Survey

New figures from Gallup place President Obama's reelection bid in a precarious gray zone between the one-term exit of presidents like George H.W. Bush, and successful second-term victories like those of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Combining Obama's job approval rating with several evaluations of public sentiment on the economy, Gallup's indicators show that the president is performing better than he was just a year ago, but his numbers are nonetheless lackluster compared with those of his predecessors.

Half of Americans say it's easier to do their taxes than it is to figure out how to eat healthfully - and 23% described their diets as extremely or very unhealthful, according to an annual survey conducted by an industry-supported nonprofit group and released on Wednesday. Taste trumps all, with 87% of people calling that the No. 1 factor in their decisions about buying food and beverages. Price (73%), healthfulness (61%) and convenience (53%) followed. (Price was more important for consumers younger than 50, healthfulness for those who are older.)

Some good buys for your health and your pocketbook: Buy fresh fruits and vegetables in season. Buy frozen otherwise. Frozen is cheaper and may even be better for you than fresh. That's because produce is usually frozen at its ripest, which is usually when it maxes out in nutrient content too. Some nutrients do break down or leach out in the freezing process, but most make it through.

WASHINGTON - Joan Miró, the great Spanish painter of dreams and symbols, lived through so many harrowing eras of the 20th century that critics believe his masterpieces surely reflect the tensions of political events in one way or another. But Miró's world of art was so special - with stars and moons, biomorphs and delightful dogs and sly monsters and wonderful color - that it has always been difficult to find much politics there. An exhibition that just arrived at the National Gallery of Art - "Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape" - makes a spirited attempt to find and explore the politics.

A new study showing an estimated 7% of American teens and adults carry the human papillomavirus in their mouths may help health experts finally understand why rates of mouth and throat cancer have been climbing for nearly 25 years. The evidence makes it clear that oral sex practices play a key role in transmission. The new data, published online Thursday by the Journal of the American Medical Assn., are the first to assess the prevalence of oral HPV infection in the U.S. population.

CINCINNATI - The Rev. Chris Beard is a theological conservative, make no mistake about it. He believes the Bible is the word of God. He believes the Holy Spirit speaks to him directly. He believes, as an article of faith, that abortion and same-sex marriage are wrong. Still, when a group of religious leaders in Ohio held two days of meetings in Cincinnati recently to talk about economic and racial justice, issues usually associated with the political left, there was Beard, a fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher with a disarming smile, a shaved head and a set of convictions that knock holes in the stereotypes about white evangelical Protestants.

Today, a century and a half after Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," the overwhelming majority of scientists in the United States accept Darwinian evolution as the basis for understanding how life on Earth developed. But although evolutionary theory is often portrayed as antithetical to religion, it has not destroyed the religious faith of the scientific community. According to a survey of members of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center in May and June this year, a majority of scientists (51%)

A new survey of New Jersey voters comes to a provocative conclusion: Fox News viewers tend to be less informed about current events than those who don't watch any news at all. Fairleigh Dickinson University recently questioned 612 adults in New Jersey about how they get their news, offering as options traditional outlets like newspapers and local and national television news, or blogs, websites and even Comedy Central's "The Daily Show. " They then asked a series of factual questions about the major events of the last year, from the "Arab Spring" to the Republican race for president.

WASHINGTON -- Over the last couple of decades, the percentage of people willing to answer a telephone survey has plummeted -- both in the United States and abroad. The drop has led many to wonder whether polls can still reliably tell us much about public opinion. A new study from the Pew Research Center , one of the country's best-known polling operations, provides some reassurance on that score -- but also some questions. For anyone who spends time looking at polls in this election year, the results are important to know.

About 7.5 million active Facebook users are skirting the company's age policy by lying about their age, saying they are 13 or older. Among those preteens, more than 5 million are under 10, according to a Consumer Reports survey. That violates Facebook's own policy, meant to avoid federal regulations that apply to websites with young members. Those regulations require people who sign up to be at least 13, the report says. The minors' accounts "were largely unsupervised by their parents, exposing them to malware or serious threats such as predators and bullies," according to a Consumer Reports statement.

