After 26 years as a nun, Jesme Raphael gave up her robes and walked out of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel, the Catholic order in Kerala, India, that had been her home for three decades. Two years later, Raphael, now 53, has come out with her memoirs, Amen: An Autobiography of A Nun, cataloging lurid details of bullying, sexual abuse and homosexuality in the oldest Catholic women's order in the idyllic coastal state in southern India. Shocking as ...

Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation , is working hard to reassure everyone that her banks, all 8,305 of them, are safe. Repeating her familiar mantra Wednesday on the CBS Morning Show, Bair said of FDIC-protected accounts, "Nobody's ever lost a penny of insured deposits." Bair had good reason to be out on the stump. She knew that on Thursday the FDIC would release its report on the health of the country's savings institutions. Now the report is out, and you can sum ...

General Motors' European division announced Friday that its German subsidiary, Opel cars, will become an independent unit of the company. Under the restructuring plan, announced by GM Europe on Friday, the company will ask for a more than $4 billion bailout from Germany and the governments of other European countries that have Opel plants, GM Europe CEO Carl-Peter Forster said at a news conference. "We are in need of capital that we hope to get with the help of the ...

"I mean, it's a weird movie," says "Watchmen" director Zack Snyder. "There's no two ways about it." Never was a truer word spoken about the graphic novel adaptation that has taken 23 tortuous years to get from the page to the screen. Indeed, for many years, it was a movie that was considered impossible to make. Alternately described as the "Citizen Kane of graphic novels" and the "the unfilmable film," a legion of directors have been attached to the ...

Bruce Windsor is known as many things: church deacon, soccer coach, father of four. But facing potential financial problems, he's now known as something else: suspected bank robber. Police say the 43-year-old owner of a real estate company walked into the Carolina First Bank in Greenville, South Carolina, late Thursday with a mask and a handgun. In court documents filed Friday, police said he forced two bank employees into an office at gunpoint and demanded money. Police arrived minutes later ...

A Qatari man held for years in military custody in the United States was charged Friday in federal court with conspiracy "to provide material support and resources" to al Qaeda, prosecutors announced. The Supreme Court was to hear arguments in April on a challenge by the suspect, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, to the principle that the president has the authority to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely and without charges. The Justice Department on Friday asked the high court to ...

It's a tough time for businesses, but one entrepreneur may have found the recipe for success. On Monday, Donald Crabtree opened Grand View Topless Coffee Shop in Vassalboro, Maine, where the waiters and waitresses serve their customers topless. In a town with fewer than 4,500 residents, the topless coffee shop is booming with business. Paul Crabtree, the owner's brother, describes business so far as "fantastic." "It's just been crowds mobbing in," he said. Donald Crabtree faced initial opposition to ...

Jose Molinar knew something wasn't right. He hadn't heard from his wife for a few hours, which was not sitting well with him. Marisella Molinar worked as a secretary for a top prosecutor in Juarez, Mexico, Jesus Huerta Yedra. She was employed in the office for more than 10 years and though she lived across the border in El Paso, Texas, with her husband, she drove about 20 minutes over the Juarez-El Paso border every day to the job she ...

After nearly 150 years in business, the Rocky Mountain News published its final edition Friday, the victim of a bad economy and the Internet generation. The final front-page headline simply says: "Goodbye, Colorado." "It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to you today. Our time chronicling the life of Denver and Colorado, the nation and the world, is over." The Rocky Mountain News' owner, E.W. Scripps Co., made the announcement to the newsroom at noon Thursday, ending three ...

Rory McIlroy continued his dream American debut when he booked a place in the quarterfinals of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona. The Northern Ireland teenager, in his first start as a professional in the United States, made it three wins in as many days as he reached the last eight with a 4&3 victory over Tim Clark of South Africa. Clark cut short Tiger Woods' comeback from an eight-month injury lay-off with a 4&2 victory over the ...