When he first heard about a Vatican-sponsored course on exorcism for priests, journalist Matt Baglio was intrigued by the idea of this ancient ritual taking place in the modern world. In his new book The Rite, Baglio follows American priest Father Gary — sent to Rome to train as an exorcist — and his apprenticeship with Father Carmine. Baglio talked to TIME about belief, skeptical priests, and the particulars of the exorcism ritual. The thing that inspired this book ...

Ichiro Ozawa says that he's fond of working at practical things, that he "doesn't like to be showy on the stage." He had better get used to the limelight. If current polling trends continue and if — a big if — he can avoid a fatal taint from the latest of Japan's money-politics scandals, the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan could soon be Japan's next Prime Minister. An election for the lower house of the Diet has ...

Michael Steele assumed the Republican party chairmanship barely a month ago, promising vast changes to help the GOP successfully compete in 21st century America. One of his first forays in that quest occurred Friday night, when Steele came to DuPage County, an affluent Chicago suburb of nearly one million, where the largely Republican establishment is battling an increasingly potent Democratic Party. It's been a busy few weeks for Steele. Earlier this month, he drew headlines over a former aide's ...

The stock market crashed. Wall Street panicked. People stashed silver and gold under mattresses while businesses shut doors across America. We're talking, of course, about the Great Depression ... of 1873. That's the event that Scott Reynolds Nelson cites when asked to give an historical perspective on today's sputtering economy. The historian says the economic panic of 1873 started with the same toxic mix as today's crisis: risky mortgages, a stock market dive and the use of complex financial instruments ...

Terminal lung cancer patients are living longer thanks to the world's first registered lung cancer vaccine, a leading Cuban scientist says. Dr. Gisela Gonzalez has spent years researching the vaccine which the Cuban government approved for the use of the general public last year. Gonzalez and her team have worked on developing the CimaVax EGF vaccine at the Cuban Center of Molecular Immunology since the early 1990s. She says all those years of hard work have finally paid ...

Is it possible to cultivate genius? Could we somehow structure our educational and social life to produce more Einsteins and Mozarts — or, more urgently these days, another Adam Smith or John Maynard Keynes? How to produce genius is a very old question, one that has occupied philosophers since antiquity. In the modern era, Immanuel Kant and Darwin's cousin Francis Galton wrote extensively about how genius occurs. Last year, pop-sociologist Malcolm Gladwell addressed the subject in his book Outliers: The ...

Last year's gripping campaign and the wave of popularity behind Barack Obama have focused tremendous attention on the White House and the presidency. As the country marks Presidents Day, TIME spoke with author and historian Richard Norton Smith about America's "schizoid" relationship with its President, the lofty expectations for Obama and the way history's verdicts can shift over time. What interests you as a historian about our new President There is a theory, and I think it holds some credence, that ...

Classical musicians and music lovers believe that prized string instruments are enriched by the generations of virtuosi who have played on them. In the case of the great Cremonese instrument maker Antonio Stradivari, whose violins and cellos have been the choice of the world's best musicians for three centuries, this belief is coupled with the theory that Stradivari was an inimitable genius on the scale of Mozart and Beethoven. What else could explain why Stradivari's instruments remain the best in ...

The beautiful singer was about 30 years old when the world forgot about her. But now we know what she looks like for the first time in nearly 3,000 years. It's all thanks to one of the most sophisticated CT scanners in the world. Without even cracking open the Egyptian casket, you can now see the smallest details of the woman's features. Her skin, muscles and bones are intact. "Her eyes are set far apart, and she has a ...

The word of God is on the move in London — literally. Beginning Feb. 9, three separate Christian groups will launch advertisements on more than 200 of London's buses to convince pedestrians of God's existence. "It may be unpopular and unpleasant," says David Larlham, assistant general secretary of London's Trinitarian Bible Society, a group that distributes Bibles worldwide. "But there is a whole lot of truth in the Bible that people need to get to grips with." His organization has paid $50,000 to display posters on 125 ...