Chinese Counting On Lucky Number 8

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Eight is a lucky number in China. The word for it -- ba -- sounds so close to the word for wealth that many people believe eight is a number that is linked to prosperity.

So it is no surprise that the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games begin at 8:08:08 p.m. on 8/8/08.

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Minn. Baby Born 8/8/08 At 8:08; 8 Pounds, 8 Ounces

Big Day Set For Big-Bang Machine

The countdown to the startup of the world's most powerful particle collider has begun with today's announcement that the first beam of protons will be sent all the way through the 17-mile-round Large Hadron Collider on Sept. 10.

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Switching On First Neutrons At UK's ISIS Second Target Station

Do They Really Think The Earth Is Flat?

In the 21st Century, the term "flat-earther" is used to describe someone who is spectacularly - and seemingly wilfully - ignorant. But there is a group of people who claim they believe the planet really is flat. Are they really out there or is it all an elaborate prank?

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Martian Life Or Not? NASA's Phoenix Team Analyzes Results

ScienceDaily -- Describing the latest findings from the Red Planet as "neither good nor bad for life," Phoenix Mars mission scientists spoke Aug. 5 on research in progress concerning an ongoing investigation of perchlorate salts detected in soil analyzed by the wet chemistry laboratory aboard NASA's Phoenix Lander.

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Is There Life On Jupiter's Moon Europa?

Jupiter, Saturn Full Of Liquid Metal Helium

Clumps And Streams Of Dark Matter In Milky Way?

Is our universe fine-tuned for life?

Is The Cross Christian? Is The Pope Catholic?

Humanists today informed the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that "The Latin cross is an inherently religious symbol." This statement appears in a friend-of-the-court brief, filed today in American Atheists vs. Duncan by the Appignani Humanist Legal Center of the American Humanist Association on behalf of the Association, the Society for Humanistic Judaism, and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

The controversy concerns what humanists consider an obvious fact, as denied by the Utah Highway Patrol defendants, who argue that the Latin cross becomes a secular symbol of death and remembrance when used as part of a memorial on public property for fallen law enforcement officers.

"The reasonable observer in this case would view the twelve-foot-tall Latin crosses on public property as government endorsement of religion," the humanist brief adds, which seeks reversal of the lower, district court decision.

"For too long the courts have hidden behind sham secular purposes to circumvent the protections afforded by the Establishment Clause. The Christian crosses at issue in this case are too large for the 10th Circuit not to see their inherently religious purpose," said Bob Ritter, legal coordinator of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center.

The Appignani Humanist Legal Center participates in litigation in church-state separation cases that directly affect humanists. The group also stands up for the rights of humanists, as in a recent case, successfully completed, involving the firing of a humanist college instructor.

"To use the most obvious, prominent Christian symbol to honor the fallen is divisive," said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. "By adopting the symbol of one faith, this government excludes all others, including the millions of humanists, Buddhists, Hindus, pagans, and other non-Christian Americans. The cross memorial is unconstitutional and we'll continue to fight to have it removed."

Those signing on to the humanist brief, along with the original atheist litigants, seek the replacement of the roadside crosses with religiously-neutral memorial markers.

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Cross Is Central Symbol Of Christianity And Must Not Be Secularized By Government, Americans United Tells Court

IRS Should Investigate Tennessee Church For Pulpit Politicking, Says Americans United

The Internal Revenue Service should investigate a Tennessee church whose pastor endorsed three school board candidates from the pulpit, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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VA Immune From Challenge Over Religion

A 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago ruled on Tuesday that the Freedom From Religion Foundation and its three taxpayer plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge the incorporation of religion into all aspects of healthcare by the Veterans Administration.

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Americans United Deplores Florida Court's Decision Allowing Deceptive Amendments On November Ballot

Americans United for Separation of Church and State will appeal Leon Circuit Judge John Cooper's decision to allow two amendments on Florida's November ballot that could erase religious freedom safeguards and harm public schools in the state.

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Atheists Bond During 'De-Baptism'

"The de-baptism doesn't have any magical or supernatural aspect," event organizer Ashley Paramore said. "It's just symbolic and a way to out themselves."

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Mega-Preacher's Wife Sued Over Loss Of Faith

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- She's the wife of a renowned evangelical pastor and one of the leaders of a Houston megachurch, but Victoria Osteen is being accused of behavior that wasn't very Christian.

