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After the sun sets on Havana on weekends, G Street turns into a kind of runway.

Blocks of the promenade — which is very colonial with its big, beautiful statues and its impeccable topiaries — swell with crowds of young Cubans. For the most part, they just walk up and down, greeting each other with kisses.

It's a spectacle: Everyone, it seems, is here to impress. They're perfectly coiffed, perfectly matched, they're splayed on benches, arms wrapped around each other.

We stop to talk to Tatiana, 17, and her group of friends. We ask her what she hopes will come of a new relationship with the U.S.

"We're going to be able to travel. We're going to have Internet," she says, growing excited. "Unlimited Internet. Finally."

What you quickly find out here in Cuba is that the Internet has become an object of desire: something as rare and valuable as strawberries that everybody wants.

By any measure, Cuba's Internet penetration rate is dismal. The government says that about 25 percent of Cubans have access to the Internet. But Freedom House, a watchdog that promotes freedom globally, says that number refers to Cubans who have access to a government-run intranet. According to Freedom House's experts, only about 5 percent of Cubans have access to the open Internet.

That's why Facebook and the World Wide Web have become a kind of promised land.

As we walk through G Street, we notice that many of the kids clutch smartphones. Out here, they're essentially useless, because the only real way to get on a Wi-Fi network is to pay $5 an hour at a tourist hotel.

We ask the group why they think Cuba doesn't have widely available Internet — and if they accept the government explanation that the lack of infrastructure is the result of the U.S. embargo.

They laugh. Christian, an 18-year-old drummer, answers. He looks like a typical teenage skater with long hair, baggy pants and Vans shoes.

"Cuba does not want us to know the things that happen in other countries," he says.

Daniel, 18, interjects: "Only they," he says, making epaulets on his shoulder with his fingers, "can have Internet." Then he tugs at an imaginary beard, Cuba's universal symbol for Fidel.

"Only Fifo can have Internet access," he says.

We point out that what's going on here on G Street is actually kind of nice: a bunch of kids talking to one another, without having their heads buried in a screen. If indeed there is new openness in Cuba and the island is flooded with foreign investment, and with it Internet connectivity, this scene would probably cease to exist.

The moment they hear that, they erupt with giddy laughter, imagining a future in which they would lie on their beds and still be able to connect with friends and the world.

"I'm already an expert texter," Tatiana says.

A Limited Internet

For years, Cuba accessed the Internet using satellites. It meant that the connection was slow and sluggish and had severe limitations on the amount of data that moved in and out of the island.

At the beginning of 2013, Doug Madory, of Dyn, an Internet performance company, noticed that the Internet speed on the island had become significantly better. He figured out that Cuba had turned on a huge underwater fiber optic cable that Venezuela had run from its shores to the eastern end of Cuba. Madory says the cable — called the ALBA-1 — has the capacity to move a huge amount of data to and from Cuba.

He says that right now, Cuba's lack of Internet has little if nothing to do with the embargo.

"We've been making the case that if Cubans really want to do this, they have a good model in Myanmar," Madory says.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, turned its ruling military junta into a nominally civilian government in 2011. That's given rise to a more open society and an improved relationship with the United States.

Madory says that shortly thereafter international telecoms lined up to provide Myanmar with the infrastructure to access the Internet. Because of the advancement in mobile Internet, the deployment has happened rapidly.

Madory says Cuba could follow suit even if the U.S. embargo against it continues.

Non-American "telecoms would be lining up around the block to work in Cuba if they were allowed," Madory says. "Not only that but they would be willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for that right and Cuba could probably use that money."

Long Waits To Get Online

One of the ways to get online in Havana is to visit the offices of the state-owned telecom monopoly, ETECSA.

We find an office, painted blue and white, in a leafy neighborhood called Miramar. Two priests from the Ecumenical Catholic Church of Christ, Monsignor Stefanos and Father Fanurios, are sitting on the porch.

This is their second time in line. Earlier in the day, they had traveled 45 minutes to the office and then waited outside for another 45 minutes, only to be told finally that the connection was down.

Monsignor Stefanos says that he comes to ETECSA to check his email every few days. That's the only way he can keep in touch with his leadership in Central America.

Cubans wait in line to use four computers connected to the Internet at the offices of Cuba's state-owned telecom monopoly. Eyder Peralta/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Eyder Peralta/NPR

So, they sit patiently as people are called by the police officers to walk inside the air-conditioned building and use one of the four computers connected to the Internet.

