A woman reads a passport application form as she waits in line outside an immigration office in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Jan. 7, 2013. A Cuban doctor says the Caribbean nation is eliminating longstanding restrictions on health care professionals' overseas travel as part of a broader migration reform. The doctor says hospital directors met Saturday with Health Minister Roberto Morales and were told of the new policy, effective Monday. For many years Cuban physicians have been limited in their ability to travel or had to undergo cumbersome bureaucratic procedures. But now they are supposed to be treated "like any other citizen" when it comes to traveling abroad. Franklin Reyes / AP

The new policy, which went into effect Monday, eliminates the need for an exit visa and allows many Cubans once barred from returning to the island to visit.

miamiherald.com - by Mimi Whitefield - January 14, 2013

A look into the future: Summer vacations by Cuban families in Miami, Cuban doctors and athletes who left their posts or teams while on official trips abroad returning to Cuba for visits and everyday Cubans permitted to leave the island for up to two years at a time.

Collapsed church building from 2009 earthquake in central Italy

voanews.com - October 22, 2012

An Italian court on Monday convicted seven scientists and experts of manslaughter for underestimating the risks of a killer earthquake and failing to adequately warn citizens before it struck the central Italian town of L'Aquila in 2009.

More than 300 people were killed, tens of thousands were left homeless, and the town's historic center and medieval churches were destroyed in the 6.3-magnitude quake.

Prosecutors argued that the defendants - members of a national panel that assesses major risks - offered "incomplete, imprecise and contradictory information" to residents.

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