Pew Research Center Staff

A plurality of the public believes that gays and lesbians face “a lot” of bias — roughly double the proportions that see widespread discrimination against blacks or Hispanics.

Asked to state what race they are (black; white; Asian; some other race) and told they could choose as many categories as they wished, just 1% of Americans identified with more than one category.

Nearly twice as many blacks now as in 2007 say that the “situation of black people in this country” is better than it was five years earlier.

That’s the percentage of Muslim Americans who say they consider themselves Muslims first; 28% say they think of themselves first as Americans.

A substantial minority of Muslims in Nigeria say that violence against civilians in defense of Islam can sometimes or often be justified.

As Americans begin a new year, nearly six-in-ten say this decade will be better than the last 10 years.

By roughly two-to-one, more say they have a generally negative rather than a generally positive impression of the 2000s.

17% of teens who pay for all of the costs associated with their cell phones send sexually suggestive images via text.

15% of cell-owning teens ages 12-17 say they have received sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images of someone they know via text messaging.

About one-third of the countries in the world — 64 nations — have high or very high restrictions on religion.