Stanford's Cookie Clearinghouse adds another layer of security to ...

Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society Launches "Cookie Clearinghouse" to Enable User Choice for Online Tracking

STANFORD, Calif., June 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School launched a new online privacy initiative today called the "Cookie Clearinghouse," which will empower Internet users to make informed choices about online privacy. The Cookie Clearinghouse is being spearheaded by Aleecia M. McDonald, the Director of Privacy at CIS.

Websites may place small files called "cookies" on an Internet user's machine, and some types of cookies can be used to collect information about the user without his or her consent. The Cookie Clearinghouse will develop and maintain an "allow list" and "block list" to help Internet users make privacy choices as they move through the Internet. The Clearinghouse will identify instances where tracking is being conducted without the user's consent, such as by third parties that the user never visited. To establish the "allow list" and "block list," the Cookie Clearinghouse is consulting with an advisory board that will include individuals from browser companies including Mozilla and Opera Software, academic privacy researchers, as well as individuals with expertise in small businesses and in European law, and the advisory board will continue to grow over time. The Clearinghouse will also offer the public an opportunity to comment. With this input, the Clearinghouse will develop an objective set of criteria for when to include a website's cookies on the lists. The Clearinghouse will create and maintain the lists. Browser developers will then be able to choose whether to incorporate the lists into the privacy options they offer to consumers. Company websites with cookies that have been included on the "block list" will be able to respond to the Clearinghouse to correct any mistakes in classification.

"Internet users are starting to understand that their online activities are closely monitored, often by companies they have never heard of before," said McDonald, "But Internet users currently don't have the tools they need to make online privacy choices. The Cookie Clearinghouse will create, maintain, and publish objective information. Web browser companies will be able to choose to adopt the lists we publish to provide new privacy options to their users."

The need for the Clearinghouse evolved out of an effort by CIS fellows called Do Not Track. Initially, Stanford's Do Not Track work raised consumer awareness about the way in which "tracking cookies" are used by websites--and by unaffiliated third parties--to compile extensive individual browsing histories that provide those companies with data about individual consumer behavior. This effort has since progressed to a global standards effort led by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C.) More recently, CIS researchers began a new effort to prevent companies from tracking without the user's consent. CIS student affiliate Jonathan Mayer wrote a software patch for use in Mozilla's Firefox browser that limits third-party tracking through cookies. Mayer's patch mimics existing functionality in the Safari browser, which already prevents tracking from websites users have not visited. While Do Not Track efforts continue into their third year, the Cookie Clearinghouse is a new opportunity to accelerate Internet users' ability to make effective online privacy choices.

For more details, please visit the Cookie Clearinghouse: http://cch.law.stanford.edu

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/21/stanford-mozilla-cookie-clearinghouse/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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FDA approves Theravance's lung drug for wider use

(Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Theravance Inc's antibiotic lung drug to treat a type of bacterial pneumonia affecting hospitalized patients, particularly those on ventilators.

The drug, Vibativ, will reach the market in the third quarter of 2013 for its expanded use. The drug is already approved in the United States and Canada to treat bacterial skin infections.

The disease, also known as nosocomial pneumonia, is a serious lung infection as patients, particularly those on ventilators, often cannot fight the infection.

The regulator said on Friday that Vibativ will be prescribed only when alternative treatments are not suitable and the expanded use is to treat only bacterial pneumonia due to staphylococcus aureus. (http://link.reuters.com/hez98t)

Vibativ is already approved in Europe for the treatment of adults with nosocomial pneumonia.

Theravance's shares were up about 2 percent at $38.25 in after-market trading.

The shares closed up 10 percent at $37.5 on the Nasdaq following a Daily Mail's market report that GlaxoSmithKline is lining up a $55 per share bid for Theravance.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fda-approves-theravances-lung-drug-wider-221625191.html

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Chicago Schools May Be Forced To Chose Between Toilet Paper And Teachers Due To Budget Cuts

Education advocates in Chicago claim that recently announced budget cuts will force some schools to choose between two necessary resources: teachers or toilet paper.