At the end of the day, the clerics will have accomplished one thing: checking their email.

"We're Cuban," says Father Fanurios, resigned. "We're Cuban and with needs."

A Special Case

Without a doubt, the Internet in Cuba is tough. But there is an oasis in the midst of this digital desert.

It's in a poor neighborhood in Havana called El Romerillo. That's where the artist KCho (pronounced "CAH-cho") built his studio.

KCho is a bear of a man, bearded and wearing a Rolex watch. As he walked through his vast complex, which also houses a cafe, a library and a gallery, a group of young girls followed, giggling as he expounded on being a son of the Cuban revolution.

He's a superstar; his paintings and sculptures, often made with pieces of boats, have been exhibited worldwide — in Spain, in Italy and even at the Marlborough Gallery in New York City.

The prominent artist KCho provides free Internet at his studio in Havana. Eyder Peralta/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Eyder Peralta/NPR

Because he's an artist, the Culture Ministry allowed him to have an Internet connection. He told us that when he first moved into this space, a 2-megabit Internet connection was too broad just for him to use. So, in 2013, he connected a few computers to the Internet and made them public, and in January, he installed wireless routers to share the connection more widely.

"The Internet was invented for it to be used," he says. "There's this big kerfuffle here in Havana that KCho has Internet at his place. There's nothing to it. It's just me, who is willing to pay the cost and give it to the people. It's about sharing something with people, the same way my country does. I've always worried that people have what they need, just like the revolution did, and so I'm trying to give people a place to grow spiritually. A library, an art studio — all those things are important."

KCho says that bringing Internet to the masses is not the responsibility of the government. It is, he says, an "entrepreneurial responsibility."

"And if it's so important for young people to have Internet, my dream is to bring more of it to them and to have a space here where they can travel the world without spending a dime, a place where they can travel from India to Burundi, to Antarctica, to the Library of Congress," he says.

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"Miracle," a work by KCho that hangs in his studio, shows Jesus crucified on a cross made of oars. Eyder Peralta/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Eyder Peralta/NPR

"Miracle," a work by KCho that hangs in his studio, shows Jesus crucified on a cross made of oars.

Eyder Peralta/NPR

When asked if the Internet could be detrimental to the revolution, he says that a shift away from socialism is simply not on the table.

"But it's also not an option for me to renounce what I'm doing," he says. "It's not an option for me to take back what I've already given to Cubans."

The Internet at KCho's place is Cuba's first free hotspot, and it's on 24 hours a day.

That means that the place is a hive of activity: There are people leaning on the outside walls, staring at their smartphones. In the library, people get on a waiting list to watch funny videos on Yahoo.

Yoan Istameyer, 29, is sitting along a concrete retainment wall. He is with his friend Yendy Rodriguez, 20, but they aren't talking. They're glued to a screen.

Istameyer says he has been there since the night before.

Yoan Istameyer, 29, in the black shirt, and Yendy Rodriguez, 20, wearing orange, spend hours at KCho's studio, which is connected to the Internet. Istameyer says that when his girlfriend asked him to choose between her and his Wi-Fi connection, he chose the Internet. Eyder Peralta/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Eyder Peralta/NPR

"I never leave," he says. The Web and especially Facebook keep him hooked.

He says that there are only two places in Havana with free Internet: KCho's place and the U.S. Interests Section along the Malecon. He'd gone to the Interests Section twice before, he says, but he decided to stop because of the political baggage that comes with stepping foot inside a U.S. installation.

Rodriguez says that he had just heard of this place and he is thrilled. We ask him if the Internet had changed his life in any way. Rodriguez shakes his head: not really.

Then Istameyer cuts in. He's young. He's brash. He'll hand you his email address as soon as he can.

"I even left my girlfriend for Wi-Fi," he says, eliciting laughter from his friend, Rodriguez.

The Internet — and the social connections across the world that it gave him the freedom to make — had drawn Istameyer in so much that his girlfriend gave him an ultimatum: Wi-Fi, which Cubans pronounce "wee-fee," or me.

Istameyer chose the Internet.

Cuba

Internet

There will be a question from some about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's eligibility to run for president.

That's because even though Cruz grew up in Texas, he was born in Canada. (He renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2013.)

