Short Reads

About half of Americans believe it is essential for the president and Congress to enact major immigration legislation this year.

Twitter's announcement on Sept. 12 that it planned to go public with an initial public offering follows seven years of growth in the user of the social media platform.

A short history of the financial crisis that exploded five years ago, in one chart.

This Sunday is “National Back to Church Sunday,” a coordinated effort by more than 20,000 churches of various Christian denominations to reach out to people who rarely attend worship services. The percentage of Americans who say they “seldom” or “never” attend religious services (aside from weddings and funerals) has risen modestly in the past decade. […]

The federal debt ceiling is nearly $16.7 trillion.

Americans have a pretty good sense of how well different aspects of the economy have -- and haven't -- recovered from the Great Recession.

As the U.S. explores a Russian plan for securing Syria's chemical weapons arsenal, it does so at a time when the American public is skeptical about Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin.

The average gap between the proportion of men and women who use social media

Supporters of gun-rights tend to feel more strongly about their position, and more willing to act on it politically, than backers of gun-control legislation.

A federal judge ruled this week that the clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch wrongly fired a Muslim employee in San Mateo, Calif., for wearing a headscarf. About six-in-ten Muslim American women (59%) say they wear the headcover (or hijab) at least some of the time, including 36% who say they wear it whenever they are in public.