Pew on the “Great Divide”: T
he Pew Global Attitudes Project has just released a new survey on how Westerners and Muslims view each other—taking opinions in 13 nations to gather the information. A rare point of agreement between the two groups is that both believe Muslim nations should be more economically prosperous than they are today, but each group sees the problem differently. Westerners point to government corruption, lack of education and fundamentalism as the biggest obstacles to prosperity, where Muslims are much more likely than Westerners to blame Western policies. The bottom line appears to be that both sides believe relations are “generally bad,” but they lack consensus on how to fix the matter.
Gene Smith, Former POW and AFA Chair, Dies at 91
Jan. 19, 2026
Lt. Col. Richard “Gene” Smith, who overcame five and a half years as a prisoner of war in the notorious Hanoi Hilton from 1967 until 1973, died Jan. 16. He was one day short of his 91st birthday.