The cuts, which were unveiled weeks after the Chicago school board?s decision to close 49 of the city?s public schools, are designed to eliminate up to millions of dollars from the budgets of some schools. Protestors claim the cuts run so deep that school principals will have to choose between laying off teachers or purging schools of basic, everyday supplies once the new budget goes into effect, reports My Fox Chicago.

Protestors see the fact that some schools will be forced to reduce toilet paper supplies as representative of how detrimental the budget cuts will be. On Tuesday night, outside an event where Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett was speaking, activists held a toilet paper drive to raise awareness of the issue.

?In many schools, including mine, there are no funds left for janitorial supplies ?- and this includes toilet paper," Chicago teacher Michelle Gunderson told the Daily Kos before the toilet paper drive. ?What might seem juvenile to some is in fact a perfect metaphor for the disregard of human dignity -- the Chicago Public Schools care so little about children that their basic needs are being neglected.?

Teachers and parents also picketed outside of the Tuesday event, reports My Fox Chicago.

"So we got socked," said Chicago Public School parent Jennie Biggs, according to the outlet. "Losing money and now we also, my principal also has to pick up supplies, so there's a real chance he's going to have to pick between teachers and toilet paper."

The Daily Kos reports that the activists promoted a twitter hashtag, #CPSWipes, which was attached to tweets railing against the cuts and lashing out against Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D).

Inside Tuesday's event, Byrd-Bennett sounded optimistic about the future of the city's schools.

"The stars are aligned for Chicago to make a dramatic difference in the way we educate our children," said Byrd-Bennett, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Earlier on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/20/chicago-schools-toilet-paper-budget-cuts_n_3473174.html

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Raspberry Pi gets its own media center kit: ?46 for easy XBMC and controller (hands-on)

Behold, a ready-made answer for those who own a Linux-powered fruit machine but who are still looking for new ways to use it. It's a simple media center starter kit, fresh out and shipping today, which makes it easy to hook your Raspberry Pi up to an HDMI display and use it to play video or music from the internet or your home network through the wonders of XBMC. Known simply as "XBMC Solution," it consists of the Raspbmc software on a bootable SD card (this is an all-in-one install that combines XBMC with a lightweight Linux distro), a rechargeable RF controller with a small keyboard and touchpad to aid navigation (it's generic, unbranded, and even has a "Win" key, but it works fine), plus Ethernet and HDMI cables in case you don't have any going spare. Read on for more.

Gallery: Raspberry Pi XBMC Solution

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Networking, Internet, Software, HD

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/19/raspberry-pi-xbmc-solution/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Doctors: Aid Guantanamo hunger strikers

U.S. military guards watch detainees in a cell block at Camp 6 in the Guantanamo Bay detention center in 2010.??

More than 150 doctors and other medical professionals are asking President Barack Obama to allow them to treat hunger strikers in the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"It is clear that they do not trust their military doctors," the physicians wrote in an open letter published in The Lancet medical journal on Tuesday. "Without trust, safe and acceptable medical care of mentally competent patients is impossible. Since the detainees do not trust their military doctors, they are unlikely to comply with current medical advice."

More than 100 of the 166 prisoners still in Guantanamo are on a hunger strike; some of them have been striking for as long as five months. Nearly half of the hunger strikers are being "enterally fed," according to the military, which means military doctors snake tubing connected to a can of Ensure up their nostrils and down the backs of their throats. Many of the detainees consider this to be torture.

The World Medical Association and the United Nations say that mentally competent prisoners who refuse to eat should not be force-fed, but the U.S. civilian prison and military prison policy is that prisoners should not be allowed to starve themselves.

Thirteen of the hunger strikers sent a letter last month to their military doctors asking for independent medical attention.

"I do not wish to die, but I am prepared to run the risk that I may end up doing so, because I am protesting the fact that I have been locked up for more than a decade, without a trial, subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment and denied access to justice," read the letter, which was published in the Guardian. "I have no other way to get my message across."

The detainees said the doctors' "dual loyalties" to both follow military orders and treat their patients meant they could not trust them. A Pentagon spokesman told the Guardian there was "no precedent" for outside doctors to treat detainees.

