Chinese banks, companies, and the government have been spending heavily in islands throughout the Caribbean, presumably in order to strengthen ties. One cluster of islands recently received a new stadium, megaresort, port, bridge, and embassy--all financed by Chinese aid and loans. Cables released by WikiLeaks showed American officials worried over the close proximity of these new investments and theorizing that China is creating allies in preparation for the end of Castro's reign in Cuba, a current ally. "If China continues to invest the way it is doing in the Caribbean, the U.S. is almost making itself irrelevant to the region," a former diplomat told The New York Times.

The Obama administration said Saturday that, along with Europe, it’s about to lay down new demands for Iran as a part of new negotiations that Western powers view as the country’s last chance to undo its nuclear program. The Western allies will insist that Iran dismantle a recently-completed nuclear facility, and that it cease production of uranium fuel. The hard-line opening move is designed to put pressure on factions inside Iran’s government that believe a settlement would be preferably to the harsh economic sanctions currently wrecking the country’s economy. “We have no idea how the Iranians will react,” one senior administration official said. “We probably won’t know after the first meeting.”

An avalanche near the Indian border trapped 124 Pakistani soliders and 11 civilians early Saturday morning, and officials said by the nighttime that there are no signs of survivors. The avalanche came upon them suddenly and a helicopter team and search dogs have been deployed in the hunt for missing personnel, but casualties are expected in a region where Indian and Pakistani troops face off against each other and the inhospitable climate 20,000 feet above sea level. Eleven civilian employees were with the soldiers.

All the residents of a Virginia Beach apartment complex have been accounted on Saturday, one day after an F-18 fighter jet slammed into the complex. Officials said a “catastrophic mechanical malfunction” caused the Navy jet to crash; the crash and a subsequent explosion damaged five buildings. The two pilots, who suffered minor injuries, safely ejected from the plummeting jet from a low altitude.

Santorum isn't going anywhere, and to prove it, the gloves are coming off (were they on?). On Saturday his campaign released a full itinerary of events for the week coming off his five-day Easter holiday, and the candidate is determined to show that his resolve is not flagging. Santorum is campaigning heavily in Pennsylvania, where another lose would be devastating; Santorum lost his Senate seat by almost 20 points in a 2006 election in the state. Meanwhile, Santorum’s 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, was admitted to a hospital on Friday.

Malawi’s Vice President Joyce Banda was sworn in as Malawi’s president Saturday after the death Thursday of President Bingu wa Mutharika. Banda has been vice president since 2009, despite efforts by Mutharika to have her removed from office after she became critical of his administration. Though Mutharika passed away Thursday, his death was not confirmed until Saturday, heightening fears of a coup. But Banda’s swearing in ensures an orderly transition of power. Banda formed the People's Party after being cast out of the powerful Democratic People’s Party in 2010. She is Malawi's first female president.

French police are speculating that a serial killer is on the loose in Paris after four people were murdered with the same semiautomatic weapon in a suburb of the capital city. The murders, which have taken place over the past five months, have led police to increase their presence five-fold. The most recent, a 47-year-old woman, was killed Thursday. One suspect is being held in connection with the first killing, but no other arrests have been made.

A series of early-morning shootings on Saturday have kept Tulsa, Okla., on edge—and now the FBI has joined the investigation. The shootings left three dead and two wounded, and all happened along one three-mile stretch on the city's north side. Police think the crimes were performed by the same person, or group of people, although police say that they do not have any reason so far to think that the victims knew each other. All five were black, and Tulsa's NAACP president, the Rev. Warren Blakney Sr., said Friday that it seemed the shooter was “targeting black people to shoot.”

A California artist who made a name for himself as “the Painter of Light” with his depictions of cottages and peaceful landscapes died in his Bay Area home Friday. Kinkade called himself America’s most-collected artist, and the sale of his paintings and other products is reported to generate a staggering $100 million a year in sales—although Kinkade was never a darling of the critical establishment. But that didn’t matter much to an artist who once told an interviewer that he would simply “really like to make people happy.”

Britney Spears’s fiancé, Jason Trawick, is reportedly asking the courts to share legal conservatorship with her father, who holds legal control over the pop star. After Spears's 2008 breakdown, the courts placed her under the care of her father, who looks after her finances and well-being. He is asking the courts to add Trawick, Spears's former agent who proposed last December and will be her third husband, as co-conservator. Trawick won't have control of her finances, according to People magazine.

Everyone’s a critic. But German poet Guenter Grass knew that before he published a poem this week in European papers that condemns what he sees as Western hypocrisy on Israel’s nuclear program. Grass has gained fans in Iran, though, as officials from the Islamic Republic applauded the Nobel Prize-winner’s work and said that the poem may “awaken the silent conscience” of the West. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that for six decades Grass “hid” that he had been a “member of the Waffen SS,” which Grass admitted in his 2006 memoir.

