After experiencing several years of severe weather, including extreme heat, droughts and tornadoes in unusual locations, it seems the public has finally come around to the idea of global warming.

A poll released on Wednesday reveals many Americans believe the wild weather of late has been magnified due to global warming. The majority of Americans believe the weather has been getting worse, by a margin of 2 to 1.

This survey is the most detailed of its kind, measuring the public’s response to the weather extremes. In conjecture with this study is another poll showing increasing concern about climate change. Combined, it can be safely assumed the public now views global warming as a very real threat instead of a theory.

These findings are the result of a long-term project at Yale University.

A new Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program report released Thursday lists which metropolitan areas' housing policies most severely impede low-income students from attending high-performing schools, and found that zoning laws preventing the construction of affordable housing in wealthier neighborhoods are still widespread.

The report, "Housing Costs, Zoning, and Access to High-Scoring Schools," concludes that restrictive zoning laws create "economic segregation that prevents millions of American children from getting the quality education they need." The paper, written by Brookings senior research analyst Jonathan Rothwell, notes that in some cities, paying for private school is actually cheaper than moving to enroll in a better public school.

Public universities nationwide are facing challenging decisions in response to budget cuts. In the current economic climate, university administrators must consider the long-term implications of their decisions. These decisions will greatly impact the future of these institutions and the quality of research and education they provide. For example, at the University of Florida (UF), Dean Cammy Abernathy needs to cut $1.7 million from the College of Engineering budget. Her proposed solution is to dismantle the computer science department. The department's graduate and research programs would be transferred to marginally-related departments. All funding for teaching assistants would be eliminated, and the computer science department would transform into a teaching-only department.

The First Amendment gets my awed support three times over. As a U.S. citizen anyway... as a journalist... and as an immigrant from England.

It's piquant for me that England's enforced conformity of religious belief was what drove my 1,620 predecessors to make their transatlantic escape. And that such religious oppression was so specifically outlawed 170 years later in the Bill of Rights, along with any attack on freedom of expression generally.

So it's been intriguing for me lately to follow at close quarters a First Amendment story that has not made the front pages, or figured on national news broadcasts.

Millionaire atheist Todd Stiefel is on a godless mission — literally. The businessman-turned full-time atheist activist is devoting his life to the dissemination of freethought and to the righting of what he sees as discriminatory wrongs against members of the atheist, agnostic and freethinking community.

The Blaze recently interviewed the multimillionaire to gain perspective on his work and to better understand his role in the growth and increasing organization of the secularist movement.

(COMMENTS WARNING: Far-right conservative site.)

As the U.S. House and Senate races in Hawaii continue to take shape, it’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the legislative attacks across the country against the right of women to make their own reproductive choices.
These cringe-worthy attacks have been turning the airwaves into toxic waste sites for bills that propose to do everything from repeal abortion rights, to limit women’s access to birth control, to insert governmental control into women’s bodies.

International surveys about the depth of people's belief in God reveal vast differences among nations, ranging from 94 percent of people in the Philippines who said they always believed in God, compared to only 13 percent of people in the former East Germany. Yet the surveys found one constant—belief in God is higher among older people, regardless of where they live.

This Friday, students all over America will choose to remain quiet in school. They’ll be participating in the Day of Silence, an annual event designed to protest the bias and bullying that often silences gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students.

The premise behind the event is simple: Students attend classes but do not speak for the entire day. The Day of Silence isn’t sponsored by the schools. It’s run by students, often through a Gay-Straight Alliance Club that many schools now have. (Ironically, these clubs exist thanks to a federal law backed by Religious Right groups, which were eager to get Christian clubs into public schools.)

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have made the advancement of women’s rights a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. As Secretary Clinton has stated on numerous occasions, empowering women globally is one of the surest ways to create favorable outcomes in poverty alleviation, economic growth, and a country’s general prosperity.