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Poll Finds 58% For Evolution

A majority of Canadians believe in the theory of evolution while about one in five accept creationism....

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Anglican Church Gay Row Heats Up

Last week, 670 bishops of the Anglican Communion returned from the Lambeth Conference outside London to their dioceses around the world, their faith fortified by 19 days of prayer and theological debate and buoyed by relief that the once-a-decade meeting had passed off with little public acrimony or mention of schisms.

But just days later, the patient efforts of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the man charged with holding the Anglican church together despite huge internal differences over the issue of gay clergy, lay in tatters following the leak of letters to the London Times newspaper that show where Williams' own sympathies lie on the matter.

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Knights Templar Heirs In Legal Battle With The Pope

The heirs of the Knights Templar have launched a legal battle in Spain to force the Pope to restore the reputation of the disgraced order which was accused of heresy and dissolved seven centuries ago.

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Saudi Super Lawyer Sues Religious Police

Al Lahim, a young attorney who has tackled some of Saudi Arabia's most important human rights cases, is doing the unprecedented: he is suing the religious police, agents of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, who have long been considered off-limits despite ongoing complaints of their abuse of power.

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Sing out sisters

Islamic Group Issues New Olympic Threat

(AP) A Chinese Islamic group that has threatened to attack the Beijing Olympics released a new video warning Muslims to avoid being on planes, trains and buses with Chinese at the games, a U.S. group that monitors militant organizations said Thursday.

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Attackers in western China kill 16 border officers

200 Pro-Taliban Militants Attack Pakistan Post

KHAR, Pakistan - An attack on a Pakistani military checkpost by some 200 pro-Taliban militants triggered intense fighting that killed 25 insurgents and two paramilitary soldiers near the Afghan border, security officials said Thursday.

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Pakistan coalition to pursue Musharraf impeachment

Musharraf in the Crosshairs

Pakistan Coalition cranks up pressure on Musharraf

Pakistani mum extradited to US on terror charges

Officials: 25 militants killed in Pakistan

A Ragtag Pursuit Of The Taliban

The United States has spent about $6.2 billion since 2002 to transform Afghanistan's national police into a bulwark against the Taliban and other Islamist fighters. About 730 American military advisers have been deployed to help train and equip the force. But as of this spring, not a single one of the 433 police units that have received the training has been judged fully capable of handling its mission or the Taliban threat, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

Across Afghanistan, meanwhile, roadside bombs have become more frequent and firefights have grown fiercer. In May and June, more foreign troops were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq. Seven years after the United States began its fight against the Taliban, the insurgency is proving more resilient.

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American Deaths In Afghanistan Reach 500

Executions Display Taliban's Rising Power

Afghan War Edges Out Iraq as Most Important for U.S.

Afghan children raped with 'impunity,' U.N. official says

Iraqi Army Is Willing, But Not Ready, To Fight

While Americans and Iraqi civilians alike are increasingly eager to see combat operations turned over to the Iraqi Army, interviews with more than a dozen Iraqi soldiers and officers in Diyala Province, at the outset of a large-scale operation against insurgents led by Iraqis but backed by Americans, reveal a military confident of its progress but unsure of its readiness.

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Radical Iraq Cleric in Retreat

What to Do with the 'Sons of Iraq'

Squatters in Iraqi buildings fear they'll soon be on the street

Farming Is Latest Casualty In Drought-Stricken Iraq

3 women held in Iraq suicide bomb plots

2 U.S. troops killed by Iraq roadside bomb

Iraq's new venture: Holidays in the Garden of Eden

U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts Flounder In North Africa, GAO Says

Federal agencies agree that terrorist activity in North Africa presents a growing security threat to U.S. interests. Vast ungoverned spaces, porous borders and groups aligned with al Qaeda have raised concerns about the area becoming a safe haven for terrorists to launch attacks against the United States. But the agencies most responsible for implementing a key counterterrorism partnership program -- the State and Defense departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development -- can't seem to agree on how to implement policy there.

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Bin Laden Driver Could Be Held By U.S. After Sentence

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (CNN) -- A jury of six military officers Thursday sentenced Osama bin Laden's former driver to five-and-a-half years in prison after his conviction on charges of providing material support to al Qaeda.

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Germany: Bin Laden is 'Che Guevara of al Qaeda'