Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Political Issues

  • report

    Iraq Dominates News Landscape in First Six Months of 2007

    Summary of Findings In the first six months of 2007, the Iraq war has captivated the public’s interest and eclipsed most of the year’s other major news stories, including the 2008 presidential election, two major Washington political scandals, and news from other international trouble spots. Iraq has been the most closely followed news story in […]

  • report

    Global Unease With Major World Powers

    A 47-nation survey finds global public opinion increasingly wary of the world’s dominant nations and disapproving of their leaders. Anti-Americanism is extensive, as it has been for the past five years. At the same time, the image of China has slipped significantly among the publics of other major nations.

  • report

    Capital Punishment’s Constant Constituency: An American Majority

    (For more recent public opinion data on the death penalty, see a 2011 analysis.) by Robert Ruby, Senior Editor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life In the last 35 years, beginning with its temporary moratorium on the death penalty, the Supreme Court has changed its view of capital punishment and done so more than […]

  • fact sheet

    From the Ten Commandments to Christmas Trees: Public Religious Displays and the Courts

    For most of the nation’s history, public religious displays were not controversial. But in recent decades, a growing number of citizens and civil liberties groups have sued towns, cities and states over religious symbols in the public square, arguing that these displays should be removed because they violate the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishment […]

  • fact sheet

    Religious Displays and the Courts

    In a new series of occasional reports, “Religion and the Courts: The Pillars of Church-State Law,” the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life explores the complex, fluid relationship between government and religion. Among the issues to be examined are religion in public schools, displays of religious symbols on public property, conflicts concerning the free […]

  • transcript

    After Gonzales v. Carhart : The Future of Abortion Jurisprudence

    Washington, D.C. On April 18, 2007, the Supreme Court handed down a major ruling on abortion rights, upholding the constitutionality of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The 5-4 decision in the case, Gonzales v. Carhart, upheld for the first time a law that bans a specific abortion method, and it did so even though […]

  • report

    ’No Child Left Behind’ Gets Mixed Grades

    Summary of Findings As Congress prepares to debate reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, Americans express mixed views about the nation’s signature education law. Among those who have heard about the law, 34% say the law has made schools better; 26% say it has made schools worse; and 32% say it has had […]

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