Miss Dugard not only worked in Garrido's printing business in the squalid backyard enclosure where she lived since being snatched, aged 11 - but also met and dealt with customers.She was in routine email contact with Garrido's clients, chatting on the phone and greeting them in person to hand over boxes of business cards, fliers and brochures...

The monster who kept a California girl as his sex slave for 18 years once told a detective he needed to dominate women to satisfy his sexual urges.Phillip Garrido made the creepy admission after he was busted in 1976 for kidnapping and raping a Nevada casino worker."I asked him after he confessed why he did it, and he said it was the only...

President Obama led a majestic farewell to Sen. Ted Kennedy Saturday, saluting the last son of a storied clan as a peerless legislator who transcended tragedy in his own life to become "more alive to the plight and suffering of others.""Ted Kennedy's life's work was not to champion those with wealth or power or special connections," an emotional...

A Royal Marine has died in an explosion in Afghanistan on the day that Gordon Brown, the Prime MInister, visited the country. The marine is the 208th member of British forces to die since the involvement in Afghanistan began in 2001.An MoD spokesman said: "It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence confirms that a Royal Marine...

NEW ORLEANS -- Louisiana's top prosecutor said Friday he will not reopen a probe into allegations of euthanasia at a hospital crippled by Hurricane Katrina, despite new statements from a doctor that he drugged a terminal patient to "get rid of her faster."Dr. Ewing Cook said that as staff at Memorial Medical Center desperately tried to care...

LOS ANGELES - A growing wildfire sending massive billows of smoke into the sky north of Los Angeles nearly tripled in size today, injuring three residents, knocking out power to homes and prompting evacuations in a number of mountain communities.Mandatory evacuations were extended Saturday into neighborhoods in the canyons on the northwestern...

TOKYO -- Japanese cast ballots Sunday in hotly contested parliamentary elections in which the ruling conservative party, battered by a laggard economy and voter desire for change after more than half a century of virtual one-party rule, was expected to suffer an overwhelming defeat.The Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for...

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- The United States and Cuba should show some flexibility and take steps to improve relations, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Friday during a weeklong trade mission to the island nation. "There is a good atmosphere [between the two countries]," he said at a news conference in Havana on Friday. "It is the best atmosphere...

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- A South Korean fishing boat and its four crew members were heading home Saturday after being held for a month in North Korea, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. The Yeonan-ho and its crew were handed over to a South Korean patrol boat waiting at the sea border Saturday evening, Yonhap reported, citing South...

Worries over high unemployment pushed consumer confidence to a four-month low in August, while spending modestly improved in July - indicating the economy's recovery from the lengthy recession would be modest at best.The now-ended Cash for Clunkers program helped lift consumer spending 0.2% last month and is expected to deliver a bigger boost...

CHILMARK, Mass. -- The first family settled in Sunday for their vacation on Martha's Vineyard not long after Hurricane Bill scampered away, leaving behind big waves and heavy rip currents for the Obamas. A tropical storm warning was lifted just hours before President Barack Obama began his first vacation since taking office. The hurricane...

OAK BLUFFS, Mass.—President Barack Obama promised Saturday that his administration would not forget what he called a tragic response to Hurricane Katrina. He said he would visit the still-recovering New Orleans before the end of the year.Obama has already dispatched 11 members of the Cabinet to the region to inspect progress and to hear directly...

Campaigning continued until the last moment ahead of the general election, but there seemed little to stop the electorate ousting the unpopular LDP.According to a Kyodo News poll released late on Thursday, 35.9 per cent of voters plan to back the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DJP), up 3.3 per cent from a week ago.The ruling LDP's...

The complaints emerging about fraud in the Afghan presidential and provincial elections have thrust the role of international election monitors into the spotlight.What do they do? How do they go about doing it? Can they be trusted?Election monitoring has become a big undertaking in the past couple of decades. It developed rapidly after the...