Americans plan to travel in slightly higher numbers this summer, according to surveys, starting with the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. But many will hold the line on spending for items such as hotel stays and entertainment because of high fuel costs and rising airfares. An annual survey by the American Automobile Assn. released Tuesday predicted that 34.8 million Americans will travel by all modes at least 50 miles from home during the holiday weekend, a 1.2% increase over last year.

WASHINGTON -- Over the last couple of decades, the percentage of people willing to answer a telephone survey has plummeted -- both in the United States and abroad. The drop has led many to wonder whether polls can still reliably tell us much about public opinion. A new study from the Pew Research Center , one of the country's best-known polling operations, provides some reassurance on that score -- but also some questions. For anyone who spends time looking at polls in this election year, the results are important to know.

Although the technology is just in its infancy, 1 in 5 drivers expresses interest in cars that drive themselves, reports research firm J.D. Power and Associates. Tech giant Google Inc., Caltech and other organizations have been working to develop such "autonomous" vehicles, which use radar, video cameras and lasers to navigate roads and stay safe in traffic without human assistance. Google has said that computer-controlled cars should eventually drive more safely than humans, who, after all, get sleepy and distracted and can't see in every direction at once.

The results are in from our wholly unscientific weekend survey , and though they don't provide much of a clue as to the presidential race, they at least show whom voters trust to feel their iPhone pain. Close to 550 people answered at least part of the grueling 15-question survey, and nearly 400 made it all the way through. (Note to self: limit next survey to six questions.) The survey asked voters which candidate was most likely to share certain concerns or take certain actions on the economy or world affairs.

This post has been updated, as indicated below. A recent telephone poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News asked voters to rank President Obama and his presumptive GOP opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, on a number of personal factors, such as likability and concern for the middle class. The findings showed that voters favored Obama on far more of the factors than Romney, although a large percentage of the voters were undecided. The poll was probably done in a statistically defensible fashion, but the questions it posed seemed to leave too much open to interpretation.

WASHINGTON -- With the future of the healthcare law emerging as a major campaign issue this fall, a new survey has found that more than a quarter of adults ages 19 to 64 in the United States lacked health insurance for at least some time in 2011. And the vast majority of those people - nearly 70 percent - had been without coverage for more than a year, according to the study by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, a leading authority on health policy. The holes in health insurance were a driving force in President Obama's push for the controversial healthcare overhaul he signed in 2010.

Apple's iPad has, so far, defined and dominated the tablet market. And despite the rise of rival tablets eating into Apple's market share , the iPad will remain the top tablet of choice for most businesses, according to a new survey. The research firm ChangeWave spoke with 1,604 businesses last month and 22% said they were planning on purchasing tablets for their employees sometime in the next three months. Of the companies ChangeWave spoke with, 84% said the tablet they would buy would be an iPad, up seven percentage points from a survey the company took in November.

Big financial institutions continue to foreclose on troubled borrowers in error -- either while a homeowner is awaiting a loan modification or because of fees incorrectly added to the seizure -- according to a national survey of attorneys representing borrowers. One intent of the recent $25-billion mortgage settlement among attorneys general, the nation's five largest mortgage servicers and certain federal agencies was to do away with such errors, but in recent weeks consumer advocates have raised concerns that borrowers who are in the foreclosure process may still be harmed.

The latest survey on bank satisfaction from  J.D. Power researchers in Westlake Village has new details about how customers think fees stink and also ranks California's best-loved banks. As you might guess, they are not major U.S. financial institutions. In first place for the second year is Raboban k , a Dutch giant that has branched out into many California agricultural centers. Rabobank , a specialist in farm lending (it puts out news releases about nut sales )

Forty percent of surveyed employees at Los Angeles County's troubled child welfare agency improperly received mileage reimbursements from taxpayers on days they did not work, according to a sample of reimbursement reports for 20 employees with high mileage claims examined by the county auditor-controller. Thirteen supervisors responsible for signing off on the reports acknowledged that they routinely did not review them first, the study found. The majority of reviewed reports vastly overstated the distance between travel points, and nearly half the reviewed reimbursement requests lacked basic information.