Around the globe, millions have followed the story of Natascha Kampusch, the girl who was kidnapped at age 10 and held prisoner for eight years in a windowless basement near Vienna, Austria. They have clicked through snapshots of her dungeon posted on the Internet, speculated in chat rooms about why she had never been discovered, and marveled at her eloquence in her first television interview last week. But in the U.S., one group is intently focused not on the physical ...

The Belgian Catholic Church must have felt it hit a nadir last year when it had to face harrowing revelations of rampant child sex abuse among its priesthood. However, the church's reputation is now at a new low, thanks to the ill-judged comments of the disgraced former Bishop of Bruges, who in April 2010 admitted to abusing his nephew. Belgians have been left in open-mouthed disbelief after the airing of a TV interview with Roger Vangheluwe in ...

Global philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates are launching a major push to convince the United States to maintain government spending on worldwide health initiatives, despite the financial crisis and a soaring U.S. budget deficit.The Gates Foundation said it cannot solve all these problems alone, despite having a budget that is bigger than the economies of many countries, and it says it needs the help of the United States and other governments. In an interview, Melinda Gates said, "Our money is ...

The main challenger to Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants the removal of the country's election chief and 200 other staffers of the election commission to ensure a fair runoff election."My trust in becoming a candidate was not to be part of the same government, part of the same deteriorating situation," Abdullah told CNN's John King in an interview broadcast on Sunday's "State of the Union." "Mine was for a change in this country. Mine was for bringing hopes for ...

Crystal Dillman says she will never understand why a group of teenage boys beat her fianc to death. She says she will spend the rest of her life seeking answers -- and justice -- for the man she has lost as she struggles alone to raise her three young children. "My life is forever destroyed," said Dillman, who was 24 at the time of her fianc's death. "My family is forever destroyed." Her fianc, Luis Ramirez, an undocumented Mexican ...

Has Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, been lost to the drug cartels? New figures released to CNN on Wednesday by Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz indicate the death toll for this year has already surpassed 2,000 homicides -- almost 400 more murders than the total count for 2008. "It has been 22 months of this war, and it hasn't stopped. The violence has increased, and the possibility that it will stop is becoming more remote," Reyes Ferriz told CNN in a phone interview. ...

In a blizzard of personal meetings in Kabul, Afghanistan, and in telephone conversations from Washington, U.S. officials lobbied Afghan President Hamid Karzai to abide by the nation's constitution and accept a runoff election. Karzai announced Tuesday that he will take part in a presidential runoff vote in two weeks. Senior State Department officials say Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Karzai and with his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. One official told CNN that in a phone call to Karzai ...

Get ready for a closeup: your next job interview might be on webcam. Looking to save time and money, companies are turning to video-chat software as a cheap, low-hassle way to vet job candidates. That means a growing number of people looking for work are meeting their prospective new bosses not at the office but in the comfort of their own home. Naturally, the transition from in-person to online isn't without its hiccups. Fuzzy transmissions, dropped calls ...

With a runoff presidential election in Afghanistan appearing likely, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN on Friday that she expects the current president, Hamid Karzai, to win. "It is likely that they will find that President Karzai got very close to the 50-plus-1" in August's balloting, she said in an exclusive CNN interview, referring to the 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff. "... I think one can conclude that the likelihood of him winning a ...

The White House said it had no comment Monday in response to the upcoming release of a new Michelle Obama action-figure doll. The 6-inch doll is made by New York toymaker Jailbreak Toys and is set for release on November 20, but the company began work on the new product six or seven months ago, according to Jason Feinberg, Jailbreak Toys' 32-year-old founder. "The entire political scene was a little rosier at the time," Feinberg said in a phone interview, ...