Ragged and weakened, Tropical Storm Danny meandered toward North Carolina's Outer Banks on Friday -- with large, dangerous seas its most serious threat to the Northeast coast.The National Hurricane Center left a tropical storm watch in place for the Carolina coast, but forecasters didn't expect the storm to grow much and it's strongest eastern...

WASHINGTON — Liberals and conservatives, at odds over health care, are competing to use the legacy of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to further their goals.The left claims the Senate's liberal champion would have settled for nothing less than universal care and a new government-run insurance option. Republican foes of those ideas say the Democrats...

The Los Angeles County coroner has ruled Michael Jackson's death a homicide, finding that he was poisoned by an overdose of surgical anaesthetic propofol.In a brief statement to news media today, the coroner's office said Jackson died of "acute propofol intoxication". Also contributing to his death were lorazepam and Valium.The widely anticipated...

For more than 40 years, Edward Kennedy was the keeper of the flame, the last of a dynasty of Kennedy brothers who enjoyed an almost mystical status in the American political scene. Four decades after assassins bullets claimed two of his elder brothers, 77-year-old Edward Moore Kennedy, the patriarch of what many still regard as America’s...

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- German federal prosecutors said Friday they have arrested a man suspected of helping a terrorist cell that allegedly plotted attacks against U.S. troops in Germany. The prosecutor's office identified the man only as "Kadir T.," and said he is a German of Turkish origin.He is suspected of acquiring a video camera and...

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday urged stiff punishment for those who "orchestrated and provoked" the "painful" unrest after the June 12 presidential election, according to Iran's state-run Press TV. "I call upon security and judicial officials to decisively and mercilessly act with those who committed...

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- North and South Korea reached an agreement Friday on reunions for families separated for decades by the Korean War, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Reunions will be held from September 26 to October 1, Yonhap said.The agreement comes after three days of talks between the two sides in North Korea.The...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama still may push through an overhaul of the American health care system, but political indicators point to a needed overhaul of his own tactics for selling reform.Barely eight months in office, Obama is trapped between the jaws of a tightening vise. On one side, Republicans refuse to countenance further government...

n "The September Issue," director R.J. Cutler aims to address one of the burning questions of our time: Is Vogue editor Anna Wintour really the Devil in Prada-designed disguise?To his credit, Cutler evades an easy answer. Hate her? You'll find plenty to fault in this portrait, which was shot in 2007 as ­Wintour and her staff planned the magazine's...

BOSTON -- A Democratic push to appoint a successor to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy is sparking a political tempest in Massachusetts, infuriating Republicans and dividing Democrats who only five years ago passed a law requiring that voters decide on Senate vacancies.On a day when members of both parties paid their respects to Mr. Kennedy,...

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration appears to be backing down on its insistence that Israel halt all settlement activity as a condition for restarting peace talks with the Palestinians.While U.S. officials insist their position on the matter has not changed, they are now hinting that a less blanket moratorium would be acceptable provided...

LOS ANGELES - WILDFIRES erupted up and down California as a late summer siege of heat and low humidity levels made conditions ripe for conflagrations.Structures could be seen burning on Thursday in the wealthy communities on the Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles, while suburbs on the foothills to the north of the city were threatened...

Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will come under concerted pressure to fall into line with Barack Obama’s plans for bringing peace to the Middle East when he meets with Washington’s special envoy in London today.Better relations with Arab neighbours and a tougher line on Iran are the lures that George Mitchell will hold out to Mr...

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK -- Scientists worked Thursday to determine if a boulder avalanche that forced the closure of a landmark Yosemite lodge was a one-time event or a precursor of more rockslides to come.The Ahwahnee Hotel remained closed following a series of landslides Wednesday that peppered the storied building's parking lot with boulders...

One of the good things about spending vacation time away from the computer and second-by-second news is that it's easier to see the big picture. And one thing that came into focus during my recent beach time -- and is even more clear today -- is that the health-care "reform" making its way through Congress has disaster written all over it...