Free Republic

The mourners lamenting the death of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez included the presidents of Iran and Cuba, a Spanish prince and a man that Chavez himself once floated as a possible American ambassador to Venezuela: Hollywood actor Sean Penn. Penn flew to Caracas for the Friday funeral, where he was filmed among the mourning crowd. Earlier this week, he called Chavez “a great hero to the majority of his people.”

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, popular with the poor at home, offered on Tuesday to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of gasoline. "We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," the populist leader told reporters at the end of a visit to Communist-run Cuba. Chavez did not say how Venezuela would go about providing gasoline to poor communities. Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA owns Citgo, which has 14,000 gas stations in the United States. The offer may sound attractive to Americans feeling pinched by soaring prices at the...