Cubans struggle to bounce back after 6th nationwide blackout this year

HAVANA -- Alexey Ríos García awoke not to his bed in Cuba 's capital on Monday, but to an ocean breeze and the concrete of Havana's famous seaside boulevard. The 30-year-old construction worker ended up curling up with other Cubans on the city's sea wall, the Malecón, in a desperate attempt to escape the suffocating summer heat during yet another islandwide blackout.Sunday night marked the sixth islandwide blackout since Trump administration effectively cut Cuba off from oil — its main energy source — in January. The move plunged the endemically crisis-stricken country into free-fall. While authorities on Monday said they were working to get the power back on, much of the island still had no electricity.The energy grid collapses have left people like Ríos García with fewer options to get by as the U.S. maintains its pressure campaign against the communist-led government. "Things are only getting worse. Tomorrow it’ll collapse again ... and we’ll be back to sleeping on the Malecón,” said Ríos García, who used a piece of yellow foam as a pillow to cushion his head from the tough concrete.The recurring power outages combined with the stifling heat have created collective insomnia on t...