Lawmakers keep heat on Jay-Z and Beyonce over Cuba trip.
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Maduro spoke after returning on Wednesday from a trip to Cuba, where Chavez continues to receive medical care.
But, after a trip to Cuba in 1960, he began to question his relationship to the white world that had helped foster his career.
When Parisi took his first trip to Cuba in 1996, newly made "fresh" cigars were hot, and so he was able to load up on old favorites on the cheap.
Shortly before his last trip to Cuba for cancer surgery, Chavez tapped Maduro as his replacement "if something were to happen that would incapacitate me" and called for voters to support him.
Fourteen years earlier, a much different Fidel Castro greeted a much different pontiff when thousands were introduced to Pope John Paul II, who made the historic first papal trip to Cuba in 1998.
It was his first trip outside of Cuba, and his government still clearly controlled his every move: During a layover in London the Cubans were not allowed to exit the plane.
He said Benedict had decided to retire last April after his taxing but exhilarating trip to Mexico and Cuba in March.
On a trip organized by Insight Cuba last month, 12 Americans spent their morning speaking with Cubans at a neighborhood art project.
According to the Vatican's semi-official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, the Pope took the decision to resign after his trip to Mexico and Cuba in 2012.
The pope will leave Mexico Monday for Cuba, where his three-day trip will include two large public Masses.
The politics and uncertainty over continued travel between Cuba and the United States persuaded Pettit to book another trip right away, he said.
Lenard had earlier granted the 56-year-old leave to travel to Cuba to attend a memorial for his father, the second trip home he had been allowed to make since his release in 2011.
The trip was also filled with talk of potential trade between Cuba and Illinois.
Since that 2008 trip to Sudan, they have brought their cameras to Cuba and taught kids in New York.
Michael Pettit, a lawyer from Charleston, South Carolina, said he was struck by Cuba's many contrasts during his first people-to-people trip in May.
The trip is timed to the 400th anniversary of Our Lady of Charity, Cuba's patron saint, but uncertainty looms over what will be said, with whom the pope will meet and what the visit will mean for Cubans.
Analysts see the lawmakers' trip and Obama's campaign rhetoric as a way for the new administration to start thawing relations with Cuba before the Fifth Summit of the Americas.
CNN: Analysis: United States-Cuba relations begin the long thaw
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