A new breed of life-saving robot is being developed that take their shape and movement from snakes, and, it is hoped, will prove invaluable not only in search and rescue operations but also be a great asset to human surgery. (Full story) (CNN) -- Conventions are relics. They don't decide the nominees anymore -- that's been turned over to primary voters. No one pays much attention to party platforms except a few ideological activists. So why do we still ...

Just hours before the start of the second presidential debate, a new national survey suggests that Sen. Barack Obama is making gains among Americans as a compassionate candidate. That could be important in the debate in Nashville, which is a town hall-style meeting with the candidates fielding questions from undecided voters in the audience. In a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Tuesday afternoon, 55 percent of registered voters questioned say that Obama "cares more about people like you" ...

Friends and strangers across the country gathered on the streets and in schools, churches, bars and auditoriums to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States. "It's a great day to be an American," iReporter Roger Germann said at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, where revelers watched the inauguration on television monitors among exhibits of sharks and otters. Tuesday's inauguration brought together Americans from different walks of life, united in their hope that Obama ...

Minnesota's Canvassing Board voted unanimously Wednesday to reject a request from Democrat Al Franken to count thousands of rejected absentee ballots in the recount of votes in his Senate race against Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. The board, which oversees the recount, said it was not rejecting the merit of the arguments made by Franken's attorneys, but it said the matter fell outside its jurisdiction, as Coleman's lawyers had argued. Board members acknowledged that the issue likely will end ...

The community organizing group ACORN on Wednesday announced a hiring freeze, new training programs and an independent review of its programs after the recent release of a series of videotapes embarrassing to the agency. The videos, secretly taped by two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute, showed ACORN employees in four of the agency's offices suggesting or condoning a series of illicit actions as the couple sought advice on setting up a brothel with underage women from El ...

About 1.5 million votes cast in last month's Afghanistan elections are suspicious, election observers for the European Union said Wednesday.

Liberal Democratic Party Prime Minister Taro Aso resigned early Wednesday, setting the stage for Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama to take over the reins of government. Last month, Japanese voters swept Aso's party -- which had governed Japan for nearly 50 years -- from power in the wake of Japan's worst recession since World War II. But voters -- skeptical, pessimistic and impatient -- are unlikely to give the DPJ, which has never held office, much time to ...

Seth Meyers will remain the lone talking head on the "Saturday Night Live" Weekend Update desk, at least in the near future, according to the comedian. "It looks like for right now, we're going to stick with doing it solo," Meyers, said Monday in New York, as he was getting ready for the show's 35th season premiere on September 26. Meyers, SNL's head writer, hosted the popular sketch alone after Amy Poehler left the show last season. Last ...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai maintains a substantial lead in the country's August presidential polls, according to partial results issued by election officials on Saturday. Out of 5,545,149 valid votes from 92.82 percent of the country's polling stations, Karzai has 3,009,559 and his closest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, the nation's former foreign minister, has 1,558,591, the Independent Election Commission said. Other top vote-getters were Ramazan Bashardost, with 511,441, and Ashraf Ghani, with 149,720. More than 83,000 votes were cast for candidates who ...

Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission on Tuesday ordered a partial recount of the ballots in the August 20 presidential election. The complaints commission called on Afghanistan's Independent Elections Commission (IEC) to conduct the audit and recount because of "clear and convincing evidence of fraud in a number of polling stations." Most of that fraud evidence is an "exceptionally high number" of votes cast in a polling station "in relation to the number of ballots available" or an extremely high ...