Quick — what's the difference between Methodists and Presbyterians? Confused about how Hindus believe the world was created? Why are so many celebrities drawn to Scientology? The vast majority of Americans hold some religious affiliation, but we're often too polite — or maybe too shy — to ask friends and neighbors about the nuts and bolts of their beliefs, let alone sneak into a service in a house of worship that we're not thinking of ...

He won't look me in the eye, won't engage in any small talk, and looks more ill at ease than I feel. The man in front of me is Zabiullah Mujahid -- one of two spokesmen for the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar. He is around 30, maybe a little younger, bearded, but not heavily so. He is slight but not weak and close to my height -- a little over six foot -- and meeting him is a big ...

The number of confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus has jumped more than 30 percent with 331 people being diagnosed so far, the World Health Organization said Friday. The virus, commonly known as swine flu, has spread to 11 countries, but the hardest hit areas were in the western hemisphere, the organization said. "We have not seen sustained human-to-human transmission anywhere outside the Americas region," said WHO spokesman, Thomas Abraham. In the United States, the Centers for Disease ...

A gunman killed 12 people Thursday at a university in Baku, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, before killing himself, the country's interior ministry said. The WHO is troubled because in one of the 10 cases in Spain the virus was transmitted from person-to-person within the community. The other nine infected people had returned from Mexico, where the crisis is most severe, according to WHO spokesman Dick Thompson. If Spain sees more such cases of community ...

The number of confirmed swine flu cases worldwide has risen to 154, with six additional cases reported in Spain, the World Health Organization said Thursday. The WHO is troubled because in one of the 10 cases in Spain the virus was transmitted from person-to-person within the community. The other nine infected people had returned from Mexico, where the crisis is most severe, according to WHO spokesman Dick Thompson. If Spain sees more such cases of community transmission, the world ...

"Battlestar Galactica," the TV series that has held up a mirror to post-9/11 politics and paranoia for the past four seasons, comes to an end Friday. The show's legions of fans may be in mourning, but executive producer David Eick finds the looming finale bittersweet. "It's a combination of deep sadness and a little bit of relief," he told CNN by phone from Los Angeles. Eick and his producing partner Ronald D. Moore revived -- or, as they like ...

Rush Limbaugh brought a cheering crowd to its feet several times Saturday in Washington as he called on fellow conservatives to take back the country in the keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "We conservatives have not done a good enough job of just laying out basically who we are because we make the mistake of assuming that people know. What they know is largely incorrect, based on the way we're portrayed in pop culture, in the drive-by ...

Dangerous. Misguided. Untenable. Those were just some of the criticisms leveled at amateur psychologist Judith Rich Harris and the conclusions in her controversial book The Nurture Assumption when it was first published a decade ago. In it, Harris argues it's not what parents do or say that determines who their children become — what really matters is the influence of peers. Ten years on, however, with parents seeming to worry more than ever about what it takes to raising a smart, decent kid, Harris's message ...

Washington police told the mother of slain congressional intern Chandra Levy that an arrest is imminent in her daughter's 2001 death, Susan Levy told CNN on Saturday. "I got a call from the Washington police department, just to give me a heads up that there's a warrant out for the arrest," Levy said. Police Chief Cathy Lanier of the Metropolitan Police Department did not reveal the suspect's name when she contacted the parents on Friday, Levy said. She said police ...

The father of a missing 5-year-old Florida girl made a renewed plea Thursday for the return of his daughter. "If you have my daughter and you're watching this, drop her off somewhere safe," Roland Cummings said of his daughter Haleigh. "I'm not out for revenge, I'm not out for nothing else. I want my daughter back," Cummings said, with his girlfriend, Misty Croslin, at his side. He said he could think of no reason Haleigh would be taken. "Why would ...