Afghan President Hamid Karzai, heavily criticized last month for skipping a candidates' debate, met two of his political rivals in a nationally televised debate Sunday night, just four days ahead of the war-torn country's presidential elections. Thursday's vote marks only the second presidential election in Afghanistan's history, and is seen as a test of efforts by the United States and Europe to bring stability to the country. Karzai is the front-runner in the election, with a recent poll conducted by ...

Visitors to the Basilica of the National Shrine in northeast Washington often do a double take when they see Newt Gingrich and his familiar shock of white hair slip into a pew for the noon Mass on Sundays. The former Speaker of the House is known for many things, but religious zeal is not one of them. In fact, the social conservatives who fueled his Republican revolution in 1994 often complained about Gingrich's lack of interest in issues like ...

John Yettaw, the American who had been sentenced to seven years of hard labor in Myanmar, was handed over to U.S. Embassy officials in the Southeast Asian nation on Sunday, an information ministry official said. U.S. Sen. Jim Webb obtained Yettaw's release a day earlier. The two are expected to fly to Bangkok, Thailand, aboard a military aircraft sometime Sunday. Yettaw, 53, a former military serviceman from Falcon, Missouri, was sentenced last week for a May 3 incident when he ...

Few things have peeved Latin America more than Washington's hypocrisy regarding coups. Overthrowing our friends at gunpoint is bad, the traditional U.S. line seemed to go, but toppling our foes — even the democratically elected ones — is O.K. So it surprised Latin Americans when U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the June 28 military ouster of leftist Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, a critic of the U.S., and called for his return to office. "We respect the universal principle that ...

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both crashed out of the Montreal Masters at on Friday night as the world's top eight contested the quarte-finals at the same event for the first time in tennis history. But number one Federer and second-ranked Nadal both flunked their lines, admittedly returning to tournament action after layoffs. Federer, who has not played since winning Wimbledon after becoming the father of twin girls, let a 5-1 lead in the final set slip as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga ...

The tiny one-room house rests on a hill; no electricity and no running water. A creaky metal cot and a rusting wood-burning stove is all the comfort Herbert Hale says he needs. CHERRY CREEK, South Dakota (CNN) -- The tiny one-room house rests on a hill; no electricity and no running water. A creaky metal cot and a rusting wood-burning stove is all the comfort Herbert Hale says he needs. "All it is is logs, glue -- dirt and water ...

Pan Am Flight 103 was 31,000 feet in the air, heading for New York City, when it exploded over Scotland on the longest night of the year, December 21, 1988, killing 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground below. It was the world's deadliest act of air terrorism until the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to the FBI. American and British investigators painstakingly pieced together the aircraft's wreckage and found it had ...

While his Republican party has been flailing and losing and dwindling to its base, Florida Governor Charlie Crist has remained extremely popular by governing from the middle. He's stocked his administration with Democrats, appointed a fairly liberal African-American Democrat to the state Supreme Court, expanded voting rights for felons, crusaded against global warming, and enthusiastically supported President Obama's stimulus package. Crist's crossover appeal — along with his powerhouse skills as a fundraiser and campaigner — has made him a ...

A hostile crowd shouted questions and made angry statements Tuesday at a town hall meeting on health care in Pennsylvania led by Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter. The meeting drew an overflow of about 250 people, with more gathered outside the hall to demonstrate for and against President Obama's push to expand health insurance for 46 million people without coverage while bringing down costs. It was the latest in a series of emotional public meetings on the health care issue that ...

The question may have been lost in translation, but a visibly angry Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bluntly told a town-hall meeting in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday, "I will you tell you my opinion, I'm not going to channel my husband." The unscripted moment happened as Clinton spoke to students at a Congolese university in Kinshasa, the Congo capital. A male student rose to ask a question about Chinese financial contracts with Congo. The student asked Clinton ...