MENDOZA, Argentina (AP) — Australia head coach Les Kiss made a change at flyhalf on Thursday and restored Harry Wilson to the captaincy for Saturday's second rugby test against Argentina in Mendoza.
Ben Donaldson will start a test in the No. 10 jersey for the first time in 2026, replacing Carter Gordon, who has overcome an injury but moves to the bench.
Len Ikitau and Joseph-Aukuso Sua'alii will combine at center for the 17th time in 26 tests but the first time under Kiss. Ikitau missed the first test due to injury and Suaalii started that match on the bench.
Australia won the first test 27-21 and will be looking for a fifth straight win and its first series sweep in Argentina.
In other backline changes, Filipo Daugunu returns on the left wing in place of Harry Potter, combining with winger Max Jorgensen and fullback Tom Wright, who will play his 50th test.
Wilson returns at the back of the scrum, taking back the captaincy from prop Allan Ala'alatoa, who led Australia in the first test. Wilson rejoins Rob Valetini and Fraser McReight in the backrow.
Props Taniela Tupou and Angus Bell return to the starting lineup along with hooker Billy Pollard while Josh Nasser, Aidan Ross and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto are named on the bench. First test starting hooker Brandon Paenga-Amosa is rested and left out of the match 23.
“After a physical test last week, we’ve brought in some fresh bodies alongside some existing combinations as we continue to look to build test experience across the group,” Kiss said. “We’re expecting a strong response from Argentina on Saturday and we know we will need to keep stepping up our game in all areas.”
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Australia Rob Valetini, center, is tackled by Argentina Benjamin Grondona, right, during a rugby test match in Jujuy, Argentina, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)
Australia's head coach Les Kiss gives instructions to his players before a rugby test match against Argentina in Jujuy, Argentina, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Gustavo Garello)
HAVANA (AP) — The U.S. government on Thursday slapped new sanctions on Cuba in a fresh push to strangle the island’s economy and deepen its multiple crises.
Among those hit with sanctions are Fidel Ernesto Castro, grandson of former President Raúl Castro, and Cuba’s Oil Industry Supply Import Company, known as Abapet. The company is responsible for importing special equipment and spare parts needed to sustain Cuba’s crumbling power grid.
The sanctions aim to push Cuba’s critical machinery offline and exacerbate its energy crisis, said Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, a consulting firm.
“The U.S. is trying to really tighten the screws as much as possible,” he said.
“The Trump administration seems to have no seriousness to accept any change from Cuba other than a toppling of regime. Marco is not going to let that go,” he added, referring to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Erickson anticipated that Cuba’s government would try to circumvent the sanctions “because they have to.”
“They’ll get creative in how they try to procure these maintenance parts,” he said, warning it would be a costlier alternative, which in turn would raise inflation and further hurt Cuba’s economy.
Islandwide blackouts have become increasingly common, while daily outages in Cuba now surpass 24 hours as the aging grid fails and fuel reserves dwindle ever since U.S. President Donald Trump in late January threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island.
“The goal in theory is to create so much civilian hardship and suffering that they have no option but to essentially rise up and topple their government,” Erickson said. “It is an attempt to cause a humanitarian crisis.”
Talks earlier this year between the U.S. and Cuba have since halted, while sanctions have increased in recent months.
Erickson said he expects the U.S. to keep targeting smaller and smaller state companies to try and push them “into a death spiral.” The U.S. has previously sanctioned entities including Cuba's state-owned oil and gas company.
The U.S. State Department made the announcement just hours after Cuban officials held a press conference to share more details on the historic economic reforms approved in June.
When asked about the current situation in Cuba, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, Cuba’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign investment, blamed the U.S. government.
“This past year has been very complex, and we know why,” he said. “The blockade is a genocide.”
He spoke before the sanctions were announced.
Among the Cubans exhausted by the ongoing outages is 49-year-old Yaqueline Bernal. She said Thursday that she hasn’t had electricity since Sunday and worries most about the consequences for her eight young grandchildren.
“If we don’t have power, we don’t have water,” she said. “You really don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”
Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba's foreign affairs minister, decried the latest sanctions on X.
“Collective punishment is a crime. So, too, is inflicting suffering on an entire population through measures coldly calculated to trigger a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “Enough with the abuse. Put an end to the blockade once and for all and allow Cuba to live in peace.”
Eugenio Martínez Enríquez, Cuba’s ambassador in Mexico, called Rubio “a liar without scruples.”
“We will not forget his crimes,” he wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Rubio asserted on X that those sanctioned “are part of the corrupt Castro financial and intelligence network.”
“Cuba’s Communist regime elites preside over a failed state where ordinary Cubans go hungry while the Castro family and other insiders enrich themselves through sanctions evasion and other illicit schemes — and seek to export subversive Marxist ideology to the United States and other states in the Western Hemisphere,” he wrote.
“Trump and I are unwavering in our commitment that Cuba will be free.”
Follow AP’s Latin America coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Children drag toys made from cardboard boxes as they walk in Minas, in Cuba's Havana province, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Director of the International Press Center, (CPI), Abel Ernesto Derivet Vidal, left, and Cuba's Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga walk past an image of the late Fidel Castro as they arrive for a press conference at the CPI in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A man rests on a sofa on a street in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
