HAVANA (AP) — CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials including Raúl Castro’s grandson during a high-level visit to the island Thursday, Cuban and U.S. officials said.

Ratcliffe met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas and the head of Cuban intelligence services, and discussed intelligence cooperation, economic stability and security issues. A CIA official confirmed the meetings to the AP.

Ratcliffe was there “to personally deliver President Donald Trump’s message that the United States is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes,” the CIA official said.

An official statement from Cuba’s government noted that Thursday’s meeting “took place … against a backdrop of complex bilateral relations.”

While the U.S. stressed that Cuba cannot continue to be a “safe haven for adversaries in the Western Hemisphere,” the Cuban delegation insisted that the island presents no threat to U.S. security. Cuban officials also took issue with the nation’s continued inclusion on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Rodríguez Castro previously secretly met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of a Caribbean Community summit in St. Kitts in February. While he’s never occupied a government post, he served as his grandfather’s bodyguard and later as head of Cuba’s equivalent of the Secret Service.

U.S. and Cuban officials also met earlier this year i n Cuba. The ongoing meetings between U.S. and Cuban officials mark the first U.S. government flights to land in Cuba other than at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay since 2016.

Thursday’s meeting comes weeks after the Cuban government confirmed that it had recently met with U.S. officials on the island as tensions between the two sides remain high over the U.S. energy blockade of the Caribbean country and as Cuba’s power grid has collapsed and energy to its eastern provinces has been cut. The U.S. blockade of fuel to the island has heightened its economic woes, with reduced work hours and food spoilage as refrigerators stop working.

Earlier this week, the U.S. State Department reiterated that the U.S. will provide Cuba with $100 million in humanitarian assistance and support for satellite internet “if the Cuban regime will permit it.”

In late January, Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba. Though Trump also has threatened to intervene in the country, and Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said recently that his country was prepared to fight if that should happen, sources told the AP earlier this month that military action is not imminent.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A licensed drug addiction counselor who delivered Matthew Perry the doses of ketamine that killed him, and later became a key informant in the investigation, was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison.

At a federal court in Los Angeles, Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence to 56-year-old Erik Fleming for his role in the death of the “Friends” star.

“It’s truly a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” Fleming said in a deep, somber voice from the podium before his sentencing. “I’m haunted by the mistakes I made.”

The judge ordered Fleming, who has been free on bond, to turn himself in to serve his term in 45 days. He was also sentenced to three years of probation.

Fleming was the fourth defendant sentenced of the five who have pleaded guilty in prosecutions over the actor’s 2023 death in the Jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home. Fleming connected Perry to Jasveen Sangha, the convicted drug who prosecutors called “The Ketamine Queen.” He delivered drugs from her house to Perry’s, and marked them up to make a profit.

Fleming gave up Sangha to investigators the same day they first found him at his sister’s house, where he was sleeping on the couch several months after Perry’s death. Sangha was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison.

Fleming’s attorney Robert Dugdale told the judge he “handed over the Ketamine Queen on a silver platter.”

“They didn’t have a clue who she was before that day,” Dugdale said.

He would likely have gotten about four years in prison if it weren’t for his cooperation.

The prosecution said he deserved credit for doing the right thing, but argued that he did so only when confronted and cornered by authorities.

“Mr. Fleming didn’t cooperate because he had a benevolent motive, or because he wanted justice for Mr. Perry,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Yanniello said. “He wanted to save himself.”

The judge also pointed out that Fleming didn’t come forward in the months after Perry’s death, that he didn’t create new evidence by making phone calls to co-conspirators or anything similar, and that investigators might have gotten the same information he gave them simply through the seizure of his phone.

But all agreed that his cooperation sped up and smoothed the investigation.

Prosecutors also said Fleming’s job as a drug counselor made him especially morally culpable for selling street drugs to a victim who had a public, well-documented battle with addiction, even if he wasn’t acting as counselor to Perry.

Fleming became the first defendant to plead guilty in August 2024, admitting to distribution of ketamine resulting in death. That was before arrests in the case were even announced, and Wednesday was his first court appearance since his role became public knowledge.

Defense lawyers emphasized that he had no criminal record and said he spent only 11 days as a drug dealer, with a single customer. Fleming told the judge it was an act of desperation “in the midst of the worst time of my life.”