The hunger strike has become a political issue for Obama, who mentioned it in a May 23 speech on national security. ?Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike," he said. "Is that who we are? Is that something that our founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave to our children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that." During the 2008 campaign, Obama vowed to close the camp if elected president.

The Miami Herald reported that 46 of the 166 captives in Guantanamo have been classified as "indefinite detainees" by the Obama administration, which means the government considers them too dangerous to release or transfer but cannot try them in a court of law due to lack of evidence or other reasons. Eighty-six of the detainees have been cleared for release, but their transfer has been delayed.

Medact, a U.K.-based nonprofit that advocates for access to health care, organized the Lancet letter. About 50 of the medical professionals who signed it are from the U.S., the rest are from abroad. Scott Allen, a physician and medical adviser for the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights, is among the U.S. signatories.

Frank Arnold, a British doctor and advocate for immigration detainees, said he signed the letter after reading about the force-feeding of one prisoner who went on a hunger strike at Guantanamo.

"This horrified me," Arnold said. "They do not trust their military doctors because those doctors are following orders which result in what the detainees consider to be torture."

Arnold, for one, said the prisoners should be allowed to starve.

"As long as someone is refusing treatment and is mentally competent to give that refusal ... where I come from that must be obeyed," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/doctors-obama-let-us-treat-guantanamo-detainees-hunger-230110562.html

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Pakistan's Power Shortage Problem Is Country's Biggest Threat

GUJAR KHAN, Pakistan -- A woman named Rehana Yasmin struggles to keep her sick 2-year-old granddaughter cool in a sweltering hospital where working air conditioners are rare and electric fans are idle for much of the day.

Elsewhere, households can't rely on their refrigerators, and at textile factories, factory workers say they can't operate their machines for enough hours to earn their daily bread.

All are victims of Pakistan's biggest problem, one that recently brought down a government ? not the U.S. drone war in its backyard, not its permanent confrontation with India, but its inability to generate enough electricity. Pakistan, nuclear-armed, can't deliver a reliable power supply to its 180 million citizens.

"Power, power, power is the problem. It's power at home, in the workplace, on the streets," said Rizwana Kauser, head nurse at the hospital in the city of Gujar Khan, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the capital, Islamabad.

Power can be out for up to 20 hours a day in the summer. TV coverage may be lost in the middle of a cliffhanger cricket match. Office meetings are scheduled around anticipated power cuts. Without electric fans, mosquitoes proliferate. People get stuck in elevators. Meat rots in refrigerators.

The shortfalls that became the top issue in the recent election are estimated at 3,500 to 6,000 megawatts ? up to a third of total demand.

The problems result in part from bad bill-collecting, which leaves utility companies short of funds to pay for the oil that powers much of the production, which in turn means the state oil company can't buy enough oil on international markets.

Power theft is rampant, often consisting of simply slinging a hook over a conveniently placed electricity wire. The infrastructure of the state-controlled utility companies around the country is outdated, the companies are inefficient, and power plants are heavily dependent on oil despite Pakistan's abundant coal resources, experts say.

Fixing the problems is likely to take years, leaving Nawaz Sharif, the new prime minister, with a gargantuan task. But with Pakistanis impatient for action, the government has announced plans to pay off about $5 billion owed to companies throughout the supply chain within 60 days. It's not a long-term solution but it would at least offer the government some breathing room.

And that's just to keep the electricity flowing. Pakistan also has a problem with delivering natural gas to households and companies, and that too will need solving if the new government hopes to last.

For Rehana Yasmin, relief can't come too soon. She has been at the public hospital in Gujar Khan for a week, tending to her granddaughter who has dysentery. She brings her own water because there's no electricity to run the pump of the hospital well. She buys homemade straw fans hawked in the hospital's hallways.

For the past week, Yasmin said, "during the night we hardly have two hours of electricity and during the day, it's minimal. This lack of electricity is making children sick and making the elders sick as well."

Public hospitals like the one in Gujar Khan, which care for the majority who can't afford private hospitals, generally draw power from two grids, but nowadays, especially in the hot months, there's sometimes no electricity coming from either grid.

The hospital uses a generator during operations, but sometimes has to resort to ice to keep medicines cool.

