Cuba

Airline flights. Phone service. Money transfers. Those are among enticing new or expanded business opportunities seen ahead for U.S. companies with Monday's loosening of the U.S. embargo with Cuba. "This is a big deal; it's a significant change in U.S. policy," said former Ambassador David A. Gross, the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy and a partner at law firm Wiley Rein.

The U.S. men's volleyball team moved to within a victory of a spot in this summer's Olympic Games by beating Cuba, 21-25, 25-18, 25-16, 25-16, on Friday in the semifinals of the NORCECA qualifying tournament played before a near-capacity crowd at Long Beach State. But first the American had to overcome a slow start that led to a first-set scare in which Cuba scored four points on service aces and got seven points overall from hard-hitting Fernando Hernandez for their only set loss of the tournament . That would end up being the night's lone bright spot for the young Cubans, though.

At 6 a.m. on Oct. 14, 1960, Cuban national radio announced that the Communist government was nationalizing sugar mills and rum factories — including the island's most famous business, Bacardi. Cuban marines quickly headed to Bacardi's office in Havana with a one-page official document (riddled with misspellings) that gave them control. However, Fidel Castro and his cabinet made a crucial error, and the repercussions live on in the world of rum today. They went not only to the wrong building but also to the wrong city.

The U.S. and Canada men's volleyball teams both remained unbeaten in pool play Wednesday, advancing to Friday's semifinals of the NORCECA Olympic qualifying tournament at Long Beach State. The U.S. knocked off Mexico, 25-23, 25-19, 25-14 as expected, but Canada stunned an uncharacteristically sloppy Cuba, ranked fifth in the world, winning in straight sets 25-21, 25-17, 25-21. To keep its Olympic hopes alive, Cuba will have to beat Trinidad and Tobago in Thursday's quarterfinals, likely setting up a meeting with the U.S. in the semifinals.

Cuban Americans' travel to the communist island nation just got easier under guidelines issued last week by the Obama administration. The Treasury Department confirmed that Cuban Americans may visit extended relatives as well as close family members once a year and spend as much as $179 a day without fear of prosecution, effective immediately. The guidelines signal a trend toward looser enforcement of the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

Pushed to the fringes by a money-driven social divide, Rosa is what Cubans call a "marginal" person. She's lived all of her 72 years in a shabby enclave of Marianao, a neighborhood where crude wooden cottages, their rotting boards held together with coats of paint, descend into a gully strewn with refuse and sewage.

Cuba at the Bowl With: Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club with Omara Portuondo; Arturo Sandoval with Natalie Cole and the L.A. All Star Big Band; Ninety Miles Where: Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood When: 8 p.m. Wednesday Tickets: $1 to $130 Information: (323) 850-2000 or http://www.laphil.com

There exists within our hemisphere a nation that has embodied all of the goals and ideals that President Clinton envisions for America. It is a nation where all citizens have universal health coverage and no one is allowed to own a gun. That nation is Cuba. RON YORKE Reseda

The images were decidedly retro and jarring in their distant familiarity, as if a grainy old family film long left in the attic had been brought out for a screening. In defense of la patria, army troops overpowered el palacio at dawn and placed el presidente on an airplane to be flown into exile, still wearing his pajamas. Sunday's coup in Honduras followed a script once so familiar it acquired cliche status, material even for a Woody Allen sendup.

ITALY Presentation David Farley discusses his new book, "An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town," an account of his time living in a Bohemian hill town near Rome. When, where: 7:30 p.m. Monday at Distant Lands, 56 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. Admission, info: Free. RSVP to (626) 449-3220. CUBA Slide show Mort Loveman will present "Cuba: A Cultural Experience." When, where: 1 p.m. Wednesday at Roxbury Park Community Center, 471 S. Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills.

Cuba's men's volleyball team had little trouble with Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday, needing less than an hour to roll to a straight-set victory and advance to a semifinal showdown with the unbeaten U.S.  in the NORCECA Olympic qualifying tournament at Long Beach State. Cuba -- which won, 25-18, 25-13, 25-16 -- will play the U.S. in Friday's second semifinal at 8 p.m. Canada, which is also unbeaten, will meet Puerto Rico in the first semifinal at 6. Puerto Rico beat Mexico in its quarterfinal Thursday.

