ABOARD AIRFORCE ONE (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday night said he has “no problem” with a Russian oil tanker off the coast of Cuba delivering relief to the island, which has been brought to its knees by a U.S. oil blockade.
“We have a tanker out there. We don’t mind having somebody get a boatload because they need … they have to survive,” Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington.
When asked if a New York Times report that the tanker would be allowed to reach Cuba was true, Trump said: “I told them, if a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem whether it’s Russia or not.”
On Monday, Russia's Transport Ministry said the oil tanker Anatoly Kolodkin arrived at the Cuban port of Matanzas carrying “humanitarian supplies” of about 730,000 barrels of oil.
The vessel is sanctioned by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom following the war in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia had previously discussed its oil shipment to Cuba with the United States. “Russia сonsiders it its duty not to stand aside, but to provide the necessary assistance to our Cuban friends,” he told reporters.
Trump, whose government has come at its Caribbean adversary more aggressively than any U.S. government in recent history, has effectively cut Cuba off from key oil shipments in an effort to force regime change. The blockade has had devastating effects on the civilians Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio say they want to help, leaving many desperate.
Islandwide blackouts have roiled Cubans already grappling with years of crisis, and a lack of gasoline and basic resources has crippled hospital and slashed public transport.
Experts say the anticipated shipment could produce about 180,000 barrels of diesel, enough to feed Cuba’s daily demand for nine or 10 days.
Cuba has long been at the heart of geopolitical tug-of-war between the U.S. and Russia, dating back decades. Trump on Sunday dismissed the idea that allowing the boat to reach Cuba would help Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It doesn’t help him. He loses one boatload of oil, that’s all it is. If he wants to do that, and if other countries want to do it, it doesn’t bother me much,” Trump said. “It’s not going to have an impact. Cuba’s finished. They have a bad regime. They have very bad and corrupt leadership and whether or not they get a boat of oil, it’s not going to matter.”
He added: “I’d prefer letting it in, whether it’s Russia or anybody else because the people need heat and cooling and all of the other things.”
Associated Press reporters Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City and Andrea Rodríguez contributed from Havana.
A man fill containers with potable water during a blackout in Havana, Sunday, March 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Activists from the vessel Maguro, that arrived from Mexico, unload solar panels and other humanitarian aid from the "Nuestra America," or Our America convoy, at the port in Havana Bay, Cuba, Tuesday, March 24, 2026. (Jorge Luis Banos/IPS via AP, Pool)
People spend the night in the dark on the Malecon during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
NEW YORK (AP) — One man's pregnant wife was pulled alive from the rubble, while two of his roommates perished. A woman living next door woke from a nap to bright daylight flooding her bedroom because her apartment wall was suddenly gone.
Survivors of the Brooklyn apartment building collapse that killed eight people wept as they recounted their terror and grief during a news conference Friday.
New York officials, from building inspectors to prosecutors, say they're investigating what caused the three-story building to come crashing down as workers were digging at an adjacent construction site.
Those who lost family, neighbors and their homes demanded answers.
“As they’re taking me, evacuating me from the building, I could see my neighbors coming out on stretchers,” said Ciahola Lawrence, whose apartment building next to the one that collapsed had a shared wall ripped away, exposing an abyss of dust and debris below.
“We didn’t deserve this,” said Lawrence, who sobbed in her husband's arms as she spoke with reporters.
Among the dead were two children, ages 9 and 10, according to city officials. Another 18 people were injured, including four firefighters.
Mamadou Mouctar Balde stepped out to buy groceries Wednesday, leaving his pregnant wife and two roommates, 31-year-old Mamadou N’Diaye and 23-year-old Mamadou Barry, at home. Barry was cooking and N’Diaye was sleeping on the couch, he said.
He returned to find firefighters, police and neighbors gathering outside and assumed there had been a traffic accident. Then a woman told him a building had collapsed.
“I didn’t see my wife. I didn’t see my friends,” Balde recalled, a tear streaking his cheek. “I no longer knew where I am.”
First responders found the bodies of N’Diaye and Barry while combing the wreckage. Balde's wife, Fatoumata Bah, was pulled alive from the rubble. He said she and their unborn child were doing OK.
N’Diaye and Barry were Guinean nationals who came to the U.S. about five years ago from Conakry, the capital of the West African nation. Their uncle said their family is heartbroken.