It is a struggle simply to maintain basic sanitation, said Kauser, the head nurse. Wounds take longer to heal. And "When there is no water, there is no cleaning," she said. "How can you wash the sheets?"

In the past, power cuts ("load-shedding" in Pakistani bureaucratese) used to be much shorter and followed patterns that allowed people to plan such routine activities as scheduling an office meeting or taking a shower. But it was the newer phenomenon of "unscheduled load-shedding" and the much longer outages that raised tempers to the level of an election issue.

Dr. Ashraf Nizami of the Pakistan Medical Association said that doctors are seeing more psychological effects of load-shedding, such as stress and depression.

"It is a torture for the medical community and the patients," he said.

It's also bad for business.

The looms in one of Waheed Raamay's workshops are silent and soon to be sold as scrap metal. This workshop, a graveyard as Raamay calls it, is a sign of how the electricity crisis hurts Pakistan's economy.

"This is not just the story of this single factory. There are dozens of factories in this particular area, and there are hundreds of factories in this city that have closed down due to this power crisis," said Raamay.

Faisalabad, the third-largest city in Pakistan with a population of about 2.6 million inhabitants, is known for its textiles. But from the low-end workshops that produce for the domestic market to the warehouse-sized factories that export sheets and pillowcases to international chains, that industry is hurting ? badly ? as a result of the electricity crisis, say workers and factory owners.

Analysts and government officials estimate that Pakistan loses about two percent of its GDP every year due to the electricity crisis. The Pakistan Textile Exporters Association estimates about 150,000 jobs lost in Faisalabad and surrounding Punjab province over the last five years.

In the part of the city where fabric is made for local consumption, the clicking and clacking of the machines rises and falls with the load-shedding.

Workers show up hoping for a day's work, knowing they are hostages to power cuts. A show of hands indicates all the workers are deeply in debt to their grocery stores or the factory owners. Angry job-seekers have taken to the streets in protest.

"We don't have money to bury our dead," said Mohammed Haneef, who was missing part of one finger from a loom accident. "My mother died and I had no money so I had to borrow money from the owners. A year later my father died, and I had to borrow money. ... The situation is bad."

Kurram Mukhtar, head of Sadaqat Limited, one of Pakistan's leading textile manufacturers, said that from 2006 to 2010 many companies in the city and surrounding area were bankrupted by the power crisis. Owners who survived decided they needed energy independence. Now, at Mukhtar's factory, piles of coal sit next to a massive generator that keeps the workers stitching, cutting and dying fabrics through the load-shedding.

But Mukhtar said that the cost has cut deeply into his profits, leaving no money to invest in new technologies.

He doesn't have the option chosen by Aurangzeb Khan in the northwestern town of Mathra when his power was cut off last year over unpaid bills: Khan resorted to the tactic Pakistanis call "kunda," the hook slung over a convenient electricity pole.

He said he did it because it pained him to see his kids suffering through the August heat. "I am not stealing electricity just for fun or pleasure but I don't have any other option," he said.

Such non-payment is rampant. Even government agencies are known to default on bills. And customers can always go to court to obtain a "stay-order" that forces the power company to keep supplying electricity.

"There is no concept of paying the bill," said Ashfaque Khan, the dean of the business school at the Islamabad-based National University of Sciences and Technology.

A report in March commissioned by the Planning Commission of Pakistan estimated that the delinquencies added up to about 86 billion rupees (about $870 million) in lost revenues.

The Peshawar Electric Supply Company, whose coverage area includes Khan's home, was said to be one of the worst at bill-collecting, though it suffers the added problem of being a target for violence. In April, militants attacked a grid station outside of Peshawar, killing eight policemen and electric company officials.

The new government says it wants to increase bill collection but has given few specifics about how they'll go about it. People like Aurangzeb Khan say they want to see improved service before they pay up.

"I know stealing is not good," he said, "but if we get uninterrupted supply of electricity at a reasonable price we shall pay the bills."

