Free Republic

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba's highest court upheld a U.S. government subcontractor's 15-year prison sentence for crimes against the state on Friday, ending the legal side of a case that has chilled already-icy relations between Washington and Havana. The ruling means 62-year-old Alan Gross, a Maryland native who has been behind bars for more than a year and a half, has no further judicial recourse to appeal his sentence. It leaves him, his family and U.S. officials hoping instead for a release on humanitarian grounds. Gross, who has been behind bars since his arrest in December 2009, was found guilty in...

Ten Cuban Jews found themselves standing in awe at Judaism's holiest site on Thursday, after a year of tough negotiations to bring the first group of Cuban Jews to Israel. Israel and Cuba have had no diplomatic ties since Cuba severed relations following the 1973 Mideast war. The Cuban government was reluctant to give the Jews permission to make the trip, fearing they would not return. Taking in the site where the biblical Jewish Temples stood, by coincidence on the day when Jews mourn their destruction, Yohandi Crespo, 25, said, "This is just wonderful, very emotional." Crespo came from the...