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I've always had a good time in Cuba. The people are friendly and funny, the rum is smooth, the music intoxicating and the beaches wide, white and soft.

But you're accompanied everywhere by government minders. They call them responsables. Any Cuban you interview knows your microphone might as well run straight to their government.

If you want to talk to someone with a different view, you have to slip out of your hotel in the middle of the night without your minder — though dissidents say other security people follow you.

Each trip I've made as a reporter has revealed a little more of what kind of society Cubans live in. It's a warm, sunny place, filled with industrious and accomplished people who laugh loudly in public but mutter or whisper under their breath about the government. And the government is everywhere.

In Cuba, the government is the news and the economy. It is the only voice in every broadcast or book. Every neighborhood has a local "Committee for the Defense of the Revolution," on watch for what they call "counter-revolutionary activities."

You still sometimes make a human connection with your responsable, and each trip, I've left with a light suitcase. Responsables beg — that is not too strong a word — for you to leave them your blue jeans, razor blades, toothpaste, or The Economist magazine, which they cannot get and often try to sell.

Government press people say, each trip, "Return as a tourist. Bring your family," and I've been tempted. Havana is beautiful, caught in a kind of pastel time capsule of a 1940's sea-breeze skyline and 1950's Chevies nosing noisily up the street. Havana would be something to see before new Hyatts, Starbucks, or Chase Bank buildings make it look like many other modern cities.

But tourists inhabit a separate Havana. They can spend dollars, eat lobster, and drink wine in beachside restaurants in which Cubans are not permitted. They can watch news from around the world and travel the Internet as Cubans can't.

And it is startling and sad to see legions of young women lined up behind tourist hotels, hoping, as Yoani Sanchez, the Cuban blogger, has written, to "snag ... a tourist to take them to a hotel and offer them, the next morning, a breakfast that comes with milk."

The largest hotel company in Latin America is the Grupode Tirismo Gaviota. It is owned by the Cuban military. So while I've been glad to go to Cuba as a reporter, I can't bring myself to return as a tourist.

Maybe now, more Americans will get the chance to see Cuba. And I hope they get to know what they're really seeing.

Latin America

tourism

Cuba

Pennsylvania's fracking boom has led to record-breaking natural gas production, but its neighbor, New York, announced Wednesday it was banning the practice. Industry and environmental groups say New York's decision could be good for Pennsylvania.

New York's ban comes six years after the state placed a temporary moratorium on fracking to study the gas drilling technique. Now, officials question fracking's economic benefits and cite environmental risks.

"There are many red flags because scientific issues have not yet been comprehensively studied through rigorous scientific research at this time," says Howard Zucker, New York's acting health commissioner.

George Stark, a spokesman for Houston-based Cabot Oil and Gas, says New Yorkers who fear the process just don't understand it. The company operates many of the most productive wells in Pennsylvania.

"Our industry — this entire episode — is saving many farms. So the farmers that I've been in contact with endorse and embrace hydraulic fracturing," Stark says.

Pennsylvania is now dotted with more than 7,000 active wells.

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A drilling rig in Butler County, Pa., in 2013. Pennsylvania is now dotted with more than 7,000 active wells. Jason Cohn/MCT/Landov hide caption

itoggle caption Jason Cohn/MCT/Landov

A drilling rig in Butler County, Pa., in 2013. Pennsylvania is now dotted with more than 7,000 active wells.

Jason Cohn/MCT/Landov

Christopher Robart, an analyst with IHS Energy, says New York's ban will have little to no impact on drillers already at work in nearby states.

"They can do things much more economically and efficiently in those parts where there already is money and already are investments in the ground than in New York, for instance, where they'd have to start from scratch," he says.

Industry groups say they've felt like New York has had an "unwelcome" mat out for years.

To Stephanie Catarino Wissman, who heads Pennsylvania's division of the American Petroleum Institute, New York's loss is Pennsylvania's gain.

"I mean, I would say to New Yorkers, 'Come to Pennsylvania and take advantage of these jobs that are available with this well-paying industry,' " she says.

Meanwhile, environmental groups in Pennsylvania cheered the decision.

"It's a great day for the people in the shale fields whose experience has been repeatedly denied by the industry," says Joanne Kilgour, who heads Sierra Club's Pennsylvania chapter.

Those experiences include things like tainted water supplies, unhealthy air emissions and the industrialization of rural landscapes.