__

Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, Zarar Khan in Gujar Khan and B.K. Bangash in Faisalabad contributed to this report.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/15/pakistan-power-shortage_n_3447599.html

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Defected Cuban dancers adjust to U.S., seek work

In this photo taken Friday, May 17, 2013, ballet master Eriberto Jimenez, right, gives instructions during practice in a dance studio in Miami. These dancers could be among the young talent of any ballet company, but for the moment they are something else: Immigrants in the United States trying to land dancing opportunities while navigating cultural differences and learning English. The ballerinas fled from the Cuban National Ballet while on tour in Mexico in April, and crossed the border into Texas. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

In this photo taken Friday, May 17, 2013, ballet master Eriberto Jimenez, right, gives instructions during practice in a dance studio in Miami. These dancers could be among the young talent of any ballet company, but for the moment they are something else: Immigrants in the United States trying to land dancing opportunities while navigating cultural differences and learning English. The ballerinas fled from the Cuban National Ballet while on tour in Mexico in April, and crossed the border into Texas. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

In this photo taken Friday, May 17, 2013, ballet dancers Edward Gonzalez, left, and Arianni Martin, right, practice in a dance studio in Miami. These dancers could be among the young talent of any ballet company, but for the moment they are something else: Immigrants in the United States trying to land dancing opportunities while navigating cultural differences and learning English. The ballerinas fled from the Cuban National Ballet while on tour in Mexico in April, and crossed the border into Texas. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

In this photo taken Friday, May 17, 2013, ballet dancers practice in a dance studio in Miami. These dancers could be among the young talent of any ballet company, but for the moment they are something else: Immigrants in the United States trying to land dancing opportunities while navigating cultural differences and learning English. The ballerinas fled from the Cuban National Ballet while on tour in Mexico in April, and crossed the border into Texas. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

In this photo taken Friday, May 17, 2013, ballet dancers practice in a dance studio in Miami. These dancers could be among the young talent of any ballet company, but for the moment they are something else: Immigrants in the United States trying to land dancing opportunities while navigating cultural differences and learning English. The ballerinas fled from the Cuban National Ballet while on tour in Mexico in April, and crossed the border into Texas. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

MIAMI (AP) ? They practice in the back of a dance studio next to a Wendy's restaurant in a strip mall. Six ballet dancers leap across the floor, hidden from view from the mothers watching their daughters in pink leotards in a front room.

"Uno, dos, tres," ballet master Eriberto Jimenez calls out.

The dancers move in sets of two, their pointed toes and outstretched hands a hint of the grand stages where they have performed. In the background plays a recording of "La Bayadare," the French choreographed ballet they are practicing.

These dancers could be among the young talent of any ballet company, but for the moment they are something else: Immigrants in the United States trying to land dancing opportunities while navigating cultural differences and learning English. The ballerinas fled from the Cuban National Ballet while on tour in Mexico in April, and crossed the U.S. border into Texas.

Pedro Pablo Pena, himself a Cuban exiled dancer, has taken them under his wing, providing a place to stay, practice and perform. In May, they made their U.S. debut in a special performance with Pena's Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami.

Now they are trying to determine their next steps. They arrived after ballet company auditions for next season had already taken place, and arts organizations around the country are grappling with tight budgets.

Just one of the ballerinas has signed a performance contract.

"It's a tough time," said Octavio Roca, a dance critic who wrote a book about Cuban ballet.

Still, they say they have no misgivings about defecting.

"I'm going to start a new life now," said 20-year-old Arianni Martin, speaking in Spanish.

The journey of these dancers, and many ballet defectors before them, started in Havana, where each rose through the island's selective ballet schools to earn spots in the Cuban National Ballet, widely regarded as one of the best classical companies in the world.

The ballet is led by Alicia Alonso, 92, a former prima ballerina who danced well into her 70s. Alonso founded the company in 1948 and has managed to steer it forward even during periods of great economic strife. She's accomplished that in no small part with the support of the communist regime; Alonso has been closely aligned with Fidel Castro and the ballet is a source of national pride.

Despite the company's prestige, dancers defect during every international tour. The first defections occurred in 1966, when 10 dancers fled while performing in Paris. During the early years of Castro's government, dancers who defected would cite political reasons for their decision.

