After years of controversy and opposition from local retailers, Wal-Mart this month is poised to open its first store in India, launching an expansion that will include 10 more big-box outlets in the potentially vast Indian market over the next two years. But Indian consumers won't be able to partake of Wal-Mart's everyday low prices. India's restrictive commercial laws prohibit most foreign companies from setting up shop to compete with domestic retailers. So Wal-Mart's debut outlet, which will open ...

In January, when Pope Benedict XVI reversed the 1988 excommunication of four bishops of an ultra-traditionalist Catholic group called the Society of St. Pius X , he probably knew it would ignite a firestorm. The church has significant unresolved problems with the society, among them its gross disobedience to the previous Pope. Benedict was determined to try to end a schism with a movement that exhibits a fervent piety he shares and is trying to encourage in Europe, where SSPX ...

Part of the power of social networking is the ability to form communities with like-minded individuals. But what happens when those communities are offensive to others That issue is at the heart of attempts by a Dallas, Texas, attorney to have social-networking site Facebook remove pages for Holocaust deniers. The Holocaust Denial movement seeks to deny or minimize the Holocaust, in which Nazis killed about six million European Jews during World War II. Attorney Brian Cuban, brother of ...

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 ...

Even at the beginning of the 20th century — before mass reproductions, package tours to France and The Da Vinci Code — Mona Lisa was different from other pictures. The woman with the enigmatic smile got so many love letters that her portrait was the only artwork at the Louvre to have its own mailbox. A heartbroken suitor once shot himself to death in front of her. So is it any surprise that somebody finally eloped with her On the ...

Forget the widely unloved redesign. Facebook has committed a greater offense. According to a new study by doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and her co-author Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University, college students who use the 200 million–member social network have significantly lower grade-point averages than those who do not. The study, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association on April 16, surveyed 219 undergraduate and graduate students and ...

The U.S. ship whose crew overcame a band of pirates off the coast of Somalia docked in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on Saturday, its sailors relieved to be safe but distraught over the fate of their captain, who remains captive in a lifeboat at sea. Soon after tugboats pushed the Maersk Alabama into port, crew members appeared at the stern of the ship to praise Capt. Richard Phillips. "He saved our lives!" said one man, identified by The ...

Nobody wants a death threat from Osama bin Laden. Still, Thursday's release of an audio message from the al-Qaeda supremo calling for Somalis to overthrow their new President, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, may be taken as a compliment in the world's most failed state. In an 11-minute message focused entirely on Somalia and entitled "Fight on, champions of Somalia," bin Laden claimed Sheik Sharif's appointment, which came after he was elected by Somali lawmakers on Jan. 31, was "induced by the American envoy ...

Pope Benedict XVI's opposition to condoms, even as a weapon to help combat the spread of AIDS, should surprise no one who knows anything about Catholic Church teachings. The 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, penned by Pope Paul VI, explicitly forbids contraception as denying the Creator's will that humans be fruitful and multiply. In the years since, despite scientific consensus that condoms greatly reduce the risk of contracting the HIV virus, nothing has budged at the Vatican. Any artificial contraception is ...

Tens of thousands of people packed a soccer stadium in Cameroon Thursday, including President Paul Biya and his wife, for the first large-scale mass of Pope Benedict XVI's first visit to Africa. Africa is the last continent that Benedict had left to visit, and one he could not avoid, said David Gibson, a biographer of the pope. "He knows he has to do this. He knows Africa is the future of the (Roman Catholic) Church, as it is for all ...