With an assist from Duarte, Reagan reassures Congress and critics The Reagan Administration wants to give billions of dollars to Central America, it says, to support liberty and political pluralism. Yet democracy in Central America is a patchy business at best. From among the few authentic democrats in the region, the U.S. has staked most of its money and hopes on Jos Napolen Duarte, who will assume El Salvador's presidency on Friday. Last week he came to Washington for four ...

Staring out from their photographs, they are the archetypal tycoons: one a steely-eyed Scot with a spade-shaped white beard; another a craggy, Ichabod Crane look-alike; the third a fat cat in striped pants with a watch chain strung across an ample paunch. Today they have the look of fossilized reactionaries, but these turn-of-the-century titans were men who lived in booming, anarchic times and thrived on them. The Gilded Age was a turbulent period of unfettered capitalism and unfathomable wealth ...

In March 1961, Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution was a three-alarm reminder that CIA-engineered coups weren't enough to keep communism out of the western hemisphere. Living standards had to be raised in Latin America, then as now the world's most inegalitarian region. So U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced the Alliance for Progress to help America's distant neighbors get their societal acts together: democratize, build stronger economies, pull people out of poverty. The alliance delivered little of that, as ...

Whi le it's not surprising that Lebanese have sought refuge in cinema from the country's sectarian tensions, it does seem strange that many of them are going to see a movie about, at least in part, sectarian tension in the United States. When it opened on Thanksgiving, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was the third most watched movie in Lebanon, trailing only such blockbuster fare as Casino Royale. The fact that a movie satirizing anti-Semitism opened around the ...

The most dangerous threat for U.S. troops in Afghanistan has come from roadside bombs -- often referred to as IEDs, short for improvised explosive devices. Metz said Tuesday that IEDs are "much more primitive in Afghanistan" because they use "less military munitions and more homemade explosives." But he said that although the military has been able to disarm many IEDs, the big challenge going forward is detecting devices using tiny wires. But he is confident that the military will soon ...

Garth Brooks, one of the biggest country stars of all time, said Thursday he was coming out of retirement after nine years away from the music business. Brooks made the announcement at a press conference at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. A larger press conference is scheduled for 4 p.m. ET Thursday from a different, undisclosed location, to which Brooks was transporting a number of members of the news media. However, the singer will not be announcing a ...

The 1994 elections were approaching, and House Republicans were on a mission to take control of their chamber for the first time in nearly 50 years. Buoyed by an electorate skeptical of then-President Clinton after his unsuccessful push for health care reform, Republicans charged forward with what experts say they are lacking now: a clear message and a leader. With Newt Gingrich at the helm of a legislative agenda called the "Contract with America," Republicans handed Democrats a blistering ...

On Monday, a chapter was closed in the social history of New York City: a great dame, the arbiter of New York society, died without leaving any successors. Brooke Astor, who passed away at age 105, was a combination of the Victorian age, with all its wit and elegance, and of the modern era, with its sharp-minded determination. She had taste, discernment, character, compassion, and was extraordinarily generous. She ran a great salon where the meek and the mighty ...

News that U.S. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize has been as polarizing as his embattled healthcare reform plans. Minutes after the news broke, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook were flooded with comments. Half of the trending topics on microblogging site Twitter were about the prize and the U.S. President. Opinion was largely divided on Twitter between those who think Obama is a worthy recipient -- and those who question ...

If your plans to enjoy North America's famous powder snow and tree-skiing have been derailed by the current economic downturn, why not try a quicker, cheaper and altogether more unusual winter holiday in the tiny but spectacular country of Montenegro? While many European resorts suffer from overcrowding, limited fresh snow and unskiable pine forests, Montenegro's mountains offer deep, light powder, virtually no people and acres of perfectly spaced beech trees. If your timing is right, these can rival Colorado's ...