Democrats are sure to remind voters of Cruz's Canadian birth since some on the right have questioned where President Obama was born. The president is a native of Hawaii.

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Sen. Ted Cruz says because his mother was born in the United States that makes him a "natural born citizen" and eligible to run for president. Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Scott Olson/Getty Images

Sen. Ted Cruz says because his mother was born in the United States that makes him a "natural born citizen" and eligible to run for president.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

The U.S. Constitution says presidential candidates have to be "natural-born citizens." But the Supreme Court has never weighed in with a definition, leaving it open to interpretation.

It's a question that has come up before. In 2008, senators passed a resolution, making it clear, for example, that John McCain was allowed to run given that he was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, both senators then, voted for it.

Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP nominee, was born in Arizona when it was a territory – not a state. And some questioned George Romney's eligibility to run in 1968, because he was born in Mexico. Romney's parents were U.S. residents.

Cruz's parents worked in the oil industry in Calgary, Canada, when he was born. His mother was born in the United States. His father was born in Cuba, but later became a U.S. resident. Cruz argues that because his mother was born in Delaware, he is, in fact, a "natural-born citizen."

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President." U.S. Constitution hide caption

itoggle caption U.S. Constitution

And most legal scholars agree. In fact, two of the best-known Supreme Court lawyers – who are not normally on the same side – make the case that Cruz – as well as McCain, George Romney and Goldwater – is eligible to run.

Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, and Paul Clement, who was solicitor general under George W. Bush, wrote earlier this month in the Harvard Law Review that "there is no question" Cruz is eligible.

They cite that because Cruz's mother was a U.S. citizen and his father was a U.S. resident, "Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a 'natural born Citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution" and the "Naturalization Act of 1790."

They also point to British common law and enactments by the First Congress, both of which have been cited by the Supreme Court.

Both confirm that the original meaning of the phrase "natural born Citizen" includes persons born abroad who are citizens from birth based on the citizenship of a parent. As to the British practice, laws in force in the 1700s recognized that children born outside of the British Empire to subjects of the Crown were subjects themselves and explicitly used "natural born" to encompass such children. These statutes provided that children born abroad to subjects of the British Empire were "natural-born Subjects . . . to all Intents, Constructions, and Purposes whatsoever."

The Framers, of course, would have been intimately familiar with these statutes and the way they used terms like "natural born," since the statutes were binding law in the colonies before the Revolutionary War. They were also well documented in Blackstone's Commentaries, a text widely circulated and read by the Framers and routinely invoked in interpreting the Constitution.

No doubt informed by this longstanding tradition, just three years after the drafting of the Constitution, the First Congress established that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were U.S. citizens at birth, and explicitly recognized that such children were "natural born Citizens." The Naturalization Act of 1790 provided that "the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States ... ."

The actions and understandings of the First Congress are particularly persuasive because so many of the Framers of the Constitution were also members of the First Congress. That is particularly true in this instance, as eight of the eleven members of the committee that proposed the natural born eligibility requirement to the Convention served in the First Congress and none objected to a definition of "natural born Citizen" that included persons born abroad to citizen parents.

Katyal and Clement conclude, "There are plenty of serious issues to debate in the upcoming presidential election cycle. The less time spent dealing with specious objections to candidate eligibility, the better. Fortunately, the Constitution is refreshingly clear on these eligibility issues."

2016 Presidential Race

Ted Cruz

Supreme Court

Republicans

Michelle Niescierenko is a pediatric emergency physician at Boston Children's Hospital. But for the last five months she's been in Liberia, helping the country's 21 public hospitals get back on their feet after the devastating Ebola outbreak there. She says the challenges they face are shocking.

Ebola: A Grim Anniversary

A year ago Monday — on March 22, 2014 — the World Health Organization announced that the Ebola disease had broken out in West Africa.

Goats and Soda

A Year Of Ebola: Memorable Moments From Our Reporters' Notebooks

"Almost all the hospitals that we worked with in Liberia are running on generators," she says. The trouble with generators is that they require fuel.

"And fuel is really expensive, really difficult to move. It's not like there's a functioning gas station, you know, every 10 miles."

In fact, there's often only one gas station for a whole county. Hospitals have to send a truck along rutted dirt roads to pick up the fuel. Those roads can be impassable during the rainy season, and if the truck can't make it, then the hospital just has to make do with less power. This happens so often that a lot of the hospitals Niescierenko worked with end up operating without electricity for as long as 12 hours a day.

