The Cuban government recently approved Island Travel &Tours to offer the service from BWI Marshall.

The government says about 338,000 Cubans across the island now have licenses to operate private businesses, including more than 4,500 in Cienfuegos and 14,000 in Sancti Spiritus.

Pollan, 63, died Friday night of cardiorespiratory failure, a week after being hospitalized with an aggressive respiratory virus. Family members reported that Pollan’s doctors tried for nearly an hour to revive her.

Concacaf at the Home Depot Center, June 6, 2011. The Gold Cup opens on June 5 at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Castro, 84, remains head of the Communist Party, though in his remarks to the students he gave the impression he had delegated many of his official duties to others when he became ill.

It’s a common sight in communist Cuba. Here, nearly everyone works for the state and official unemployment is minuscule, but pay is so low that Cubans like to joke that “the state pretends to pay us and we pretend to work.”

Word of Alonso’s visit arrived a day after the office of legendary Cuban folk singer Silvio Rodriguez announced plans to perform June 4 at Carnegie Hall, though Washington had yet to approve his visa

The group, comprised mostly of the wives and mothers of some 75 dissidents arrested in a 2003 crackdown, had been the only one whose protests were tolerated by Cuba, and they had never requested or received permission before.

A Jerry Bruckheimer production, it focuses on what Omar calls “the alpha team.” A group of trauma doctors who save critically injured patients in Miami.

Never a juggernaut, Cuba’s economy has been battered by the global economic crisis, a dip in world nickel prices and the effects of three devastating hurricanes that hit in 2008. The government controls 90 percent of the economy, paying low wages but heavily subsidizing education, housing, food and health care.

HAVANA _ Cuba is unsure it will attend the Central American and Caribbean Games in Puerto Rico, unhappy with visa restrictions and other regulations. In a statement Friday published in the state-run newspaper Granma, officials of the Cuban Olympic Committee said none of the responses from Puerto Rican sports authorities and games officials had met [...]

Washington’s move to increase scrutiny of travelers from Cuba in wake of Christmas Day bombing attempt by Nigerian national appears to have given both sides ample reason to revert to old ways.

The number of travelers to Cuba has also been boosted by the Obama administration’s decision to let Cuban-Americans with family on the island visit as often as they like.