More recently, dancers who have defected, including the ones who arrived in April, have cited political, economic and artistic reasons for their departure: They want freedom of expression, in speech and on the dance floor, and more opportunities to support their families. Cuban ballet dancers earn no more than $30 a month.

"I would have been stuck," Martin, a pretty, petite brunette with brown eyes said.

So many Cuban ballet dancers have fled through the years that they now dance or teach at nearly every major U.S. ballet company. Their collective influence is comparable to that of the Soviets in the 1970s and 80s, Roca said. For the Russians, that influence was seemingly natural, as they hailed from a large and populous country with a long and storied history of successful ballet. But Cuba is a small and isolated Caribbean island of just over 11 million people.

"There's no reason why that tiny country should have that kind of influence, but there you are," Roca said. "Obviously, Alicia was doing something right. And even as she loses dancers."

In April, a group of 70 dancers were sent to Mexico to perform Giselle, a classic and frequently danced piece in the Cuban ballet's repertoire. Martin was selected to dance the part of Giselle's friend in the second act.

Before leaving, Martin shared her plans to defect while on tour with her family. Though difficult, they supported her decision. She wouldn't escape alone; a close friend in the ballet and both of their boyfriends, also dancers, would join.

The four ballerinas did not mention their plans to anyone in the company until after their final performance in Chetumal, Mexico. To leave, they would need their passports, which an assistant traveling with the group held.

Martin pulled the woman aside that evening and asked for hers back. The assistant told her and the others to go to her room early the next morning.

"We were nervous the whole time," Martin said. "We didn't know what was going to happen."

The friends knocked on the assistant's door at 5 a.m. She handed them their passports and wished them well.

"Write me," she said.

The four ballerinas met up with three other dancers as they exited the hotel. Initially, the seven dancers stayed together as they made their way north. Later, one decided to stay in Mexico and two others charted separated paths to the U.S.

Martin and her friends first took a bus to Cordoba, and then to Laredo, where they crossed a bridge on foot into Texas.

As they crossed, they walked in silence, fearing their Cuban accents might be a giveaway to a thief looking to steal their passports. Cubans who arrive in the U.S. are generally allowed to stay under the "Wet-foot, Dry-foot" policy, while those stopped at sea are usually returned home. Mexicans and other Latino immigrants do not receive the same treatment; Most caught at the border are returned to Mexico.

Immigration authorities questioned the dancers for an hour "about everything," Martin said.

When they were allowed to enter the U.S., they embraced and were received by a relative of Martin's friend. They took a van to Miami, home to America's largest Cuban community.

A friend put them in touch with Pena, the founder of the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami and a former ballet dancer. Pena started the company six years ago, more than two decades after fleeing Cuba during the Mariel exodus of 1980, in which more than 100,000 Cubans were permitted to leave by boat amid rising economic and social tensions on the island. Pena saw the need for a company to help recently defected Cuban dancers stay on point until they landed a contract.

He bought and renovated a deteriorated but historic house along the Miami River. The ballerinas stay in small rooms on the third floor named after famous Cuban artists. On the second floor are practice rooms with pianos and ballet barres.

In May, they performed at the Fillmore Miami to mixed reviews.

"Cuban defectors show promise in debut," read the headline in The Miami Herald. The review said three of the dancers had "excellent prospects," while the other three were "less than exceptional."

One of the dancers, Edward Gonzalez, will perform next season with the Sarasota Ballet. The others have been practicing, giving classes and discovering life in America. On their Facebook pages, they've shared photos standing next to a U.S. flag, shopping at a Ross clothes store and hugging each other.

Martin and her friend are amazed at how many foods come canned and can be easily heated up in a microwave.

"It's incredible. We don't have to do anything," Martin said.

Miami, as Gonzalez put it, is like "a developed Cuba." He's looking forward to going to Sarasota, about 230 miles northwest of Miami.

"That's really the U.S.," he said, speaking in Spanish. "There I'm going to have to learn English."

___

Follow Christine Armario on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cearmario

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-06-14-US-Cuban-Ballet-1st-Ld-Writethru/id-d307ae8998c6427182032730ccb78bbf

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