“We ask the city and the Guinean community to stand for us, to have a justice for this tragedy,” he said.
Other victims came from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Trinidad, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.
New York police identified the others who died as Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9; Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31; Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10; Gabriel Siguencia, 22; Edgar Sapon, 26; and Jose Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26.
Ahmed Tigani, commissioner of New York's Department of Buildings, said Friday that his office is conducting “an exhaustive investigation” of the Brooklyn collapse.
The city has ordered inspections at more than 160 sites in New York that are associated with six entities linked to the construction and demolition site next to the fallen building, Mamdani said, significantly raising an earlier count of sites subject to renewed scrutiny.
“I think it is always an outrage when eight New Yorkers lose their lives, when 18 New Yorkers are hospitalized, and when families are shattered as a result of all of this,” Mamdani said.
If investigators uncover “any evidence of criminality,” Mamdani said, “it is one that we follow through to the fullest extent of the law.”
One witness who works across the street said he watched bricks fall minutes before the disaster. A woman in a neighboring building said she and fellow residents blamed vibrations from the construction for cracks that appeared in their apartment walls.
Lawrence said the construction work had been a source of constant disruption, producing noises so loud that “you would hear that thumping and movement in your soul.”
A security camera above Lawrence’s door recorded video of her apartment’s shared wall and the building next door collapsing in a clattering rumble and a thick cloud of dust. Inside her apartment, a closet filled with hanging clothes and bags was exposed to the outside.
The security video shows Lawrence leaving her damaged home with a firefighter, who held her hand as they descended a stairway overlooking mounds of wreckage below.
“This feeling is indescribable,” Lawrence said. “I was right there.”
Zariah Coleman, who lived in the building next to the one that collapsed, was concerned about her cat. She said Friday that she too had felt the building shake because of the construction.
“I just really hope they come and get our cat,” Coleman said in tears. “He’s hiding from them, and I think he’s scared.”
Rescue operations ended Thursday after crews spent more than a day searching for victims beneath debris removed with power saws, pickaxes and an excavator.
Building records show there were four apartments on the upper two floors and a commercial unit on the ground floor of the collapsed building.
The surrounding blocks along Flatbush Avenue, a busy Brooklyn thoroughfare, are tightly packed with older brick buildings and a few newly built apartment complexes. A mix of Caribbean and Mexican restaurants reflects the diversity of the neighborhood.
A one-story building was demolished earlier this year on the construction site next to the collapsed building. Records show a contractor, Mordechai “Marty” Waisbrod, notified the city that excavation would begin in September and would include rock blasting. The contractor has not responded to phone messages left and emails sent to one of his Brooklyn-based businesses.
Permit applications indicated plans to dig below 15 feet (4.5 meters).
A stop work order was issued in March after inspectors concluded the demolition site lacked adequate overhead protection such as netting to protect neighboring buildings and pedestrians, according to the city's Department of Buildings.
In April, inspectors found that the demolition work had resumed in violation of the stop work order, the department said. Work was allowed to continue after the problems were corrected, Tigani, the city buildings commissioner said Friday.
“We’re looking at the entire history,” he said, “and if there are additional things we need to see, that will be part of the investigation.”
The Brooklyn collapse was the second high-profile structural problem with a building in New York in the past five months. In July, several buildings in Manhattan were evacuated after support columns buckled inside a skyscraper that once was the headquarters of Pfizer.
Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press journalists Jennifer Peltz in New York and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed.
People work at the site of a building collapse, which exposed the interior of a neighboring building, in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Surrounded by public officials and community members, Mamadou Mouctar Balde, whose pregnant wife was injured in the Brooklyn building collapse, becomes emotional while speaking during a news conference in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Zariah Coleman, center left, and, Mossa Keita, center right, residents of the Brooklyn building that partially collapsed, speak during a news conference surrounded by public officials and community members in New York on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) CORRECTION: Corrects to remove husband and add partially collapsed
Surrounded by public officials and community members, Mamadou Mouctar Balde, whose pregnant wife was injured in the Brooklyn building collapse, becomes emotional during a news conference in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Ciahola Lawrence and her husband, James Alexander Williams, residents of the partially collapsed Brooklyn building, become emotional as they speak during a news conference surrounded by public officials and community members in New York on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
