Searching for the life of a spy is like chasing the trail of a ghost. África de las Heras, codename Patria, was a friend, a nanny, a caregiver, but also a stranger, a murderer, a spy, and a heroine. “She was everything at once,” confesses Argentine writer and columnist Laura Ramos, who has reconstructed the spy's life in the book Mi niñera de la KGB. De las Heras, hidden under the name María Luisa, was a supposed Spanish dressmaker who became the most decorated Soviet spy of the KGB, involved in the communist resistance against dictator Francisco Franco, the fight against German troops in Ukraine, the attempted assassination of Che Guevara, and the murder of Lenin's successor, Lev Trotsky. “Her job was precisely to leave no trace. But, paradoxically, the most important discoveries came through the back door, through the memories of the children she had looked after,” assures the writer, pointing to a search for the intangible, archival, and practically mythical memory of María Luisa.

The Kosmos 482 probe, launched by the former Soviet Union in 1972 bound for Venus, never left Earth's orbit and, after half a century, is expected to fall back to planet Earth this week. The device's orbit is declining and it is expected to "re-enter Earth's atmosphere sometime between May 7 and 13," NASA said on its website Tuesday. Since it was designed to withstand passage through Venus's atmosphere, which is denser and hotter than Earth's, "it is possible that the probe (or some part of it) will survive re-entry into Earth and reach the surface."

One day ahead of schedule, the last US military has left Afghanistan. The night photograph distributed by the Pentagon shows Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, boarding the last plane of the American armed forces that has taken off from Kabul airport. At first light, the Taliban entered the airport and took possession of the planes that until recently were part of the Afghan air force (paid for with Western money). The images of the Taliban celebrating the departure of the Americans certify the end of a military intervention that has lasted two decades and that has ended with a military defeat, because the Taliban return to power, but with the commitment that Afghanistan will no longer be the base for terrorist attacks on the United States.