Job seekers struggling with a cutthroat job market are turning to image consultants to give them an edge at interviews. Amanda Sanders, image specialist with New York Image Consultant, told CNN that her clients used to be mostly divorcees or single people wanting to update their look. She says that these days around half of her clients are looking to boost their careers. "Now the job market is more competitive people want to invest in themselves and improve their game," ...

A Cuban blogger who has criticized her government has been denied permission to travel to New York to pick up a prestigious journalism award Wednesday. Yoani Sanchez writes a blog that gets more than 1 million hits from around the globe every month, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world last year. So when Columbia University said it would award her the Maria Moors Cabot Prize special citation, Sanchez asked the Cuban ...

Leslie Elder's eyelids fluttered open, and through the fog of pain medication, she saw the emergency room doctors pull back the curtain in her room. She could tell that the news was bad. "They didn't have to say a word. I knew from their faces that something wasn't right," said Elder, 60, who hours earlier had stumbled into the ER with a stabbing pain in her abdomen. "Then one doctor said, 'Your right kidney ... it's breaking apart. You have ...

The captain of the Italian national football team, Fabio Cannavaro, has hit out at his treatment at the hands of the world's media after being cleared of doping by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI). The Juventus defender, who led his country to World Cup victory in 2006, failed a drugs test two days after treating a wasp sting with a cream containing cortisone on 28 August. The case against the 36-year-old, whose insect-allergy means that untreated stings could prove fatal, ...

Felipe Massa has been cleared to return to the wheel of a Ferrari following medical tests in Paris which confirmed his continuing successful recovery from a serious skull injury. The Brazilian will return to the Italian team's Maranello base on Sunday, and then test drive a private F2007 single-seater the next day "under the personal assistance of the F1 Clienti department," according to the Ferrari Web site. "The medical team, coordinated by Professor Jean-Charles Piette, the FIA's medical delegate, finished ...

If you hold a Discover credit card, you're in luck -- the company has decided to freeze interest-rate hikes until a new credit card consumer protection bill takes effect in February. Bank of America was the first company to freeze its rates. Both moves come after outrage over credit card companies jacking up rates, increasing minimum payments and raising penalty fees before the new consumer protection law -- which would bar sudden increases -- is phased in. Rep. Betsy Markey, ...

Somalian supermodel Waris Dirie has graced the pages of glossy magazines and starred opposite 007 as a Bond Girl. But her glamorous appearances on catwalks and in magazines and films belies the personal battles Dirie has had to overcome. Dirie is a leading voice against forced circumcision and female genital mutilation (FGM) and struggled to overcome her own circumcision at the age of five. The forthcoming film, "Desert Flower", based on her biography, tells her story. ...

Supporters of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics were shocked Friday by news that the city was the first of four finalists to be eliminated from consideration. The news from the International Olympic Committee came mere hours after President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama delivered personal appeals to the selection committee, praising the virtues of their hometown. "I'm totally stunned. I thought we had a great opportunity," NBA great Michael Jordan told CNN. Jordan, who led the Chicago Bulls ...

Michael Jackson was one of the most famous people in the world. Yet for all his global notoriety, the man himself was shrouded in mystery. Now some of that mystery has been peeled away. Jackson recorded about 30 hours of deeply personal thoughts with his friend and spiritual adviser, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, between August 2000 and April 2001. The results are the basis of a new book, "The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation." ...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez revealed a deeply personal side in an interview Thursday night, saying he loves Jesus Christ and would have liked to play Major League baseball in Yankee Stadium. He also expressed a fondness for American people and culture, saying he likes the movie actor Charles Bronson and the poet Walt Whitman. He loves to sing, he said, though he does not do it well. And Chavez had kind words for the U.S. security detail protecting him during ...