The top photos of the day by AP's photojournalists

From front-page news to powerful moments you may have missed, this gallery showcases today’s top photos chosen by Associated Press photo editors.

People are silhouetted against the setting sun while hiking at Papago park Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Jessie Buckley poses for photographers upon arrival at the World premiere for the film "The Bride" in London, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Texas A&M defensive lineman Tyler Onyedim (23) runs a drill at the NFL football scouting combine in Indianapolis, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Syrian government prisoners wave from a bus after their release in a prisoner exchange between Syrian government forces and Druze militiamen in Sweida province, Syria, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

An elderly woman sits in her damaged apartment after a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)

Soldiers walk through Old Havana to collect garbage in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays a wreath and a rock at the Hall of Remembrance during his visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A pedestrian walks along Columbus Circle NE near the U.S. Capitol, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier, departs from Souda Naval Base near Chania on the island of Crete, Greece, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Giannis Angelakis)

A woman crosses a square in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks outside the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center, after testifying before U.S. House lawmakers as part of a congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Chappaqua, N.Y. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

The son of Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Yusep Jackson wipes his eyes as he and family members arrive to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters where Jackson Sr. will lie in repose for two days, in Chicago, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

MIAMI (AP) — Word from the Cuban government of a deadly encounter between its troops and a boat carrying armed expatriates is casting a spotlight on Cubans living in the U.S. who still harbor aspirations of a counter-revolution 67 years after a guerrilla uprising ushered in communism.

Cuban soldiers confronted a speedboat carrying 10 people as the vessel approached the island and opened fire on the troops, who fired back, killing four and wounding six, Cuba’s government says.

One of the four killed was Michel Ortega Casanova – a man on an “obsessive and diabolical” quest for Cuba’s freedom from current circumstances, according to his brother in Miami.

Misael Ortega Casanova said that his brother Michel is an American citizen who has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years and still agonizes over the suffering that Cubans endure.

“They became so obsessed that they didn’t think about the consequences nor their own lives,” Misael told The Associated Press of the passions harbored by his brother.

At the same time, Misael said that he did not recognize any of the names that the Cuban government released in connection with the boat incursion and that the shootings had caught his family by surprise.

“No one knew,” Misael said of his brother’s plans. “My mother is devastated.”

He said that while he doesn’t believe in heroes — “because that is ignorance” — he hopes that his brother’s death might be a worthwhile sacrifice.

"Maybe it will justify that some day Cuba will be free.”

Cuban authorities, meanwhile, say Michel Ortega Casanova was accompanied on the boat by two men who are wanted “based on their involvement in the promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission” of terrorism, speaking of Amijail Sánchez González and Leordan Enrique Cruz Gómez.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was wary of initial reports by Cuba and asserted that the U.S. would gather its own information about the people involved. His words also evoked a seemingly dormant history of subterfuge and armed provocations between the U.S. and Cuba.

“It is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that,” said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. “It’s something that hasn’t happened with Cuba in a very long time.”

Conrado Galindo Sariol, another passenger, was identified as a former political prisoner in a 2025 interview with Martí Noticias, a U.S.-based news site that has long called for a change of government in Cuba.

The Cuban government said the watercraft was a Florida-registered speedboat, and officials who searched it found assault rifles, handguns, homemade explosives, bulletproof vests, telescopic sights and camouflage uniforms.

Adding to intrigue, the boat was reported stolen from an island in the Florida Keys archipelago 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of Miami, according to a report from the Monroe County Sheriffs’ Office.

The shooting took place amid heightened tensions between the two countries as President Donald Trump's administration tightens the U.S. embargo and threatens tariffs against countries providing Cuba with oil.

Crucial oil shipments to Cuba from Venezuela were halted when the U.S. arrested Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a Jan. 3 stealth nighttime raid by U.S. military forces.

Guns and boats of mysterious provenance are hallmarks of both the guerrilla landing that spawned Cuba’s 1959 revolution, the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA-trained exiles in an attempt to topple its leader, Fidel Castro, and assorted skirmishes since then.

Any new incursion into Cuban waters is likely to have been prompted by U.S. pressure, which has decimated the economy and spurred wishful thinking of regime change in policy circles, said William LeoGrande, a professor at American University who has studied Cuba for decades.

An academic conference taking place this week at Florida International University in Miami, titled “Cuba: The Day After Tomorrow,” is focused on the “possibilities of a national refoundation following a political transition,” according to a news release about the event.

“The atmosphere now is that the Cuban government is on the verge of collapse,” he said. “I don’t think that’s true, but that’s what the president of the United States is saying, that’s what Secretary of State Marco Rubio is saying.”

Emilio Izquierdo, a prominent exile in Miami who spent two years jailed in Cuba before arriving in the U.S. in 1980, cast doubt on Cuba’s initial reports of an armed incursion.

He said that it was far more believable that foreign agents might have infiltrated Miami’s massive Cuban exile community and tricked government opponents into risking their lives on a suicide mission to overthrow the communist government in Havana.

“Nobody with a 25-foot speedboat tries to overthrow a government,” he said.

The timing of the incident — with tensions between the U.S. and Cuba running at their highest in decades — was similarly suspicious, he said.

Ramón Saul Sanchez, an exiled Cuban activist and leader of the nonprofit group Movimiento Democracia, suspects that the Cuban government knew in advance that the speedboat was planning to approach.

Coto reported from San José, Costa Rica. AP writers John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed.

Soldiers walk through Old Havana to collect garbage in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A ferry crosses Havana Bay past the Nico Lopez oil refinery where a Cuban tanker is anchored in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Cuba's Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio walks to give a declaration about a deadly boating shooting in Cuba waters, in Havana, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)