This has nothing to with Ebola. This is what it's been like in Liberia for years. Like the two other countries at the center of the outbreak, Guinea and Sierra Leone, Liberia is one of the world's poorest countries. And now that cases are down in Liberia — the country has seen only one new case in weeks — attention is shifting to building up the broader health system there.

Pumping Water, Finding Gloves

The lack of power is just one of the obstacles. Most hospitals also don't have a regular supply of water. They get it from wells — and those run low during the dry season or the pumps just break down.

This complicated Niescierenko's top priority — making sure the hospitals could handle patients with infectious diseases like Ebola. "Yeah, it's hard to do good infection control and hand-washing when you have no water," she says.

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A nurse walks near the empty children's ward at Redemption Hospital in New Kru Town, Monrovia, Liberia. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

A nurse walks near the empty children's ward at Redemption Hospital in New Kru Town, Monrovia, Liberia.

David Gilkey/NPR

Niescierenko's team was able to address some of these issues. With money from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation of Seattle, they fixed a lot of the pumps on the wells. They made sure every hospital had a three months' supply of basics, like surgical gloves.

But these were temporary fixes. Building up Liberia's health system will require a major investment in building roads, setting up a steady supply of equipment and medicine. And that's not even the toughest part:

"One of the tragic implications of this epidemic has been the death of health care workers," says Gabrielle Fitzgerald, who directs the Ebola program at the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

Even before Ebola hit, Liberia had only one health worker for every 3,400 people. Ebola has killed about 180 of those workers.

She points out that even before Ebola hit, Liberia had just over 50 doctors for the whole country — and only one health worker, people like nurses and midwives, for every 3,400 people. Ebola has killed about 180 of those workers.

Fitzgerald says we're already seeing the consequences.

"Routine things like immunizing children just have not happened for a year. And there are now measles epidemics."

Intangible, 'Not Sexy' — And Essential

Recruiting and training new health workers is key, because experts warn that unless the health systems in West Africa are brought up to scratch, an epidemic on the scale of this one will happen again.

Unfortunately, building national health systems doesn't tend to attract a lot of love from international donors, says Erin Hohlfelder, who's been pushing for this kind of funding on behalf of the ONE Campaign, a global health advocacy group.

"If there is a silver lining of this horrible crisis, it's the ability to illustrate why investing in health systems is so important."

- Erin Hohlfelder of the ONE Campaign

"It's certainly not as 'sexy' — quote unquote — as things like treatment for HIV or bed nets for malaria which are very tangible and easy to understand."

She says at least for now, the international community does seem to get the importance of building up West Africa's health systems. The governments of the affected countries are preparing national plans to present at a meeting of the World Bank next month. There's talk of millions of dollars in commitments.

"If there is a silver lining of this horrible crisis, it's the ability to illustrate why investing in health systems is so important," says Hohlfelder.

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The empty emergency and critical care area of Redemption Hospital in New Kru Town, Monrovia, Liberia. David Gilkey/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption David Gilkey/NPR

The empty emergency and critical care area of Redemption Hospital in New Kru Town, Monrovia, Liberia.

David Gilkey/NPR

But she adds that it's going to take years to fix the infrastructure, let alone train up enough health workers. And she worries the world's attention and money could dry up before then.

Henry Gray of Doctors Without Borders shares that concern. He's the emergency coordinator for the group's Ebola response. He's not even convinced the world can be trusted to stick it out long enough to stamp out this outbreak.

"The world has failed Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia once by not turning up quick enough," he says. "And we don't want the world to fail them a second time by leaving before the job is done."

health workers

Guinea

West Africa

Sierra Leone

ebola

Liberia

Back in the pre-digital era — when telephones were used for talking, not photographing and filming, and before YouTube came along to broadcast everyone's videos — capturing and disseminating moving images was expensive, time consuming and decidedly non-portable.

But that changed in 1967, when Sony introduced the world's first portable video tape recorder. Before long, enthusiasts formed "media collectives" that captured the social and cultural upheaval of the era. Fueled by a mix of the tunes, the tokes and the times, video became part of the revolution it was documenting.

One of the first media collectives called itself "Videofreex." It's the subject of a documentary and a new exhibition at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York in New Paltz.

