WASHINGTON – It was the end of a long day of baseball under the late May sun in Santa Clara, Cuba, and Marilyn Santos found an unpainted, dented, wooden baseball bat among the shiny blue and black ones she had brought from the United States.

WASHINGTON - As U.S. President Barack Obama offered a long-awaited plan to close the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, organizations advocating for the closure welcomed the news and called for an end of the policy of holding remaining detainees without charges.

HAVANA - At long last, Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow embraced, kissing each other three times.

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT TO HAVANA - Making his 12th trip abroad, Pope Francis was accustomed to collecting interview requests, notes and gifts from the journalists who travel on the plane with him.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis is scheduled to have more than two hours alone with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Cuba in addition to signing a declaration with the patriarch before flying on to Mexico for a Feb. 12-17 visit.

VATICAN CITY - After almost three decades of tense Catholic-Russian Orthodox relations, Pope Francis will meet Patriarch Kirill of Moscow Feb. 12 in Cuba on the Pope's way to Mexico.

To be a Christian in Cuba means being subjected to state surveillance, discrimination, harassment and sometimes arrest. It also means being a casualty of the punishing U.S. trade embargo that inflicts unjust suffering on all Cubans.

SANTIAGO, Cuba - Pope Francis ended his trip to Cuba by blessing the city of Santiago de Cuba and telling Cubans to treat family as an "opportunity" rather than a problem.

SANTIAGO, Cuba - Pope Francis called Cuban to a "revolution of tenderness" as he celebrated Mass in the Minor Basilica of the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, the country's patroness.

SANTIAGO, Cuba - In one of the calmer, more intimate moments of his visit to Cuba, Pope Francis and the country's bishops offered special prayers to the Cuba's patroness, Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre.

Pope Francis has been presiding over Mass at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Tuesday in Santiago. In his Homily, the Holy Father returned to the theme of  “serving others” recalling the exemplary model of Our Lady, who the Pope said, “left her house and went out to serve.”

SANTIAGO, Cuba - A key task of a traveling pope is to confirm his brothers and sisters in the faith. For Pope Francis in Cuba, that ministry took on added importance as Cuba and its people stand on the threshold of potentially epochal change.

HOLGUIN, Cuba - The scene would have been unimaginable a few years ago: A Catholic Mass in Holguin's Revolution Plaza, where May Day parades and other patriotic events exalting the Cuban Revolution take place.

HAVANA - In a hot and steamy cathedral after listening to a Daughter of Charity talk about her work with people with severe disabilities, Pope Francis set aside his prepared homily and spoke about serving those the world considers "useless."

On the first full day of his Apostolic Journey to Cuba, Pope Francis celebrated the Sunday Mass in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución, focusing on the theme of service.