It's been a tough season for spring break destinations. With students and parents tightening their belts in the face of a major recession, the annual tradition of letting off steam — ideally on an exotic beach, with access to plenty of cheap beer — is suffering. This spring break season — typically, March 16 to April 5 — flights from the U.S. to the Caribbean have dropped as much as 20%, according to data compiled for TIME by ...

The mystery illness that forced famed chef Heston Blumenthal to temporarily close his award-winning Fat Duck restaurant last month was possibly norovirus, a highly contagious stomach bug, Blumenthal said Thursday. After exhaustive tests of the restaurant in Berkshire, England, and of staff and customers, norovirus was the only potential cause that had been found, Blumenthal told Australia's Hospitality magazine. "It is categorically not food poisoning. We know that," Blumenthal told the magazine. "For the last five years we've been sending ...

Citigroup shares are going up every day now, gaining 23% yesterday. So far, the stock has gone from a low of $0.97 to $3.20 in just a few weeks. The reason Citi stock is higher is simply that the market thinks that most of the trouble at the bank is over. That may not be true at all, but traders are gamblers and they going are "all in" on Citi. The starting point of the rally in the bank's shares is ...

Swedish golfer Henrik Stenson carded a solid 69 in the opening round of the WGC-CA Championship but it was his highly unusual recovery shot on the 12th on the Blue Monster course at Doral which raised more than a few eyebrows. Stenson stripped down to the bare essentials -- a pair of white boxer shorts -- before wading into the mud to hack out his ball after an wayward tee shot. The watching galleries could hardly believe their eyes as ...

Holders Manchester United swept into the last eight of the Champions League with a 2-0 second leg victory over Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan -- and Arsenal joined them after a dramatic penalty shoot-out win at Roma. That means all four Premier League contenders are in the quarterfinal draw on March 20 after Liverpool and Chelsea triumphed on Tuesday. United manager Alex Ferguson had only beaten a Mourinho-led team once in 13 meetings before Wednesday's clash, but Cristiano Ronaldo's first European ...

An expert on Lincoln photography thinks a photograph found in Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's family-owned album showing President Abraham Lincoln in front of the White House could be one of the last photos taken of the 16th president before he was assassinated in 1865. Grant's great-great grandson Ulysses S. Grant VI had seen the previously unpublished image in the general's personal photo album, but didn't think much of it until he scrutinized it earlier this year. "I started to think ...

Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres combined to destroy Real Madrid's Champions League ambitions as Liverpool powered into the quarterfinals with four goals on the night and 5-0 on aggregate at Anfield. Former Atletico Madrid striker Torres made the breakthrough from close range after 16 minutes of Liverpool pressure when he fired home from close range before Gerrard's double destroyed any lingering doubts. "The most important thing for me was to win the game and book our place in the last ...

It is particularly galling to the United Autoworkers that, in addition to
 numerous rounds of layoffs and givebacks dating back two decades, the union
 is being cast as the enemy in the U.S. auto industry's fight to survive. 
"Our contracts with Chrysler, Ford and GM represent only 10% of the cost of
 assembling of a vehicle. But most days, it seems like we get 110% of the 
attention," said UAW president Ron Gettelfinger in a recent speech. In the 
wake ...

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 ...

Texas may be best known for "Big Oil." But the oil that could some day make a dent in the country's use of fossil fuels is small. Microscopic, in fact: algae. Literally and figuratively, this is green fuel. Just over three million tickets are available for next year's 64-match tournament, the first to be held in Africa, although only half of those will be sold to the public. Requests for tickets can be made on the FIFA.com Web site from ...