There is so much you can't know about your spouse when you get married, like that one day she will want to eat her placenta. But there are two things you don't argue about with a pregnant woman: what she eats and that being full of life indeed looks sexy. So when Cassandra told me that for $275, a woman would come to our house, cook Cassandra's placenta, freeze-dry it and turn it into capsules to help ...

Kevin O'Leary stars on ABC's new business reality show Shark Tank as one of five executives who vet business ideas pitched by would-be entrepreneurs. O'Leary often delivers the harshest of the business critiques. On a recent show, he called one small-business owner "radioactive." On another show he told a woman who said her products spread happiness that her business was worthless. That take-no-prisoners toughness is certainly entertaining, but behind the ego and bluster, O'Leary's real-life business performance is ...

Michael and Steven Roberts didn't have two quarters to rub together a couple of decades ago. Now, the two African-American business leaders estimate their holdings -- from hotels to TV stations -- are worth $1 billion. One St. Louis hotel they own once barred black people. "Black folks need legacy. We have to have examples of successes in order for us to be able to let the generations to come know that many of the successes that occurred by African-Americans ...

The Obama administration is looking hard at pushing through a health care reform bill without Republican backing, top Democrats close to the White House told CNN. The Democratic majority in the Senate has been stymied in the health care debate by Republicans and conservative Democrats, leaving them short of the 60-vote filibuster-proof margin needed to pass the bill. Democratic success could depend on an obscure tactic called reconciliation, a type of budget maneuver that requires only a simple majority -- ...

TIME: I thought I'd talk to you a little bit about the whole degree to which this is really a test of leadership. The fact is that no President has been able to pull off anything on this order of magnitude in 44 years [since Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid].President Obama: Well, as you point out, the last time we did something of this magnitude was 1965. And the circumstances in some cases were similar — in some cases ...

Fans of Usher Raymond IV view him as a singing, dancing and acting superstar. But to a special group of young people, he is a mentor and a friend. "He leads by example," said Arnold "Supa" LaFrance, a "Mogul in Training" at Usher's Camp New Look. "Usher's all about peace and love and giving back to the community, and it's genuine. He does it when the cameras are on and when the cameras are off." Now in its fifth year, ...

Hurricane season is two months old and not a single named storm has popped onto the radar. If that makes people complacent, it only makes weather watchers worry even more about what is to come. Officials and insurers are concerned about the ramifications of a "Big One," and Florida, the most ravaged of states, is looking at several novel approaches to riding out the storms — or even preventing them altogether. The most innovative is a proposal from ...

An Al Qaeda-linked militant group waging war against Somalia's fragile government is becoming an increasing threat to Western ally Kenya and could potentially destabilize the region with dire consequences for global security, officials and analysts warn. Al-Shabaab, one of the strongest Islamic militias battling for control of Mogadishu, has gained ground in recent weeks, according to officials, and has started to flex its muscles beyond Somalia's border with terror strikes, kidnappings and recruitment drives. They warn that unless the world ...

On September 10, 2007, almost exactly six years after al Qaeda attacked the United States, Bryant Neal Vinas, a 24-year-old American citizen born in Queens, New York, boarded a flight from the city en route to Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, determined to fight jihad in neighboring Afghanistan. Brought up a Catholic by his Latin American immigrant parents, who divorced when he was young, Vinas tried to join the U.S. army in 2002 but dropped out after just a few weeks. ...

The Church of England is offering unmarried parents who want to tie the knot the option of having baptisms for their children at the same time. The offer is a response to demand after church-sponsored research showed that 20 percent of couples getting married in a church already had children, whether together or from a previous relationship, the church said. It is also a way to make the church more welcoming for unmarried parents and their families, a church spokesman ...