I always believed I was special, thanks to both Mr. Rogers and my own giant ego. Sure, I knew there were other Joel Steins in the world, but I figured none of them were desperately trying to vie for the public's attention by revealing personal details in rhymed couplets. So when a friend told me that a singer-songwriter named Joel Stein has the website joelstein.com I experienced a profound identity crisis. An identity crisis in that I wanted to make ...

They flocked to the open field by the hundreds to praise Allah. In a village in central Java, just a few miles from where Indonesian special forces shot dead an Islamic terrorist linked to the fatal July bombings of two hotels in Jakarta, worshippers raised their hands to the heavens. But this ceremony, which took place as the call of the muezzin echoed in the sultry air, was not a celebration of Islam. Instead, in the heart of the world's ...

Pakistan has asked the CIA to all but shut down its operations in that country, demanding that the U.S. intelligence agency pull out 335 officers and contractors currently based there. Included in that number are Special Forces advisers to the Pakistani security forces. Even in the worst days of the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the United States regularly declared each other's spies persona non grata, there was never an expulsion on this scale. And ...

The hand-to-hand combat over new rules limiting the power of public unions in Wisconsin didn't end when Governor Scott Walker signed them into law on March 11; it merely changed venues. The new law is headed for a challenge at the state's supreme court later this year. Which is why the election for the court's swing vote on April 5 turned into such a bloody proxy fight for special interests from around the country — as well as ...

The struggle has been defined variously as rich v. poor, Southern Hemisphere v. Northern, developed countries v. undeveloped. The protagonists are the advanced industrial nations v. the nations of the "Third World" , an extraordinarily diverse group that, for the moment at least, has achieved solidarity for what it sees as its common purpose. Conflict between the two groups has taken on the proportions of global class war. This week the battleground is situated on the banks of the ...

There is no particularly special technology needed to make a chainsaw. It's really just plastic and metal parts screwed together with old-fashioned nuts and bolts. The Chinese already make chainsaws. But that hasn't stopped German power-tool manufacturer Stihl from selling its made-in-Germany chainsaws around the world, even though its top-end models are among the priciest on the market. In fact, 86% of the products Stihl makes in its high-cost German factories are exported. How Stihl manages that says a lot ...

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 ...

The raid looked like something out of a Hollywood action movie. On July 7, Russian special forces dropped down on ropes from a helicopter to storm a luxury yacht on the Pirogovsky reservoir outside Moscow, arresting three dozen mobsters, including the group's alleged ringleader, Tariel Oniani. But within days, nearly all of them, including Oniani, had to be set free because prosecutors couldn't charge them with anything. Russia's laws have long been weak and unspecific when it comes to combating organized crime, part of the ...

Two U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers were killed by a homemade bomb while supporting anti-terror operations on an island in the southern Philippines, Army officials said Thursday. Sgt. 1st Class Christopher D. Shaw, 37, and Staff Sgt. Jack M. Martin III, 26, died after a bomb exploded Tuesday near their Humvee on the island of Jolo, said Lt. Col. David King. Both soldiers were based at Fort Lewis, about 40 miles south of Seattle. King said the soldiers were working ...

For Rick Kelly, the first sign of cancer was a feeling of discomfort in his chest. TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- For Rick Kelly, the first sign of cancer was a feeling of discomfort in his chest. "My wife would hug me, and it became almost unbearable," he said. "I went to a doctor, and they sent me to the oncologist, and they did biopsies on both sides. And then I ended up with a double mastectomy." Kelly is one of ...