A mundane ending to one of the most captivating celebrity romances. Supermodel Heidi Klum said through her publicist yesterday that she had filed for divorce from singer Seal after seven years of marriage. The two had been separated since January. The couple, who have four children together, said in a joint statement in January that they had decided to separate after a period of “soul-searching” and that they “had the deepest respect for one another … but we have grown apart.” Over the course of their marriage, the couple held annual vow-renewal ceremonies.

Finding a job remains a job in itself for some Americans. More than 100,000 new jobs were added to the U.S. economy in March, according to numbers released Friday, a sharp drop from the 200,000 or more jobs added in the preceding three months—and the 250,000 expected in the report. Things are getting better, economists cautioned, but they’re not getting better at the same rate as they were before. There were some other good signs, however, including a slight increase in wages and a decrease in the number of government posts cut.

Mitt, Mitt, he’s our man. And if he can’t do it, it’s probably true that no one can. In another sign that it’ll be Mitt Romney challenging Barack Obama this year, the Republican delegates who automatically go to the party’s convention have said that the former Massachusetts governor will clearly be the GOP’s nominee. “Look, Governor Romney’s going to be the nominee, and he’s going to have enough votes,” said Bob Bennett, an RNC superdelegate from Ohio. The RNC’s 120 superdelegates can vote for whichever candidate they want come the national convention in August.

One woman was forced into the sex trade by her boyfriend. Another was tattooed with the amount of money she owed the traffickers who had enslaved her. Across Spain, experts say, the trafficking of foreign women for the sex trade has become big money, powered by young men who take advantage of the country’s few regulations on prostitution. The U.S. State Department’s last report on sex trafficking in Spain was released in 2010 and found that 90 percent of the 200,000 to 400,000 prostitutes working in the country were doing so against their will.

With $200 million fresh ones in his or her pocket, the lucky Kansan who won a third of the record Mega Millions jackpot probably won’t stay anonymous for long. Lottery officials have declined to release the age, sex, or hometown of the freshly minted multimillionaire, but that didn’t put them off from celebrating. Lottery officials held an event with balloons, confetti, cake, and a cardboard cutout with a happy face clutching a jumbo check for $218.6 million. 

Thousands have poured from Syria’s embattled towns and villages as the United Nations’ April 10 deadline for a ceasefire nears. Turkish hospitals are treating the wounded as smugglers and Free Syrian fighters secret their casualties out of the combat zone, just part of the estimated 2,800 Syrians who fled across the border on Thursday alone. Refugees report that Assad’s forces continue to shell civilian areas and conduct strikes with tanks and helicopters.

The buildings of Yemen’s main airport were riddled with anti-aircraft rounds Saturday as troops loyal to the country’s former president took down a control tower. Authorities shut down the airport as the gunmen laid siege to it with heavy weapons mounted on pickup trucks, surrounding the facility and driving away travelers. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is struggling to free his government from the influence of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who gave up power in February. On Friday, Hadi fired several Saleh loyalists from government posts.

It was a rare—and telling—show of rage on the links for Tiger Woods. After missing a shot on the 16th hole Friday, Woods dropped his golf club to the ground and then kicked it, sending it spiraling 10 yards away—all before his ball even hit the ground. The four-time Masters winner hasn’t been in control of his game at all this time around, and the latest outburst caused CBS golf analyst Nick Faldo to remark, “I think we can officially say Tiger has lost his game … and his mind.”

The man who was once China’s leading astrophysicist died Saturday in the United States. Expelled from the Communist Party in 1987, Fang rose to greater prominence when he gave a series of speeches that are credited with inspiring the protesters who gathered in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Though Fang himself did not physically participate in the protests, he and his wife were driven to seek refuge in the U.S. embassy in the resultant crackdown, staying there for a year out of fear for their lives. Fang finally made it to the United States in 1990.

Calls have come for the conservative National Review to fire writer John Derbyshire after he wrote a column for Taki’s Magazine. In the column, Derbyshire wrote that white parents should advise their children not to attend “events likely to draw a lot of blacks” and that the “mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites,” linked to what are supposedly scientific studies that buttress his claims. White parents should give their children this advice, Derbyshire writes, because it “may save their lives.”

A professor at the University of Technology in Sydney said she and her team of researchers found that Rupert Murdoch’s papers in the country tended to question science, not just politics, in a debate over climate-change policy. “If that’s happening on that one issue, well, it’s certainly happening on other issues,” the journalism professor said of the sway held by the Murdoch empire in a country where it owns the majority of newspapers. Collectively, those papers have taken a hard line against the Labor Party’s efforts on environmental issues, the researcher said.