The head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency has visited Cuba as the country faces a deepening energy crisis worsened by a United States fuel blockade. John Ratcliffe said Washington is willing to engage with Havana on economic and security matters, but only if Cuba undertakes what he described as fundamental reforms.

In Jerusalem, tens of thousands of Israelis joined an annual religious nationalist march through the Old City. Tensions rose after a far right Israeli minister broke with long standing protocol by displaying an Israeli flag at a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims.

Elsewhere, an investigation has found that a new nationalist vigilante group is expanding its presence across Russia. In Thailand, scientists have uncovered a dinosaur species said to be twice the size of a Tyrannosaurus rex and weighing as much as nine adult Asian elephants, while residents of an Italian seaside resort are grappling with a disruptive surge in the local peacock population.