Household gun ownership falls
Though the number of guns sold each year keeps climbing, the percentage of Americans who own guns has been falling steadily. In 1977, 54 percent of American adults lived in a household that contained a gun; today, 32 percent do. The decline reflects a population shift away from rural areas to urban areas, and the growth of the under-30 population, which has a much lower rate of gun ownership.
ThinkProgress.org
Employee access to defined-benefits pension plan
Eighty-four percent of state and local government employees have access to a defined-benefits pension plan, compared with only 20 percent of private-sector employees.
The Washington Times
A building boom in mosques
The number of mosques in the United States soared by 74 percent in the past decade, from 1,209 in 2000 to 2,106 in 2010, according to a new study. The study estimates that 2.6 million American Muslims regularly attend services.
USA Today
Mental disorders in the young
Four out of five people between the ages of 9 and 21 at least temporarily show some form of mental illness—including depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and addiction—according to a Duke University study of 1,420 children over 12 years. “We have to destigmatize the idea of mental disorder,” said study co-author E. Jane Costello. “We shouldn’t be surprised that the brain has problems, just like the rest of the body.”
Discover
Saudi Arabia nixes Olympics for women's team
Saudi Arabia has refused to send a women’s team to the Olympic Games in London this summer. The conservative Islamic nation considers women who exercise in public “shameless,” and in 2009 the government shut down 153 women’s gyms.
Time.com
