Interview

Fiery peppers and searing spices heat up Gaza Strip cuisine, a fitting metaphor, perhaps, for the enclave's place in the cauldron of Middle East strife. Israeli troops have imposed a tight cordon around Gaza border crossings, sea access and airspace since the strip's 2007 takeover by the militant Islamic group Hamas, crippling a fragile economy where nearly half the residents are jobless. That means Gazans are confronted with daily challenges to put their signature foods on the family table: Locally made olive oil has disappeared, the once-resplendent olive groves blasted by artillery exchanges.

Conrad Murray, the doctor convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson, sounded a bizarre note during part of an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Tuesday when he broke into song. After talking to Cooper about the medication given to Jackson and expressing his desire to continue his "selfless acts of humanity," Murray then detailed some of the similarities he shared with Jackson. "We had very, very humble lives, and we both experienced pain," Murray said in the segment, a jailhouse interview conducted via phone.

In the heady days of 1989, nondemocratic regimes fell like dominoes to the peaceful march of activists across Eastern Europe. Even China briefly appeared vulnerable to popular demands for a voice in how the country is ruled -- until the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. The spread of democratic rule was at its apex a decade ago, when many of Africa's strongmen went the way of the discredited European Communists. Free elections brought to power a new generation promising to wrest the continent from poverty.

Authorities hope another interview with a 10-year-old girl abducted from her Northridge home will help them glean more information about her captors and the roughly 12 hours she was missing, police said Thursday. Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Andy Smith said at a news conference Thursday that although detectives spoke with the girl after she was found about 3 p.m. Wednesday, she was "traumatized" and able to provide only some information. "We didn't get everything that we'd like to get," he said.

In a recording played on NBC's "Today" show on Monday, Jerry Sandusky said that Mike McQueary misinterpreted him showering with a young boy in Penn State football team facilities in 2001. Sandusky told documentary filmmaker John Ziegler that he does not understand how McQueary concluded “that sex was going on” when he witnessed Sandusky showering with a boy. “That would have been the last thing I would have thought about,” Sandusky said. “I would have thought maybe fooling around or something like that.” Sandusky, 69, is serving a 30- to 60-year prison sentence after being convicted last year of 45 counts of child sexual abuse.

He may be out of sight, but former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky remains very much in mind, surfacing in recorded interviews to once again insist he was innocent of molesting children. Sandusky, 69, was convicted of 45 counts of sexual abuse, and is serving a 30-year to 60-year sentence in a Pennsylvania prison. Though he never took the stand during his celebrated trial, he publicly insisted - before the trial and after -- that  he is innocent of all charges and is actively pursuing an appeal.

First he was Snoop Doggy Dogg, then simply Snoop Dogg. Now, 20 years after the release of his debut single as a solo artist - the still-vibrant "Who Am I (What's My Name?)" - the laid-back rapper from Long Beach has altered his identity once again. And this time he's changed his sound too: Next month, Snoop Lion is to release a full-on reggae album called "Reincarnated," the product of an extended trip he and his crew took last year to Jamaica. "One king, one faith, one religion," he raps (in ersatz island patois)

Dennis Rodman enjoyed his time with Kim Jong Un last month so much that he plans on joining the North Korean dictator for vacation in August. The controversial former NBA star revealed his plans in an interview with KXJB-TV in Fargo, N.D., during a promotional appearance. A spokesman for Rodman told CNN that Kim extended the offer during Rodman's visit a few weeks ago. There's plenty more to the interview, which you can watch above. We've heard a lot of Rodman's opinions already -- that Kim doesn't want war, that President Obama should simply call the North Korean leader to iron things out, that he doesn't condone what Kim does but they are friends, etc. But it's worth watching just to hear Rodman's rambling, yet entertaining, answers to rather simple questions.

The news of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's death this week was striking not because it came as a surprise. Rather it was because his death ignited a bitter debate over what the populist leader's lasting legacy will be at home and abroad. To his supporters, Chavez was a force for good who made them a priority, who established government programs to combat poverty and illiteracy. But to his critics, he was little more than an old-style Latin American caudillo , or strongman, who mismanaged the country's vast oil wealth and allowed inflation and crime to spiral out of control.

Taylor Swift is firing back in her Vanity Fair cover story about all the rumors swirling around her: the boys, the songs, the houses. She even takes a moment to bash critically acclaimed Golden Globes hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. In the magazine's April issue, Swift opens up about all the tabloid fodder the 23-year-old singer has amassed and reiterates a couple things she said in the March issue of Elle. Here are a few things we learned from the preview story: Despite popular opinion, Swift isn't boy crazy, and if you think she is, you're sexist: "For a female to write about her feelings," Swift said, "and then be portrayed as some clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her, I think that's taking something that potentially should be celebrated -- a woman writing about her feelings in a confessional way -- that's taking it and turning it and twisting it into something that is frankly a little sexist.