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[Vinnie Frevert]

Crabapplewas not allowed to speak with Hadjarab directly, but she spoke with his attorney and reviewed documents about detainees that had been released by whistleblower Chelsea Manning. What she pieced together is a story emblematic of all that was cruel and arbitrary about Gitmo as an institution.

That lack of attention makes it easy to forget that more than two decades after its establishment as a detention camp for suspects in the War on Terror, 30 men are still being held at Guantnamo without having ever been put on trial.

This latest, horrifying news feels so emblematic of how Gitmo has functioned since its inception. The people inside can have their hopes for freedom twisted by the winds of fate, as a result of events purely outside of their control. Just as Nabil was subject to nearly a dozen years of hell just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time and was released by the sheer luck of having been featured in a high-profile piece of journalism, these current inmates are subject to forces entirely beyond their control.

A superb summer issue containing our "defense of graffiti," a dive into British imperialism, a look at the politics of privacy, the life of Lula, and a review of "the Capitalist Manifesto." Plus: see the Police Cruiser of the Future, read our list of the summer's top songs, and find out what to fill your water balloons with. It's packed with delights!

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Aside from news media use, demographic characteristics, especially education, continue to be strongly associated with how much Americans know about the larger world. However, despite the fact that education levels have risen dramatically over the past 20 years, public knowledge has not increased accordingly.

These are the principal findings of an in-depth Pew Research Center survey that interviewed a representative national sample of 1,502 adults between Feb.1-13, 2007. Respondents were asked to identify public figures who had recently been in the news. They also were asked questions that measured how much they knew about important and widely covered news events. Awareness of public figures varied widely.

Public knowledge of news events also varies widely. Nearly nine-in-ten (88%) knew that as part of his revised Iraq strategy, President Bush planned to increase U.S. military forces in the country. But only one-in-four Americans (24%) are aware that both houses of Congress passed legislation to increase the minimum wage and 34% knew that Congress voted to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour.

Distinct patterns emerge when these results are analyzed by key demographic groups. Education proves to be the single best predictor of knowledge. Holding all other factors equal, levels of knowledge rise with each additional year of formal schooling. At the extremes, these educational differences are dramatic: People with postgraduate degrees answer, on average, about 17 of the 23 questions correctly, while those who did not finish high school average only about eight correct answers.

As part of the Pew Knowledge Project, people are invited to test their own news IQ by taking an interactive knowledge quiz now available on the Pew Research Center website. The short quiz includes versions of the some of the same questions that were included in the national poll. Participants will instantly learn how they did on the quiz in comparison with the general public as well as with people like them. Take the quiz.

The results do not suggest possible explanations for the differences. Some of the gap may be explained by lucky guessing on the part of people who heard the correct choice along with some incorrect alternatives. Or perhaps asking people to volunteer an answer causes some to grow anxious and momentarily forget the right answer, or simply to say they do not know in order to hurry the interview along.

Traditionally, men are more likely than women to say they closely follow politics and international affairs, and the results of the knowledge survey appear to reflect this divide. Nearly half of all men (45%) score in the top third, compared with 25% of women. Among those at the bottom third of the scale, women (42%) outnumber men (26%). Whites are more likely to be represented in the top group, while a larger proportion of blacks than whites (44% vs. 31%) fall into the low-knowledge group.

More affluent Americans also are disproportionately represented in the high-knowledge group, a difference that held even after level of schooling, age, gender and race were taken into consideration in the analysis. A clear majority (55%) of those with household incomes of $100,000 or more are among the third of the sample that knew the most, compared with just 14% of those with household incomes of $20,000 or less.

Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to be represented in the high-knowledge group. But significantly fewer Republicans (26%) than Democrats (31%) fall into the third of the public that knows the least.

The survey also suggests that people who know more about politics and world events also tend to correctly identify popular celebrities. For example, nearly eight-in-ten respondents (78%) in the high-knowledge group could identify football star Peyton Manning, compared with 45% of those in the low-knowledge group. Similarly, those conversant with politics and world affairs also are more likely to correctly describe singer and actress Beyonce Knowles. While based on only two questions, these finding do suggest that more informed people may know a bit about a wide variety of subjects, including pop culture.

Some demographic groups also did comparatively better on questions that broadly resonated with group members. For example, the survey found that blacks generally lagged behind whites in terms of their overall political knowledge. But African Americans had no trouble recognizing either Rice or Obama: 70% of all blacks and 66% of whites could identify Rice, and both races did about equally well identifying the Illinois senator. Other results suggest that women were somewhat more likely to know more about domestic politics than they did about international affairs, while men were more likely to know about as much on both subjects.

More informed Americans enjoy keeping up with the news, believe they have a personal stake in what goes on in Washington, and are significantly more likely to be registered to vote than people who know less, the survey found.

Among those in the third of the sample who know the most, the overwhelming majority (90%) are registered to vote compared with about half (53%) of the least knowledgeable Americans. The knowledgeable public also is more likely to see issues debated in Washington as having a direct impact on their lives (73% vs. 59%).

For example, 74% of those with college degrees answered at least four questions correctly this year, compared with 80% in 1989. A similar pattern emerged among those who had attended college for at least a year but did not graduate: 51% in 2007 but 59% in 1989 got at least four questions right. Among those with no more than a high school diploma, the proportion getting four or five answers right declined 11 percentage points to 30%.

Conservatives and Republicans are especially attracted to Limbaugh, while more Democrats are found among the audiences for the NewsHour, the comedy news shows, news magazines, and the websites of major newspapers.

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The ways Canadians use to get information on political and social issues, and the frequency at which they do so, have changed considerably in the past decade. Moreover, generational gaps have widened in terms of the frequency of consumption and the types of media used. In particular, Canadians are following news and current affairs less frequently than in the past.

The title of the graph is "Chart 1 Frequency of following news and current affairs, 2003 and 2013."

This is a column clustered chart.

There are in total 3 categories in the horizontal axis. The vertical axis starts at 0 and ends at 80 with ticks every 10 points.

There are 2 series in this graph.

The vertical axis is "percentage."

The horizontal axis is "Frequency of following news and current affairs."

The title of series 1 is "2003."

The minimum value is 7 and it corresponds to "Rarely or never."

The maximum value is 68 and it corresponds to "Daily."

The title of series 2 is "2013."

The minimum value is 13 and it corresponds to "Rarely or never."

The maximum value is 60 and it corresponds to "Daily."

In general, older Canadians are more likely to follow news and current affairs daily. In 2013, 81% of Canadians aged 55 years and older reported following them daily, compared with 37% of Canadians aged 15 to 34 years.

The magnitude of the difference between younger and older Canadians has increased over time, which is attributable to a higher proportion of youth reporting that they rarely or never followed news and current affairs.

People with a higher level of education are more inclined to follow news and current affairs regularly. However, Canadians aged 55 and older, regardless of their level of education, followed news more frequently than other age groups

For example, among people aged 55 and older with less than a high school diploma, 79% followed news and current affairs daily. In comparison, 60% of university graduates aged 25 to 54 followed news and current affairs daily.

In terms of trends, the frequency at which people followed news and current affairs declined more rapidly among university graduates aged 25 to 54 than among their older counterparts. For example, the proportion of university graduates aged 25 to 54 who rarely or never followed news and current affairs tripled during the period, from 3% to 9% (Table 1).

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