TRUTH OUT: There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship – the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded…

1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren’t activated, you aren’t alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don’t think rationally. And when they can’t think rationally, they’ll believe anything.

From ALJAZEERA: Central Japan Railway has been testing the latest version of its magnetically levitated Maglev train, the fastest ground-moving vehicle in the world. Connecting Tokyo to Osaka, the train will travel the 514km distance in only 67 minutes. The train has a record speed of 581kph.

From the HUFFPOST: A law enforcement official tells The Associated Press that the accuser in the New York City sex assault case against a former International Monetary Fund leader has lied about circumstances surrounding the alleged attack…

From USA TODAY: Dads who have kids at home work more — not less — than men who don’t, according to a new report about men’s increasing work-family conflict. These fathers work, on average, 47 hours a week, compared with 44 for men who either don’t have children or don’t live with them, or whose kids are older than 18.

From the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS: ..In 2004, a flamboyant Oklahoma City multimillionaire took out his hefty checkbook for what you could call the political equivalent of a wildcat well – and he struck a gusher, right here in Pennsylvania.

From USA TODAY: …Reading, now 58% Hispanic, is the latest harbinger for a more diverse America in regions where Hispanic migration has been a relatively recent development. “If you look at the Census data from 2000 and now 2010, you can see that there’s this phenomenon of Latinos moving to parts of the United States where there hasn’t been Latinos before,” says Stanton Wortham, a University of Pennsylvania researcher who specializes in linguistics and immigrant studies.

Drexel University’s pending “Campus Master Plan” is shifting the school’s expansion focus away from West Philly and toward Center City. “North traditionally was where Drexel expanded, up to Powelton Ave.,” through the neighborhood now crammed with student rentals, new President John Fry told me in his Chestnut St. office.

In a Sunday News column, one of Lancaster’s most dedicated and self sacrificing physicians, Jeffrey T. Kirchner, pleads with the public to routinely be tested for HIV infection. He points out: “In the U.S., it’s estimated about 21 percent of all people infected with HIV are unaware of their infection.

Over the past year or so, Gil Smart has come to combine scholarship with opinion, popularizing complicated subjects so that all with an open mind can understand them. What used to often come across as midnight rants baiting conservatives, now are learned columns worthy of syndication.