CUBA Tour gets personal Alabama-based International Expeditions has begun offering 10-day people-to-people tours of Cuba that start in June. The itinerary includes discussions with botanists at the Soledad Botanical Garden, a visit to the Zapata Wetlands in search of bee hummingbirds and talks with farmers during a trip to a tobacco farm. Havana, the Bay of Pigs, Cienfuegos and other hot spots are part of the itinerary too. Travelers must have proof of legal travel from International Expeditions before they are allowed to board a charter flight from Miami to Cuba (charters are approved a few weeks before departure)

The Obama administration eased U.S. travel restrictions to Cuba by announcing last year it would grant licenses to selected travel companies to lead "people-to-people" tours to the Communist-led nation. The action meant Americans, who have been essentially prohibited from visiting the island for the past 50 years, could now travel to the country legally. Alabama-based International Expeditions received a license and has begun offering 10-day tours of Cuba that start in June.

In the upcoming HBO movie "Hemingway & Gellhorn," actors Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman bring to life the passionate and stormy relationship between Ernest Hemingway and World War II correspondent Martha Gellhorn — the inspiration for the writer's classic novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls. " But the real star of the cable network's film, which premieres May 28, is San Francisco and the Bay Area. Although the movie takes place in nine countries, it was shot over 40 days last spring entirely on location within about 20 miles of the Northern California city.

Exposing the truth Re "Highflying costs," April 19 Revealing that the F-35 fighter jet program is in jeopardy because of its increasing costs could bring comfort to the enemy and potentially jeopardize national security. Reporting that Secret Service agents engaged in unacceptable behavior could compromise the reputation of the Secret Service and the security of the president. Showing photos of soldiers with body parts exposes unacceptable behavior by the troops and may increase resentment of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

SANTIAGO, Cuba — The way Cesar Cruz and his buddies see it, the "revolution of our grandparents" just doesn't cut it anymore. The 19-year-old student and his friends gather every Saturday in leafy Cespedes Park in the shadow of Santiago de Cuba's cathedral, listening to music and sharing spins on an old scooter, and dreaming of an impossible future. "We don't have the chance to think of a better life, without misery," Cruz said. "The only option is to leave the country.

Well, it had to happen. With the U.S. earlier this year loosening restrictions on Americans visiting Cuba, luxury tour operator Abercrombie & Kent is marketing tours of the Communist island that even a capitalist kingpin could love. More affordable options are opening up too with other tour companies. A&K's first " Cuba: The Forbidden Isle " trip (11 days for $4,325 per person, double occupancy, land only) went on sale Tuesday for a Sept. 30 departure.  It promises "exclusive accommodations at Cuba's best hotels," a private tour of late author Ernest Hemingway's seaside Finca Vigia home and time to indulge in salsa dancing and mojito s, a traditional Cuban rum drink, a news release said.

Most Americans would at least consider visiting Cuba if all travel restrictions were lifted, according to an informal survey by Travel Leaders , a Minneapolis-based network of travel agencies. While not scientific, the survey of nearly 1,000 Americans adds fuel to the debate over travel to the Communist-ruled island. The results were released Tuesday, just days after the U.S. Treasury Department issued new guidelines to implement loosened restrictions on travel to Cuba that President Obama announced in January.

Once again, Cuba was absent from the Summit of the Americas. Yet the communist nation might as well have attended the gathering last weekend in Cartagena, Colombia, because it took center stage, despite U.S. efforts to focus on other issues. Ecuador's president refused to attend the summit in protest of Cuba's exclusion. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Brazil's Dilma Rouseff, both moderates rather than left-wingers, said there should be no more Summits of the Americas without Cuba.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon stopped in Cuba this week, en route to the Colombian port city of Cartagena for the Summit of the Americas. Calderon's visit to the island nation is interesting for several reasons. Mexico-Cuba relations were strained in 2002 after then-President Vicente Fox criticized Cuba's human rights record. That same year, the Mexican leader invited Cuba to attend a summit but, in a private conversation, Fox asked Cuba's Fidel Castro to leave Mexico before then-President George W. Bush arrived.