My grandfather was a popular traditional healer. I vividly remember how patients with broken bones used to come from virtually allover West Nile to his humble wattle-and-mud-hut in Vurra, Arua Distric

A Fort Wayne [Indiana] schools official says the district likely will stop sending students to a religious-instruction program on school grounds that triggered a federal lawsuit. School Board Presi

The Church of England's ruling synod has decided that women bishops should be allowed, but there are further steps to take before they can be ordained. The General Synod has given minimal concessio

It’s one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own

For environmentalists, the BP oil spill may be disproving the maxim that great tragedies produce great change. Traditionally, American environmentalism wins its biggest victories after some importa

The sangoma takes a scoop of ground monkey paw, a pinch of squirrel fat, a dollop of treacly liquid, then dumps the mixture over tiny bones, stirs it all together, flings the glop onto a weathered pla

Once each week Visalia resident Joseph Nichter packs up his candles, incense and crystals and heads off to Avenal State Prison to minister to the prison yard. The former Army forward observer and I

It is perplexing that a public body such as the General Assembly would take great pains to invite ministers of different faiths to perform daily invocations, but insist on removing diversity from the

Bereaved families and survivors buried hundreds of victims of the Srebrenica massacre Sunday as world leaders demanded the arrest of the general whose troops killed the 8,000 Muslim males 15 years ago

While we've been dutifully eating our fruits and vegetables all these years, a strange thing has been happening to our produce. It's losing its nutrients. That's right: Today's conventionally grown pr

Thanks to the Mark Twain Foundation and its trustees, the PBS NewsHour brings you for the first known time in print an essay by the American literary giant on a topic dear to our hearts -- the journal

Most of us act hypocritically when going green, at least some of the time. Celebrities take a big hit with the most visible transgressions. John Travolta properly advocates against greenhouse gas emis

A Copper Age tribe may have enjoyed a primitive cinematic experience by making stone engravings in an echo-filled Alpine valley, researchers say. Torchlight and flickering shadows would have made t

Iran has imposed a media blackout over the case of a 43-year-old mother of two who was sentenced to be stoned to death and whose fate is still unclear despite an apparent "reprieve". Sakineh Mohamm

When Kelly Blanchard advocated to make oral contraceptives over the counter in a New York Times op-ed two weeks ago, she represented a decades-long movement among clinicians, researchers, and women’s-

The good thing overload comes in the form of two new content filters: GodBlock and the Ex-Blocker. In either case, the free software does pretty much what the name describes. The presentations, howeve

Erick Santero, the Latino musician and DJ, will bring what he calls a "multimedia and multidisciplinary performance" to the upcoming All Shook Down Festival in North Beach on July 25. Recently added

It is often seen as a hobby for geeks and those who enjoy a bit of solitude, although it does boast a celebrity fan in former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman. However, the metal detecting world was buzzin

A U.S. judge in Boston has ruled that a federal gay marriage ban is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage. U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro today ruled

A Fort Wayne third-grader’s parents have sued the school district, claiming she was sent to a religious instruction program on school grounds without their permission. The American Civil Liberties