Shortly before President Obama departs for a trip to the Middle East, a new national poll suggests that one in five Americans has a favorable view of Muslim countries. That view compares with 46 percent of the people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey who say they have an unfavorable opinion of Muslim countries. That's up 5 percentage points from 2002, when 41 percent indicated that they had an unfavorable view. Meanwhile, three in 10 say they have a ...

Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas passed Sen. John Kerry a letter for President Obama while Kerry visited Gaza on Thursday, senior State Department officials said. The letter for the president is in the hands of the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, the officials said Friday. Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, toured the devastation in Gaza and met with officials from the U.N. Works Relief Agency, the main provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza. Frederick Jones, ...