Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says President Trump

prefers a negotiating settlement with Cuba, but that the likelihood of that is not very high right now.

The administration's been ramping up the pressure on the communist government there to change its system,

as NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports.

A day after the Department of Justice announced an indictment

against former Cuban President Raul Castro, Secretary Rubio kept up the pressure, describing Cuba

as a national security threat for its connections to Russia and China. And the other thing that

poses a threat to the national security of the United States is to have a failed state, 90 miles from

our shores, run by friends of our adversaries.

He would not say if the U.S. would try to arrest the 94-year-old Castro, as the Trump administration

did with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro earlier this year.

Rubio was speaking on the tarmac in Florida before heading to Sweden for a NATO meeting.

Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department.

The Minnesota woman convicted of leading what prosecutors say was the nation's largest COVID fraud scheme today,

received a 42-year federal prison sentence. Matt Seppick of Minnesota Public Radio reports.

Amy Bach ran a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future. She and her dozens of co-defendants exploited pandemic rule changes and lacks oversight to steal nearly $250 million from federal

child nutrition programs. While Democratic Governor Tim Walsh was not implicated, the

scheme happened on his watch and was a major factor in his decision earlier this year not to seek re-election.

Matt Seppick from Minnesota Public Radio reporting.

Meta has settled a lawsuit brought by a rural eastern Kentucky district.

Breath of County Schools just weeks before the case was set to go to trial.

NPR's Shannon Bond

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