix them.
Local authorities initially said the outage stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residential air conditioners. Later, the blackout got worse because of breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been properly maintained, and the lack of fuel to operate some facilities.
Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
A cook looks in on a resident during a massive blackout after a major power plant failed in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A man walks down the street holding slices of pizza during a massive blackout following the failure of a major power plant in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A person fishes along the boardwalk as waves crash during a power outage in Havana, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Residents pass the time at the malecon during a blackout following the failure of a major power plant in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
People play dominoes on the street during a power outage in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Residents stand outside their homes to avoid the heat indoors during a massive blackout after a major power plant failed in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A woman buys soup from a street vendor during a power outage in Havana, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — In-person early voting kicked off Tuesday across battleground Wisconsin, with former President Barack Obama and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz hosting a rally in liberal Madison and Republicans holding events to encourage casting a ballot for Donald Trump before Election Day.
Trump lost Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in 2020, an election that saw unprecedented early and absentee voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are expecting another razor-thin margin in Wisconsin, and both sides are pushing voters to cast their ballots early.
Voters lined up Tuesday in communities across the state, including in the liberal stronghold of Milwaukee and in conservative suburban Milwaukee communities. Hours and locations for early voting varied across the state.
“We know in Wisconsin elections are decided by one or two votes per ward,” said Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway at an early voting event. “So our votes matter.”
Trump has been highly critical of voting by mail in past elections, falsely claiming it was ripe with fraud. But this election, he and his backers are embracing all forms of voting, including by mail and early in-person. Trump himself encouraged early voting at a rally in Dodge County, Wisconsin, earlier this month.
Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming said Monday that the vote-early message from Trump and Republicans this year has been “very clear.” Schimming even put in a plug for using absentee ballot drop boxes, a method of returning ballots that Trump once opposed and that some Wisconsin Republicans still do.
“We need to avail ourselves of every imaginable way to get votes in," Schimming said on a press call. “If it’s the difference between getting a vote in, or not getting a vote in, I say to Republicans, ‘Put it in the mailbox or put it in the drop box.’"
Numerous Republican officeholders and candidates planned to cast their ballots Tuesday. One of them, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde, said after casting his ballot at the village hall in Shorewood Hills, a Madison suburb, that early voting is part of the election process now.
Hovde encouraged others to vote early because it’s impossible to predict what might happen on Election Day. That sentiment was echoed by Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who planned to vote Tuesday
“You never know when a snowstorm is going to come in November in Wisconsin,” Steil said Monday. “It's a great opportunity while the weather’s nice to get out to your local office and cast your vote and have that vote banked.”
Obama and Walz, the governor of neighboring Minnesota, scheduled an early voting rally in the Democratic stronghold of Madison. Harris held a rally at the same venue last month, attracting more than 10,000 people.
Obama was headed to neighboring Michigan later Tuesday, among the several stops the former president is making in battleground states to encourage early voting.
Harris has been spending a lot of time in the “ blue wall ” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in the final weeks of the campaign, including stops in Michigan and Wisconsin on Monday. Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance was in the conservative Milwaukee suburbs on Sunday.
The Wisconsin Democratic Party was also staging events across Wisconsin to encourage early voting, as were liberal advocacy groups including Souls to the Polls, a Milwaukee-based organization that targets Black voters. That is a key demographic for Democrats in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city and also the source of the highest number of Democratic votes.
Early voting in Wisconsin began Tuesday and runs through Sunday, Nov. 3. However, locations and times of early voting vary across the state. Voters do not need to give a reason for voting absentee. Ballots started being sent by mail in late September, but beginning Tuesday voters can request one at designated voting locations and cast their ballot in person.
As of Monday, more than 360,000 absentee ballots had already been returned in Wisconsin. Voters can continue to return them by mail, in person, or at absentee ballot drop boxes in communities where those are available. All absentee ballots must be received by the time polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day.
The story has been corrected to show a Harris rally last month attracted more than 10,000 people, not more than 14,000.
Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this story.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers speaks at a campaign event before Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and former President Barack Obama, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
People lineup to vote on the first day of Wisconsin's in-person absentee voting at the Madison Public Library in Madison, Wisc., Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/John Hart, Wisconsin State Journal)
Students at The University of Wisconsin-Madison wait in line to cast their ballots in the 2024 election during the first day of Wisconsin's in-person absentee voting on the campus in Madison, Wisc., Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/John Hart, Wisconsin State Journal)
A Madison Clerk's Office worker delivers a pair of additional polling booths past people waiting to vote on the first day of Wisconsin's in-person absentee voting at the Madison Public Library in Madison, Wisc., Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/John Hart, Wisconsin State Journal)
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers arrives to speak at a campaign event before Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and former President Barack Obama, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Students at The University of Wisconsin-Madison fill out ballots during the first day of Wisconsin's in-person absentee voting on the campus in Madison, Wisc., Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/John Hart, Wisconsin State Journal)
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway advocates for in-person, early voting in Wisconsin's capital city on the first day it is available, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer)
Ruben Anthony, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison, advocates for in-person, early voting in Wisconsin's capital city on the first day it is available, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer)
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde chats with reporters as he waits to turn in his ballot at the Village Hall in Shorewood Hills, Wis., Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, the first day of early in-person absentee voting in the battleground state. (AP Photo/Todd Richmond)
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde casts his ballot at the Village Hall in Shorewood Hills, Wis., Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, the first day of early in-person absentee voting in the battleground state. (AP Photo/Todd Richmond)
FILE - Residents cast their votes at the Warner Park Community Recreation Center on the first day of early voting, March 21, 2023, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)
FILE - A voter braves a cold rain running to cast a ballot during the Spring election, April 2, 2024, in Fox Point, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)
