Cuba

President Raul Castro on Monday abruptly removed some of Cuba's most high-profile officials from top posts in what he said was an effort to streamline his administration. The sweeping overhaul also seemed designed, at least in part, to allow Castro to put his stamp on the country's leadership by promoting officials close to him and sidelining those associated with his brother, Fidel. Castro formally replaced his ailing sibling as president a year ago.

Two former top Cuban political figures who were fired from the Cabinet by President Raul Castro said they had made "errors" and resigned from their other official posts, completing a stunning fall from grace. Former Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and former Cabinet chief Carlos Lage, both of whom had been seen as emerging leaders, were dismissed by Castro on Monday in a shake-up that brought eight new ministers and merged four ministries into two.

Cuban Americans' travel to the communist island nation just got easier under guidelines issued last week by the Obama administration. The Treasury Department confirmed that Cuban Americans may visit extended relatives as well as close family members once a year and spend as much as $179 a day without fear of prosecution, effective immediately. The guidelines signal a trend toward looser enforcement of the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

Daisuke Matsuzaka again gave the nation of Japan reason to cheer. But Red Sox Nation? Well, not so much. And that's just fine with Matsuzaka, who said his country will always come before his employer. "I want to be on behalf of Japan," he said through an interpreter after pitching his country to a 6-0 win over Cuba in a second-round Pool 1 game of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Petco Park.

Fidel Castro met with three members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday, the former Cuban president's first meeting with U.S. officials since he fell ill nearly three years ago. Coming after lawmakers met with his brother Raul, the current president, the session appeared to underscore the Cuban government's desire for improved relations with the United States under President Obama. Greg Adams, a spokesman at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, said Rep.

The phones have been ringing nonstop at South Florida travel agencies that book flights from Miami to Havana since last month, when Congress eased travel restrictions for those who have relatives in Cuba. Many companies have doubled staff size, added flights and purchased larger planes to keep up with the demand. And that was before President Obama went a step further Monday, lifting all restrictions on travel and remittances, or money transfers, for Cuban Americans.

No sooner did Cuban American relations hit their warmest notes in half a century than former President Fidel Castro stirred from retirement to say: Not so fast. The 82-year-old Castro tossed cold water on U.S. interpretations of his brother Raul's overture to President Obama last week. His successor as Cuban president had offered to discuss "everything, everything, everything" -- from human rights to political prisoners -- with his U.S. counterpart.

The barges bound for Cuba already glide down the Mobile River from time to time, past James K. Lyons' office and south to the Gulf of Mexico. These days, Lyons, the director of the Alabama State Port Authority, dreams of when the Cuban trade embargo will be fully dismantled. That would mean more barges loaded with even more goods from Alabama.

For nearly 30 years, a now-retired State Department official and his wife conspired to provide classified information to the Cuban government, starting with secrets squirreled away in grocery carts and culminating in encrypted e-mails sent from Internet cafes, federal authorities said Friday. Walter Kendall Myers, 72, was known to his handlers as "Agent 202," according to an indictment and criminal complaint unsealed in federal court here. Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, was "Agent 123."

To anyone passing through Havana's international airport, or by the U.S. Interests Section on the Cuban capital's seaside boulevard, the images of the Five are persistently familiar. On billboards and wall-size posters, they are honored as heroes in Cuba. In the U.S., they are little-known convicted spies and saboteurs.