Leadership

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.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele was on the receiving end of a fresh round of criticism from prominent party members Thursday after an interview was released in which he referred to abortion as an "individual choice." His comment to GQ magazine inflamed opponents of abortion rights, one of the GOP's core constituencies, and further complicated Steele's difficult first month on the job.

Who's the boss? The NFL Players Assn. will decide today in Maui when its 32 player representatives -- one for each team -- vote in a new union head to replace the late Gene Upshaw. The process has been anything but tidy so far, with dissension and infighting marking a search process that one candidate has called "corrosive."

On a day of delirious public celebrations over Pakistan's popular chief justice getting his job back, President Asif Ali Zardari stayed conspicuously out of sight. The 52-year-old president, whose popularity had been flagging even before Pakistan's latest political crisis, was like an unwelcome guest Monday at a raucous nationwide party, pilloried for his heavy-handed treatment of activists who championed the cause of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.

When Americans learned that unemployment had reached its highest level in a quarter of a century last week, President Obama was midway through a star turn in Europe. And next week, with barely time to pack fresh shirts and refuel Air Force One, he's off again -- first to Mexico, then to a summit meeting in the Caribbean. It's the sort of thing that can get a political leader into trouble, jetting out of town while the home front suffers.

Gene Golden stood on the steeply raked stage of the Geffen Playhouse, welcoming a Music Guild audience to a performance by the Borromeo String Quartet. "Don't worry. The players will not slide off this very tilted stage," Golden told an audience last season. Not literally, at least. But in midseason, Golden was told that he would have to pay an exorbitant rent hike at the Geffen or see his Music Guild dates pulled immediately -- two weeks before the next concert.

As President Obama prepares to mark his 100th day in the White House, he acknowledged Monday that the nation might not reach one of his major environmental goals for a while longer: 15,000 days, or 41 years. That's how long it could take for the nation to cut its carbon emissions by 80%, Obama said during an appearance at the National Academy of Sciences. His caution plays into the administration's efforts to deflate expectations about what he reasonably could have solved by Wednesday.

Dick Cheney made it clear Sunday that he would rather follow firebrand broadcaster Rush Limbaugh than former Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell into political battle over the future of the Republican Party. Even as Cheney embraced efforts to expand the party by former Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and the House's No. 2 Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the former vice president appeared to write his former colleague Powell out of the GOP.

Michael S. Steele completed his first 100 days as Republican national chairman this weekend, but the party let the milestone pass without notice. Steele made history in January as the first African American to head the Republican National Committee. It's been largely downhill since, with Republicans in disarray and Steele under siege over a variety of problems, many self-inflicted.

For weeks, Army Gen. Ray Odierno had passionately pressed his point with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates: President Obama's plan to release photographs depicting the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners would be a costly mistake. Last week, when Odierno was in Washington for a meeting with the president, the top U.S. commander in Iraq was pleased and grateful when Obama revealed that he had changed his mind and would oppose release of the photos. "Thanks," Odierno said.