The Freex Are Born

Parry Teasdale and David Cort, two of the Videofreex founders, met at the Woodstock music festival, where each had arrived in 1969 with video gear in hand.

"I had some very clunky, old surveillance equipment, really, and he had the first generation of portable video cameras and recorders," says Teasdale. "And so he and I decided to get together." The two agreed to turn their cameras away from the music performers and toward the revelers in the mud.

Teasdale and Cort returned to New York City and moved in together with Cort's girlfriend, Mary Curtis Ratcliff. They adopted the name Videofreex at the suggestion of a neighbor.

"What we were doing is videotaping what was of interest to us," Ratcliff says, "and it was what CBS, NBC and ABC were not videotaping — the counterculture. They had no cameras in the counterculture."

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Videofreex including Parry Teasdale and David Cort, fourth and fifth from left, Bart Friedman, third from right, and Skip Blumberg, second from right, gathered in their Catskills town in 1973. Courtesy of Videofreex hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Videofreex

Videofreex including Parry Teasdale and David Cort, fourth and fifth from left, Bart Friedman, third from right, and Skip Blumberg, second from right, gathered in their Catskills town in 1973.

Courtesy of Videofreex

Their work caught the attention of an executive at one of those networks. CBS was cancelling the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and wanted to replace it with something more timely and contemporary. Using portable video gear the network bought for them, the Videofreex recorded demonstrations and interviewed counterculture figures, including Abbie Hoffman of the Yippies and Black Panther Fred Hampton, as well as various strangers.

"You know, if we had stopped to think and someone said, 'Do you think they're really gonna go for this?' we probably would've said, 'Well, obviously not,' " Ratcliff recalls. "But we didn't even let that stop us, we just went for it."

The finished program was called Subject to Change and Videofreek Skip Blumberg remembers screening the pilot for a group of "freex" ("We were high," he says), their friends and CBS executives ("They weren't high"). The network declined to pick up the program.

"They sat there evaluating this show, which was kind of a mess, I admit," Blumberg says. "This was, like, so far removed from what CBS was doing. So I was not disappointed that we didn't replace the Smothers Brothers."

Lanesville TV

Still, the Videofreex got to keep the equipment and continued to show their work in their Manhattan loft on Friday nights. But it wasn't sustainable. Fortunately for them, the New York State Council on the Arts made grants available for video projects outside the city. In 1971, the collective migrated upstate to a huge former boarding house in Lanesville, a small town in the Catskills.

At first, Blumberg recalls, locals were "somewhat suspicious about these long-haired, alternate-culture types living all together in this big house."

"But after a while, because we were providing service to the community by putting people on, covering community events, they began to trust us and became our really good friends," he says. "We were turning on people to video the way people were turning people onto pot. "

In the Catskills, the Videofreex started what may have been the country's first pirate television station, Lanesville TV, using a transmitter bought for them by Abbie Hoffman. Videofreek Bart Friedman remembers it was basically public access TV.

"We got the kids to participate in the kids' programs, we covered stocking of the stream, the firehouse, local residents, car accidents, gun club dinners, things like that," Friedman says. "It was just local television."

They also filmed drama. In one video, a local woman acts out a fantasy of escaping the tedium of small-town life.

"They made hundreds and hundreds of tapes," says Andrew Ingall, the Dorsky museum show's curator. "Some are gems; some are absolute duds."

Ingall says the Videofreex collaborated with and influenced other collectives and producers across the country. One of them was filmmaker DeeDee Halleck, now professor emerita at the University of California, San Diego.

"Their house in the Catskills became a kind of hideaway for a generation of rebels such as me," Halleck says. "I really felt that this was a place that liberated the technology and enabled the kinds of learning, the kinds of self expression that could really make the change. I mean, we were very optimistic."

'Something To Be Learned'

By 1978, the group was out of funds and disbanded. Some members moved back to Manhattan. Some pursued other professions. Others continued to make video.

"I'm not so interested in Videofreex as cave drawings on the wall of video history," says Teasdale, who now publishes a newspaper in upstate New York. "This [exhibition], I hope, can be valuable to people, not because we were such a great success, but because there's something perhaps to be learned about technology and living together and working together. And if that's true, then that will make it all worthwhile."

It was also, he says, a lot of fun.

Woodstock

Television

video