Odds and ends

• Off the reservation: Former GOP Congressman Bob Barr, President Clinton’s famous nemesis during the impeachment proceedings, calls for Obama to make an opening toward Cuba. And Patty Khuly, niece of one of the men killed in the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, hs changed her mind about the American approach toward Cuba. Interviewed by journalist Reese Erlich, she said: “In retrospect, Helms-Burton is one of the silliest pieces of legislation. It’s one of these ‘big stick’ laws that do nothing but get the rest of the world angry at us…Cuba needs to have as much influence from the outside as possible,” she said. “The embargo needs to die as quick a death as possible.”

• Cuba’s foreign ministry is waiting for signals from Obama, and no preconditions.

• The Louvre has arrived in Havana with an exhibit of 100 high-resolution photos of paintings in its collection. The exhibit, “Images of the Louvre: Six Centuries of European Painting,” is on display outdoors through May 18 in Old Havana near the Castillo de la Real Fuerza. AP article here; a note from the Havana city historian’s office is here.