Free Republic

NEW YORK, May 2 (Reuters Life!) - Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans in 2005 felt a deep level of distrust towards public health authorities, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) said the level of distrust influenced how people reacted to warnings to evacuate and why some residents decided to stay. "The statements of distrust were all spontaneous statements," said Dr. Kristina Cordasco, the lead author of the study published in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL-- American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology. From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry. Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to...

THE TIMES CONTINUES TO UNRAVEL Our friend Caroline Baum found this item, reporting on an internal memo to staff from the Rocky Mountain News' editor/publisher/president John Temple, mandating new rules for the News' own reporters, but also regulating how they can re-use syndicated material from the New York Times. "...references to unnamed info-providers must be approved in advance 'by the managing editor or editor or, in their absence, the senior editor in charge of the newsroom' -- and the supervisor in question 'must also know the name of the source(s).' "More intriguing was Temple's newly declared policy in regard to...