Cuba says current leadership to remain through April

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba announced Thursday that its current leadership would stay in power until April 2018, a clear signal that Raul Castro will remain as president two months longer than expected.

Castro, 86, had said that he planned to step down in February at the end of a months-long political cycle in which voters and government officials pick the members of local, provincial and national assemblies and the members of the powerful council of state.

The National Assembly announced through state media that its current term would run through April 19 instead of ending in February because the impact of Hurricane Irma in September had delayed the start of the political cycle.