CNN's Paula Zahn Now investigates: "Is Sen. Barack Obama's church racist?"

At the end of the April 2 edition of CNN's Paula Zahn Now, guest host Rick Sanchez teased the April 3 program, saying: "Is Senator Barack Obama's church racist? A question a lot of people are asking." As Media Matters for America documented, several conservative media figures have attacked Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, as "separatist" and a "cult." A February 6 Chicago Tribune article reported that "conservative critics have seized on Trinity's 12-point Black Value System, especially the portion relating to 'middleclassness,' as evidence that Obama is a divisive candidate who rejects mainstream American values and is primarily focused on the black community."

On Trinity's website, pastor Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. recently addressed conservative attacks on the church: "To have a church whose theological perspective starts from the vantage point of Black liberation theology being its center, is not to say that African or African American people are superior to any one else."

From the April 2 edition of CNN's Paula Zahn Now:

SANCHEZ: Something else we've got to leave you with tonight. If you thought your Monday was a bummer, talk to the folks in Hilliard, Ohio. An escaped prison inmate literally crashed into their neighborhood while trying to outrun the police officers. As these amazing pictures show, he ran over to a house and then smashed the door.

A woman inside literally rolled -- here it is, watch this right here, ready? She rolls off, there it goes, boom, rolls off the rooftop. The guy took another woman hostage. This is crazy, he eventually let her go.

And then finally, thank goodness, he gave up.

"Out in the Open" tomorrow. Is Senator Barack Obama's church racist? A question a lot of people are asking.

—S.S.M.