Fleming told the judge his great remorse “can’t compare to the agony I’ve caused.”

Outside the courthouse, he said “my chest and heart hurt every day for the pain I caused not only his family but the millions of people who adore him.”

He and his lawyers also highlighted what they called his extraordinary moves toward rehabilitation, spending 20 months sober and helping to establish a sober living home.

Perry had been receiving ketamine treatments for depression — an increasingly common off-label use.

Perry was seeking more of the drug than he could get through doctors and asked a friend to help him get more. She introduced him to Fleming, a former film and television producer whose career had been ravaged by addiction but had since become a drug counselor.

Fleming said he was in the midst of a major relapse brought on by life struggles. He got ketamine from Sangha and took it to Perry’s house where he sold it to the actor’s live-in personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa.

His deliveries included 25 vials for $6,000 four days before Perry’s death.

Iwamasa would inject Perry from that batch on Oct. 28, 2023, and hours later, he found the actor dead. A medical examiner’s report found that Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine, a surgical anesthetic, and drowning was a secondary cause.

The 2 1/2-year investigation and prosecution that resulted should come to a close in two weeks with the sentencing of Iwamasa.

Perry, who died at 54, became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing on “Friends,” NBC’s culture-changing sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.

By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

A new state law will send public charter schools in Iowa $1.3 million more dollars to boost teacher salaries in the coming school year and a revolving loan fund has been created to provide low-interest loans for charter school facilities.

Governor Kim Reynolds signed the law yesterday at Des Moines Prep, a charter school for 8th and 9th graders that’s not far from the Iowa Capitol. “Just five years Iowa only had two public charter schools, both established by local school boards,” Reynolds said. “Today there are total of 10 in operation, with another eight already authorized and demand coninues to grow, all thanks to Iowa’s adoption and expansion of school choice.”

Public school districts will be required to pay the tuition for charter school students who take community college courses. Matt Lakis is the principal at Des Moines Prep, where every 9th grader has been enrolled in community college, too. “Opportunities to access rigorous coursework earlier, opportunities to explore college and career pathways in meaningful, hands on ways,” Lakis said, “and opportunities for students to participate in the activities that they love.”

The law requires districts to let all charter school students participate in sports and other extracurricular activities at their local public school if the charter school doesn’t have those options. The law also gets rid of the cap on the number of unrelated children who can be homeschooled together and a home-based instructor may charge tuition and fees if they’re teaching kids they’re not related to.  “I firmly believe that education freedom is the best way to ensure that every kid is prepared to truly thrive,” Reynolds said.

Democrats in the legislature criticized the plan, saying it opens the door for unscrupulous people to offer to teach unrelated kids, for a fee and they say the benefits for charter schools place additional burdens on public school budgets.

MODESTO, Calif. (AP) — Before every important test, teacher Nancy Barajas dims the lights, turns on a disco ball and blasts music from her playlist. Her sixth graders dance together as a “pre-celebration” to boost their confidence, then take their exam.

Lately, there’s been a lot to celebrate in elementary schools in Modesto, California. Both reading and math scores have increased consistently over the past several years.

But across the country, results are gloomier. Researchers warn that the U.S. is experiencing a reading recession — a slide predating the pandemic’s disruptions in schooling.

Scholars at Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth analyzed state test scores from third to eighth grade for over 5,000 school districts in 38 states, allowing comparisons across school districts and states in a national Education Scorecard.

What they found was sobering: Only five states plus the District of Columbia had meaningful growth in reading test scores from 2022 to 2025. Nationally, students remain nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic reading scores and only slightly better in math.

While schools have focused on catching kids up since the COVID-19 pandemic upended education, reading test scores have been falling since 2013 for eighth graders and 2015 for fourth graders, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

“The pandemic was the mudslide that had followed seven years of steady erosion in achievement,” said Thomas Kane, a Harvard professor who helped create the Education Scorecard.

Still, some states and school districts are making progress — largely by shifting toward phonics-based instruction and providing extra support for struggling readers.

The picture is also brighter in math.

Almost every state in the analysis saw improvements in math test scores from 2022 to 2025. Student absenteeism also declined in most states. In over 400 U.S. school districts, including Modesto, reading or math growth outpaced demographically similar districts in the same state.

A shift toward phonics and extra reading support

Researchers are still debating the reading recession’s causes.

