The politically aware, digitally savvy and those more trusting of the news media fare better; Republicans and Democrats both influenced by political appeal of statements

@ Pew Research Center, June 18

[....] A new Pew Research Center survey of 5,035 U.S. adults examines a basic step in that process: whether members of the public can recognize news as factual – something that’s capable of being proved or disproved by objective evidence – or as an opinion that reflects the beliefs and values of whoever expressed it.

The findings from the survey, conducted between Feb. 22 and March 8, 2018, reveal that even this basic task presents a challenge. The main portion of the study, which measured the public’s ability to distinguish between five factual statements and five opinion statements, found that a majority of Americans correctly identified at least three of the five statements in each set. But this result is only a little better than random guesses. Far fewer Americans got all five correct, and roughly a quarter got most or all wrong. Even more revealing is that certain Americans do far better at parsing through this content than others. Those with high political awareness, those who are very digitally savvy and those who place high levels of trust in the news media are better able than others to accurately identify news-related statements as factual or opinion [....]

By Jeff Cox @ CNBC.com., June 18

• Foreign governments have pared back their holdings of U.S. debt, reducing the total by nearly $10 billion in March and April.
• Russia was notable among the group stepping back with a nearly 50 percent cut.
• The U.S. government needs buyers of its debt as the Fed continues to reduce its holdings and the budget deficit is projected to surge in coming years.

A perfect storm of political upheaval has led to the resurgence of a label with centuries-old roots.

By Derek Robertson @ Politico Magazine, June 16

"I really call myself a classical liberal more than a conservative.”

Protests like the above have become common as of late from certain quadrants of the self-proclaimed, free-thinking “Intellectual Dark Web,” a loose confederacy of free speech absolutists that includes figures like the atheist writer Sam Harris and Peter Thiel sidekick Eric Weinstein. The “classical liberal” label has until now mostly been the domain of libertarian types and conservatives on the never-Trump end of the spectrum, such as Bill Kristol and much of the National Review staff, who are eager to root themselves in a tradition that connects the Founding Fathers to conservative philosophical icon Edmund Burke. Its recent surge in popularity, however, has come from twin phenomena—those conservatives’ intensifying desire to distance themselves from a Trump-ified Republican Party, and the term’s discovery by that new clique of anti-PC voices placing themselves in opposition to the supposedly illiberal campus left [....]

By Avery Anapol @ TheHill.com, June 17

Former first lady Laura Bush tore into the Trump administration for separating migrant families at the border, calling the “zero tolerance” policy “cruel” and “immoral.”

Bush penned an op-ed for the Washington Post, which was published Sunday night as public outcry over the hundreds of children in detention centers intensified.

“I live in a border state,” Bush wrote. “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.” [.....]

By Kate Gibson @ Money Watch @ CBS.com, June 14

[....] Even with some states hiking pay for those earning the least, there is still nowhere in the country where a person working a full-time minimum wage job can afford to rent a decent two-bedroom apartment, according to an annual report released Wednesday by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Even the $15 hourly wage touted by labor activists would not be enough to make housing affordable in the overwhelming majority of states, the coalition found. Nationally, someone would need to make $17.90 an hour to rent a modest one-bedroom or $22.10 an hour to cover a two-bedroom place.

Renters across the country earn an average hourly rate of $16.88, the report estimated, a finding that illustrates how even folks earning more than the minimum wage scramble to pay for housing.

The findings are based on the standard budgeting concept of not spending more than 30 percent of one's income on housing [....]

The most famous psychological studies are often wrong, fraudulent, or outdated. Textbooks need to catch up. 

By Brian Resnick @ Vox.com, June 13

[....] The Stanford Prison Experiment has been included in many, many introductory psychology textbooks and is often cited uncritically. It’s the subject of movies, documentaries, books, television shows, and congressional testimony.

But its findings were wrong. Very wrong. And not just due to its questionable ethics or lack of concrete data — but because of deceit.

A new exposé published by Medium based on previously unpublished recordings of Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford psychologist who ran the study, and interviews with his participants, offers convincing evidence that the guards in the experiment were coached to be cruel. It also shows that the experiment’s most memorable moment — of a prisoner descending into a screaming fit, proclaiming, “I’m burning up inside!” — was the result of the prisoner acting. “I took it as a kind of an improv exercise,” one of the guards told reporter Ben Blum. “I believed that I was doing what the researchers wanted me to do." [....]

By Hannah Fingerhut @ Factank @ PewResearch.org, June 14 with charts

A majority of Americans continue to say the United States is a better place to live as a result of its growing racial and ethnic diversity.

About six-in-ten U.S. adults (58%) say that having an increasing number of people of different races, ethnic groups and nationalities in the U.S. makes the country a better place to live; just 9% say it makes the country a worse place to live, while about three-in-ten (31%) say it doesn’t make much difference either way, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in April and May. These attitudes are only modestly changed from last year.

There remain wide differences in these views by party and ideology [....]

continuing with more in depth detailed stats 

Photographer Aubrey Wade focuses lens on refugees and French hosts.

By Farha Bhoyroo @ UNHCR.org/UK, June 11 More photos @ link

PARIS, France – After fleeing persecution for being gay in his native Mali, Louis found the moral support and understanding he long sought with Armand and Christophe, a couple who kindly agreed to host him in their Parisian flat.

Armand and Christophe are among many ordinary citizens across Europe who have opened hearts and homes to refugees, in contrast to some governments and politicians who have called for tighter borders.

No Stranger Place is a photo series developed and photographed by photographer Aubrey Wade in partnership with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to highlight these acts of compassion. After London, Berlin, Vienna and Stockholm, the exhibition is now on display at Ground Control in Paris [....]