English Newsletters Archives | Boletines en Español
We’ve had a busy year.
As expected, Donald Trump’s second stint in the White House — this time with Marco Rubio running his foreign policy — has made life much harder for the Cuban people.
Meanwhile, corporate media outlets continue to parrot State Department talking points about the island.
This makes our work all the more important.
We're committed to debunking fabrications, revealing how U.S. policies impact everyday Cubans and showing how — despite mammoth difficulties — Cuba is still full of remarkable examples of resilience and humanity. Most of our team is Cuban and lives in Cuba, so this is not an intellectual exercise. It’s personal.
Watch our latest video that highlights our work this year:
Cuba in 2025 — Our Year in Reporting
Trump-Biden Sanctions Damage Cuban Health
This year we produced Health Under Sanction, a 25-minute documentary for Al Jazeera about the impact of U.S. sanctions on Cuba's public healthcare. With exclusive access to Cuban hospitals, the film follows the patients feeling the brunt of the U.S. government’s economic war on Cuba — and the doctors fighting to keep them alive.
Also, we released a video report this month looking at how a mosquito-borne epidemic has strained Cuba’s once vaunted healthcare system in part due to the impact of U.S. sanctions.
Trump Deportations Shatter Cuban Families
More than a thousand Cubans have been deported to the island this year. Watch our interview with Heidy Sánchez, who was separated from her infant daughter by ICE agents, despite living legally in Florida for years.
We also released a video based on our exclusive access to one of the monthly U.S. deportation flights, which Cuba continues to accept despite the administration’s hostility toward the island.
We did these stories in collaboration with Scripps News, a U.S.-based media outlet with national reach, and CBS News Miami.
Rubio’s War on Cuban Athletes
In a series of videos and an in-depth article, we looked at how Secretary of State Marco Rubio is blocking Cuban athletes from international qualifiers, putting them at risk of not being able to compete in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Amid Shortages, Agroecology Feeds Families
We published a four-part video series on agroecology in Cuba, which began as an alternative to industrial farming amid food and diesel shortages in the 1990s. The series was done in collaboration with the Caribbean Agroecology Institute, with whom we produced a documentary on the same issue.
"We Lost Our Homes But We’re Still Alive”
Belly of the Beast journalist Liz Oliva Fernández reported on Hurricane Melissa from Eastern Cuba, covering the state’s disaster response and speaking with families trying to rebuild.
Big Headlines, No Proof: Inside the Hype Over “Spy Bases"
U.S. politicians are sounding the alarm, again, about alleged “Chinese spy bases” in Cuba. But where’s the proof? We tracked down the sites, analyzed the reports and found more questions than answers. Find out all the details in this video.
Cuban Entrepreneurs Banned from Entering the U.S.
Greta Tilán sells natural cosmetics she makes herself in Cuba, but started expanding her business by traveling to the United States. Now, entrepreneurs like Greta are prohibited from visiting the U.S. under Trump’s travel ban.
The Miami Herald’s Fuzzy Math
We expose the shaky, contextless reporting in Miami’s largest newspaper, which has been repeatedly used by Marco Rubio and other Cuban-American hardliners to legitimize the U.S. government’s economic war on Cuba.
Cuba and the Drug War: What Washington Isn’t Telling You
Belly of the Beast journalist Liz Oliva Fernández dismantles the hypocrisy of the Trump administration’s war on drugs and how Cuba is not shipping drugs to the U.S., it's stopping them from getting there.
Also, check out our website for stories on the UN vote condemning the U.S. embargo, how Cubans oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the solidarity activists bringing life-saving cancer medicines to Cuba, Liz Oliva Fernández’s interviews with artists and experts…and much more.
What To Look Out for in 2026
Cuba’s Groundbreaking Alzheimer’s Medication. Stay tuned for the official release of the documentary Teresita’s Dream, which tells the story of how Cuban scientist Teresita Rodríguez set out to find a treatment for Alzheimer’s after her mother’s diagnosis. Her personal quest, bolstered by a team of mostly women scientists, has led to a discovery that could transform the global fight against this devastating disease.
Cuban Doctors in Italy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been trying to stop Cuba’s international medical cooperation missions on grounds that they are “forced labor.” Journalists at major media outlets parrot these claims without ever having seen a mission with their own eyes. At Belly of the Beast, we’re not going to take Marco Rubio’s word for it. So we went to southern Italy to speak with Cuban doctors on a mission in Calabria, the country’s poorest region. We’ll be releasing a documentary about the mission in the coming months.
Our trip to Guinea-Bissau with African Medical Students. A Belly of the Beast film crew also joined seven African students from Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) on a trip to Guinea-Bissau, one of the poorest countries in the world. We documented their journey and followed the students as they volunteered at community health clinics. We also interviewed local students studying at a Cuban-run medical school in Bissau. You’ll be getting these stories in your inbox soon!
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