President Obama is under increasing pressure to decide whether the United States will commit more troops and resources to the conflict in Afghanistan. On Tuesday, the head of NATO met with the president and endorsed Obama's plan to fine-tune the strategy for Afghanistan before deciding on whether to deploy more troops. "I agree with President Obama in his approach: strategy first, then resources," Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after meeting with Obama at the White House. The ...

Shameen's brown eyes seem lost as she thinks about the one day she wants to forget, but it is all she can think about. Still traumatized, she recounts the events that led her to a safe house in Kabul. She was raped and nearly stabbed to death by her husband just seven days before we met her. Her lips are quivering and her eyes full of fear. "He forced himself on me," she said. "All I could do was scream." ...

Millions of White House e-mails may be missing, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino acknowledged Friday. Authorities will use ground-penetrating radar equipment on Friday to examine the area, and "we will eventually be digging in that location," said Hayward police Lt. Chris Orrey. The Garridos face a combined 29 felony counts in the 1991 kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard, then 11, from South Lake Tahoe, California. Authorities believe the couple held Dugard in a hidden compound behind their home for 18 years ...

As support for the war in Afghanistan dips to an all-time low, some leading lawmakers are questioning President Obama's approach to what he calls a "war of necessity." Just 39 percent of Americans favor the war in Afghanistan compared to 58 percent who oppose it, according to a national CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Tuesday. The poll follows the two deadliest months for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. In August, 48 U.S. troops were killed in the fighting, surpassing the ...

A Republican House member shouted, "You lie" during President Obama's health care speech to Congress on Wednesday, and members of both parties condemned the heckling. After the speech, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson issued a statement apologizing for his outburst. "This evening, I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president's remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill," the statement said. "While I disagree with the president's statement, my comments ...

They kept their bodies alive with rationed crackers, bubble gum, beer and three gallons of water. But spiritually, the three men lost at sea for eight days had something else to keep them going. "We just kept praying, and we kept hope alive," rescued boater Tressel Hawkins told CNN on Monday. "Even though hope had managed to thread down to a little bitty string, I mean, that little bitty string could be just as strong as the rope you hung ...

If you happened on Friday morning to walk into the Temple of Earth in Beijing — the nearly 500-year-old monument where Chinese emperors once prayed for good harvests — you would have noticed a steady drip. The environmental group Greenpeace placed ice sculptures of 100 children — made of the glacial meltwater that feeds China's great rivers — inside the temple, to symbolize the risk that climate change and disappearing ice poses to the more than 1 billion people ...

Customers of the printing company knew her as "Allissa." They spoke to her about graphic design, business cards and fliers, and describe her as professional, polite and responsive. "She was always good at getting us what we wanted," said Ben Daughdrill, who used to own a junk hauling business. "You got the feeling she was doing all the work." But "Allissa," authorities say, was really Jaycee Dugard, kidnapped 18 years ago from her home in South Lake Tahoe, California. ...

Dark, grainy surveillance camera images from inside the home of a slain Florida couple show the moments before their deaths as gunmen dressed in black storm their house. The images, taken at the home of Byrd and Melanie Billings, were shown Thursday to representatives from several news organizations. The Beulah, Florida, couple, known for adopting special-needs children, were shot to death in their home July 9. Seven men are charged with first-degree murder and home invasion robbery in their deaths, ...

With the Boston skyline a sparkling backdrop framed in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library's enormous windows, 13 of Kennedy's closest friends, colleagues and family members shared their favorite personal, poignant and sometimes bawdy memories of Rose and Joseph's youngest son, Edward M. Kennedy. "Captain Ahab," former Senator John Culver pronounced Kennedy after recounting a college-years tale of the first time Kennedy had taken him sailing — an episode where Culver coughed up two partially digested salmon ...