Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
With Election Day less than two weeks away, debates over the death penalty are heating up in gubernatorial races in California, Connecticut and Illinois. On Oct. 14, California GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, a staunch death penalty supporter, released a television ad attacking her Democratic opponent, California Attorney General Jerry Brown, for his position on […]
About 100 pastors across the country took part in “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” on Sept. 26 by endorsing political candidates during their sermons, ABC News reports. The event was organized as part of a protest against a provision in the Internal Revenue Code that bars houses of worship and other tax-exempt organizations from supporting or opposing […]
Nearly eight-in-ten registered voters (78%) say they received printed mail from candidates or political groups during the 2010 election campaign. Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) received pre-recorded telephone calls about the election. The number of people receiving recorded telephone calls grew steadily over the final few weeks of the campaign, increasing from 55% in mid-October, to 60% […]
Catholic bishops in Minnesota and Iowa have entered the pre-election fray over same-sex marriage. On Sept. 22, Catholic bishops in Minnesota mailed more than 400,000 DVDs to Catholics across the state in support of traditional marriage, according to the Star Tribune. Critics of the DVD campaign have said that the video amounts to an implicit […]
The mainstream media offer the American public a divided view of how information technology influences society, according to a new PEJ study. Messages such as technology making life easier often vie with concerns about privacy and safety. How do the media portray technology? Which companies get the most coverage? Do social media and blogs treat the subject differently than traditional media? A year-long study of technology coverage answers these and other questions.
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – the 17-year-old policy that bans gays from serving openly in the military – has become a heated issue in elections in Nevada, Missouri and Florida. The issue gained prominence in late May, when the Senate Armed Services Committee and the full House of Representatives voted to allow the Department of […]