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The mayor of El Naranjo, Mexico, in the central state of San Luis Potosi was gunned down and killed inside his office Wednesday, officials said.

Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that the "Cuban model" no longer works, an apparent admission of failings in the communist economic model introduced by his revolution more than 50 years ago.

U.N. officials estimated more than 500 rapes and other sexual attacks in eastern Congo in July and August, more than double the previous estimate.

The 33 workers trapped in a Chilean mine got a rare treat Tuesday night: they got to watch their national soccer team compete against Ukraine in the European Cup live via a small projector wired down to their safety chamber on a fiber optic cable.

Amid the overwhelming flood disaster in Pakistan, the world has "no choice but to be optimistic and to have hope" that things can improve there, actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie told CNN Wednesday. FULL STORY l Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviews Jolie l Gupta reflects on covering the disaster

A Somali suspect pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit piracy in the November 2008 takeover of a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden, the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia announced.

Niko Mushi hated rats, as did most people in his village near Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro -- until he learned the critters had a nose for land mines.

Iran has put the stoning sentence of a woman convicted of adultery and murder "on hold,"Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told state-run Press TV on Wednesday.

A small asteroid passed within the moon's distance from the Earth on Wednesday morning, and another will do likewise later in the day, space watchers say.

The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan condemned a Florida church's plan to burn the Quran, the Muslim holy book, as "disrespectful, intolerant and divisive," in a statement on Wednesday.

Authorities have begun an investigation after a threatening message was found scrawled on the lavatory mirror of a Thai Airways plane, the Transportation Security Administration said.

A South African has become so fat on her diet of marshmellows that she's been taken to England to lose weight.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair canceled a launch party for his new book in London Wednesday because of planned protests, his spokesman said.

South Korea on Wednesday announced sanctions against Iran -- including government scrutiny of most financial transactions involving the country -- as part of global efforts to quash Tehran's suspected nuclear program.

North Korea's political leaders are expected to meet this month in a rare gathering, possibly to set the stage for the handover of power from Kim Jong Il to his youngest son.

Thousands of workers across France were staging a one-day strike Tuesday to protest government plans to raise the retirement age.

Eighteen people died in a shooting Tuesday afternoon at a shoe factory in San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras, police said.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in northern Iraq on Tuesday, the U.S. military said.

The European Commission is looking into France's expulsion of more than 8,000 ethnic Roma, commonly referred to as gypsies, the commission's president told CNN Tuesday.

In the aftermath of riots that killed 13 people and left over 400 injured, the Mozambican government announced Tuesday that it would implement a price subsidy program to offset price hikes on virtually all basic necessities including bread, water and energy.