One possible factor, researchers say, is the rise of social media on smartphones and corresponding declines in kids’ recreational reading. States have also backed off on strict consequences for schools whose students fail to make progress on standardized tests, Kane said.

But the states that improved reading scores — notably Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana — all had one thing in common: They ordered schools to teach with a phonics-based approach known as the “ science of reading.”

For years, schools taught reading using approaches that de-emphasized phonics and encouraged strategies such as guessing words based on context clues. As reading scores tumbled over the past decade, parents, scholars and literacy advocates pushed for teaching methods that align with decades of research about how kids learn to read — largely by sounding out words.

Along with reforming teaching methods, states have also required schools to screen for learning disabilities such as dyslexia and hire coaches to help teachers improve their reading instruction.

That said, “science of reading” reforms did not guarantee success. Some states, including Florida, Arizona and Nebraska, changed parts of their reading instruction but still saw test scores fall.

In Modesto, reading instruction was revamped during the pandemic, and math a couple years earlier. The district created a new department to help students who are still learning English. Schools also ramped up teacher training, paying educators $5,000 to complete an extensive “science of reading” program called LETRS, or Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling.

Modesto’s test scores grew enough to represent an extra 18 weeks of learning in math and 13 weeks in reading. Nevertheless, the district still has a way to go: Overall scores remain far below grade level.

Getting kids ‘consistently in the seat’ key to Detroit’s success

A focus on reading has also improved scores in Detroit — but so have efforts to get kids in school more consistently. For years, the large urban district struggled with deplorable school conditions, leading to a 2016 lawsuit in which students argued they’d been denied the “right to read.”

The lawsuit ended in a settlement of over $94 million, money that helped move the needle. While the district is still far below the national average, student test scores have grown faster than in similar urban districts in Michigan.

“It took a lot to rebuild systems, and now kids are learning at higher levels, but I’m still not satisfied. And I think that’s the next challenge: continuing to motivate, inspire and change things,” said Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.

The money has helped Munger Elementary-Middle School, located in a largely Latino neighborhood in Detroit, to employ 18 educators who give kids extra support in small groups. An attendance agent also makes calls to the homes of absent students, even showing up at their doors.

Just a few years ago, says first grade teacher Samantha Ciaffone, it was normal for about seven or eight kids to be absent from her class every day. Now it’s usually only one or two.

“It allows us to be better educators to see kids consistently in the seat instead of once or twice a week,” said Ciaffone. “It makes such a difference.”

A bright spot in the South

For the last decade, the South has stood out as a region leading the way on education reforms — bucking an established trend of landing at the bottom of education rankings. Southern states were quick to change to research-based teaching methods, and states have paid to train and coach teachers.

It’s paid off. Louisiana and Alabama were the only states where math scores were higher in 2025 than pre-pandemic. Louisiana is also the only state that beat its pre-pandemic average in reading, with 87% of traditional public school students attending a district where scores are higher than in 2019.

Alabama had standout gains in reading following the pandemic, driven by a state law requiring every school to use phonics-based instruction. The Legislature modeled math reforms in 2022 off Alabama’s reading successes. The state’s Numeracy Act standardized math instruction, required regular testing and mandated intervention for kids who lacked adequate math skills.

Oxmoor Valley Elementary in Birmingham hired a full-time math specialist this year to help struggling kids. The school, which made the state’s “failing” list in 2016, has steadily improved math and reading scores, although a majority of kids still test below proficient in both subjects.

“We can provide all of these supports, but at the same time, hold kids to high expectations,” Birmingham Superintendent Mark Sullivan said.

Researchers stress such progress is possible across the U.S., because it’s been done before. Starting in the 1990s, the country saw decades of growth in test scores and graduation rates, while racial disparities declined. That progress continued until the mid-2010s.

“We made enormous progress as a country in terms of educational success from over a 30-year period. Test scores went up dramatically,” said Stanford professor Sean Reardon. “And so I think that says, as a country, we can improve education and educational opportunity.”

At Modesto’s Fairview Elementary, where Barajas teaches, students now practice their reading speed and fluency every day. After a dance break, the class reads a one-page text together in unison for one minute, then students split into pairs to read again. Students learning English are paired with native English speakers, and each child gets a turn reading with Barajas.

“Eventually, you get through the word like it’s water,” one boy said. “You just say it smooth.”