Juanita Castro, the younger sister of Cuban leaders Fidel and Raul Castro, worked for the CIA during some crucial years of the Cold War, she says in her new memoir. The period of her cooperation, from 1961 to 1969, included the Cuban Missile Crisis, which changed the way the Cold War was being waged. To resolve the crisis, the Soviet Union agreed to dismantle the missiles it had placed in Cuba in exchange for assurances that the United States would ...

Authorities on Sunday released the name of a woman who turned up in New York this month saying she had no memory of her name or family.The economic story of burgeoning economies such as China is also the story of "factory girls," young women who have found new spending power as a result of new economic opportunities. Despite the financial crisis, domestic spending in the first nine months of this year was up 15 percent, driven in large part by ...

The planet is in the middle of an extinction crisis, the sixth great wave in its history. But unlike major extinction events of the past — like the Permian-Triassic event 250 million years ago, in which 70% of all terrestrial species were wiped out, probably because of an asteroid impact or a similar natural disaster — this time human beings are the cause. Hard numbers are difficult to find, but many scientists believe Earth's species are going extinct at ...

Over the past 30 years, the way we save for retirement has come to be dominated by one plan: the 401. But the financial crisis and resulting market meltdown showed the 401 to be far from perfect. A number of academics and others have proposed either changes to the 401 system or scrapping it altogether. Roger Ferguson Jr., chief executive of the investment firm TIAA-CREF, is one of the few financial executives who have backed changing the system. Ferguson's ...

When Sam Antar was cooking the books for his company, he used a number of complicated accounting tricks to dupe auditors. But some tactics were simple. "These auditors from the Big Four accounting firms are usually single kids just a few years out of school. What do kids in their 20s think about all the time Sex," said Antar, who was at the center of a multi-million dollar fraud 20 years ago. So Antar would pair "cute hot female" employees ...

Banks round the world have still to reveal about half of their likely losses resulting from the financial and economic crisis, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday, warning that there was still a "significant" risk of another downward lurch in the global recession. The IMF described credit risks as remaining "elevated" even though financial conditions have improved significantly since spring. It said these risks, alongside weakened banks, were likely to depress the availability of new credit and damp the ...

Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" has spawned a raft of imitators, most of which pale in comparison; the latest, "The Lost Symbol," is by Brown himself. Once again, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to the scene of a gruesome attack, joins forces with an attractive and erudite love interest, and speeds around a world capital chasing clues, solving puzzles, and risking his life while dropping cocktail parties' worth of scholarly minutiae. Even the setting, though new, will ...

Ramping up pressure on Honduras' interim government, the United States has revoked the visa of the beleaguered country's leader, a senior Honduran official told CNN en Espanol on Saturday. De facto President Roberto Micheletti and 14 supreme court judges had their visas revoked, said Honduran Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez. Lopez said he, too, lost his visa privileges. The U.S. State Department recently announced that it would pull the visas of members of Honduras' de facto regime. In recent weeks, the ...

The United States is terminating all non-humanitarian aid to the de facto Honduran government to pressure it to return its ousted president to power, the State Department announced Thursday. The State Department also will revoke visas for a number of members and supporters of the de facto government. The move to cut $30 million came as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met for one hour Thursday with ousted Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya, who was seized by the military ...

Author Kurt Andersen's new book, Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America, examines the economic, political and cultural opportunities to be found in the wake of the financial crises. In this excerpt, the fifth of five pieces to appear on TIME.com, he urges America to keep its edge, even as the recession fades. Although the famous Chinese curse May you live in interesting times is not, in fact, a Chinese curse, given China's enabling role ...