The Fracking Boom: Missing Answers

With Gas Boom, Pennsylvania Fears New Toxic Legacy

Long After Fracking Stops, The Noise Lives On

How Fracking's Ups And Downs Affect Pennsylvania's Economy

Despite New York's decision, both sides of the drilling debate are worried about what's next for Pennsylvania. The state's newly elected Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, made his central campaign pledge about levying a new tax on the gas industry.

But Kilgour and other environmentalists worry that could make the state even more reliant on fracking.

"What we want to make sure that we don't do is continue to rely on these boom-bust, single-source economies that are inherent to the extraction of fossil fuels," Kilgour says.

The industry has lobbied heavily against the tax, calling it a job killer.

Wolf opposes a ban on fracking but wants to strengthen regulations. And he plans to create a new registry for public health complaints. "I think this could be a really great thing for Pennsylvania's economy. It could create great jobs," Wolf says. "So I want to have my cake and eat it, too. I don't want to do what New York did."

When he takes office next month, Wolf will face a $2 billion budget shortfall. He's counting on Pennsylvania's gas to help solve the state's fiscal woes.

Among the changes to U.S. restrictions on Cuba President Obama announced Wednesday was a relaxation of the rules barring U.S. banks from doing business there.

Americans traveling in Cuba will now be able to use their credit cards and ATM cards, but many U.S. banks see the new rules as something of a legal minefield.

Even before Wednesday's announcement, the trade embargo with Cuba wasn't absolute. The government allowed U.S. citizens to sell certain kinds of agricultural and medical products to Cuba under special license, but many companies were reluctant to do so.

The government has long barred U.S. banks from doing business in Cuba, meaning anyone hoping to sell products there had to find an intermediary bank in Cuba to process the trade. It's a complicated process, and Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations says a lot of banks decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

"Cuba has to tie itself in knots in order to find financial or business institutions that are willing to pay the additional markup to do business with it," she says.

The new rules will allow U.S. banks to form direct relationships with banks in Cuba. They will also make the process of paying for goods traded with the country a lot easier.

"So these changes are potentially seismic in that they would make a lot simpler, a lot more direct and a lot cheaper, all of these financial transactions," says Ted Henken, a professor at Baruch College and author of Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape.

And yet, many banks are looking at these changes with caution.

The Two-Way

New Era For Cuba? Voices From Miami And Havana

The Two-Way

5 Defining Moments In The U.S.-Cuba Relationship

The U.S. has trade embargos against several countries including Iran and North Korea, and in recent years the U.S. government has pursued banks that violate them aggressively. In July, the French bank BNP Paribas agreed to pay a $9 billion fine for processing transactions for clients in several embargoed countries including Cuba.

The Two-Way

Polls Show Cuban-American Views On U.S.-Cuba Relations Are Nuanced

"In general, banks have been shaken very deeply by recent enforcement actions and are disinclined to dip their feet into what they see as shark-infested waters," says Clif Burns, an attorney who specializes in sanctions.

Right now many U.S. banks are waiting to see the text of the new regulations, says David Schwartz, president and CEO of the Florida International Bankers Association.

"Banks are going to analyze very closely the regulations that do come out to determine how much leeway that does give them, how does that reduce the risk of doing that business?" he says.

But Schwartz also acknowledges that the relaxation of the Cuban embargo is an opportunity for banks, even if they're cautious about taking advantage of it.

banking

Cuba

Thousands of people sentenced under the tough drug laws of the 1980s and 90s are still behind bars, serving mandatory minimum prison sentences requiring them to spend decades, if not life, in prison. Nowadays people convicted for the same crimes serve far less time.

One of them is a man named David Padilla. He lives inside a medium-security prison in Fairmont, N.J. He's lived here for eighteen years now, since his arrest in November 1996. A year later, a judge found him guilty of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Padilla was arrested after he and his co-defendants moved drugs out of a Philadelphia hotel in a dark-colored suitcase. State police later found two handguns in a trap door in their borrowed van.

“ "There is no doubt in my mind that I feel I should have been punished ... But I don't agree that I should die in prison."

- David Padilla

Padilla had two previous drug charges. The prosecutor in his case asked the court to weigh those priors and the judge sent him to prison for the rest of his life.

Sitting on a tan-colored plastic chair in the visitors area, and looking back on that day he was sentenced in November 1997, he sighs. "There is no doubt in my mind that I feel I should have been punished," he says. "No doubt about it. But I don't agree that I should die in prison."

