HAVANA — This country reached a tipping point in 2006. It wasn’t any one event in particular, but according to Cuba’s Office of National Statistics, the island’s population of 11.2 million stopped growing that year, and dipped slightly. And it has been falling ever since.

HAVANA — When Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was roused from home by military officers Sunday morning and sent off to Costa Rica in his pajamas, the banana-republic days of crude political succession seemed to be back in the Americas. Then something different happened: Condemnation and scorn rained down on Honduras’ coup plotters from every corner of the hemisphere, uniting leaders from conservative Colombian President Álvaro Uribe to Cuba’s Raúl Castro to U.S. President Barack Obama.

HAVANA — In their diplomatic relations, the U.S. and Cuba are like a bitterly divorced couple, whose shared history is so marred by grudges and recriminations it's hard to figure out how to start talking again. So with the Obama administration offering a fresh start and an open hand, and Cuba welcoming the overtures, the two sides are preparing to meet for talks on a topic of common concern: migration. The discussions are widely viewed as potential building blocks for a broader dialogue between the two countries.

HAVANA — The Obama administration's plans to bring U.S.-Cuba relations out of the Cold War era have been tripped up twice this month by a naggingly familiar Cold War issue: espionage. First came the June 4 arrests of Gwendolyn Myers and Walter Kendall Myers, charged by the FBI with spying for Havana from inside the highest levels of the State Department for three decades. The arrests prompted several Cuban-American lawmakers to call for Obama to freeze engagement efforts with the Castro government.