He's a symbol of a political victory for President Barack Obama: Former Cuban prisoner Alan Gross will be a guest of honor at the State of the Union address Tuesday. Gross was released after the US and Cuba negotiated a deal to normalize relations.
US Contractor Alan Gross has been imprisoned in Cuba for the last four years on charges of spying. He's now going on a hunger strike. He says it's to protest both the Cuban and US government. Peter Kornbluh, of the National Security Archive, explains the real danger of Gross doing such a move, both for the contractor and for US Cuban relations.
Smuggling satellite phones and computer equipment into Cuba landed one former USAID contractor in a Cuban jail four years ago. This week, Alan Gross wrote President Obama asking why he's been forgotten and "abandoned" there.
Cuba has held American Alan Gross for the past three years for distributing illegal communications equipment on behalf of the US government.
The wife of an American man convicted of espionage in Cuba is hoping that the Pope's visit there can help bring her husband, Alan Gross home.