Lisette is Padilla's wife of 27 years and she says prison has made him "a better man."

They met as teenagers in Philadelphia, as neighbors. Back then, Padilla was kind of a celebrity on the block — high school prom king, a bit of a bragger. And though he was an honors student, he says college never crossed his mind.

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Padilla, seen with his wife Lisette, earned his associate's degree while in prison. Courtesy The Padilla Family hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy The Padilla Family

Padilla, seen with his wife Lisette, earned his associate's degree while in prison.

Courtesy The Padilla Family

The years away, Lisette says, have changed him. "David is an amazing man, amazing father," she explains. "He worked so hard and I'm proud of what he has accomplished all these years. I think prison was a good thing for him."

In 1997, the judge branded Padilla a career offender who had squandered his potential. Here's a glimpse of what he accomplished since then. Behind bars, he found an unlikely passion—dentistry. He works in the prison lab, work that puts a smile on his face and a shine in his eyes.

"I never imagined that these hands would make a denture for somebody," Padilla says. "These hands, would make a prosthesis for someone. I never thought I can do that."

He also finished an associate's degree. Ask, and he'll give the credit for his close-knit family, and his own turnaround, to his wife.

"I really owe it all to my wife Lisette. She's been mommy, she's been daddy, she's been a supportive wife. She's been my everything. She had options, I gave her options," Padilla adds.

Lisette says she never considered leaving her husband. "The day of the sentencing he turns around and tells me, 'go on with your life.' I told him 'no,' I told him 'no, I'm here for you you now. Things get hard, I got to be there for you regardless.' We're his voice, we're his voice in the outside world. I believe that when two people get married, it's forever."

All these years, every year, Lisette says she takes her vacation around their wedding anniversary in August, so she can visit him multiple times in a week.

And though their children were young when he was sentenced, he's remained a big part of their lives, nudging and even nagging them about school and doing the right thing. Padilla said he had two choices when he got sent to prison for life: continue on the road to destruction, or be a model for his three kids.

"I have to show them that I can be good, that I can do what I'm telling them to do. So every time I'd get my grades...I would send them my grades, 'this is what daddy got, these are my grades, show me your grades.'"

David and Lisette's oldest daughter, Sasha, is now 26.

"I remember this project on Italy," she says. "It was one of my biggest projects and he actually went to the library, he got the encyclopedia, printed out pages for me and while I'm looking at the photocopies, he has the book so we're conversing back and forth on what's more important, what should I write, what should my thesis be."

Sasha says she's always felt a deep attachment to her dad.

Padilla, now 47, also mentors young offenders. And just as he's been preparing himself in prison, Lisette says she and the children have been preparing themselves too, for a day they can only hope for.

During Padilla's long incarceration, she squirreled away anything that could document her husband's transformation.

"Letters and certificates and recommendations," Lisette remembers. "I started making copies, I'm going to make 20 booklets. And I told Sasha, I said 'Sash, you need to come over and help me because this is a lot of paper.' We had papers all over the table, all over the floor."

Finally, last winter, Padilla heard about about a new effort, known as Clemency Project 2014, to help people serving long sentences for non-violent drug crimes. Authorities held out the promise of pardons or early release for inmates who would have been sentenced to less time if they committed crimes today.

And pro bono lawyers were looking for prisoners who might make model cases. Attorney Jeremy Klatell describes why he took this case.

"The consistency over the 18 years of David's incarceration with which he has dedicated to rehabilitating himself as a person can't really be faked," Klatell says. "He's never had a single disciplinary infraction and we are utterly convinced that David is a different person than he was 18 years ago."

Padilla's petition is now under review. And though he's excited, prison has taught him to temper his emotions.

"Everything is hurry up and wait," he says. "Wait for the phone lines, wait for the computers, wait to get to commissary, patience is so important here."

He says he's in no rush. He's been waiting for 18 years. And he doesn't want to set expectations too high.

"My hope is to be with my family once again, to reestablish my household, to be the so-called captain of the ship one more time, that's my hope," Padilla says.

Lisette has simple dreams, she says.

"Hopefully we rebuild a new beginning," she says. "Be able to go hold hands, or take a walk in the park, walk down the beach, you know, things that we miss."

Lisette wants to show him the colors she painted the living room and the hard wood floors she sanded.

She wants a new kitchen, but she says she's saving that job for him.