Sometimes stranger than fiction

If you scan news magazines and news sites like I do, you discover some pretty fascinating things. I've put together several examples of that for this week's column.

* A Fox News commentator said that Birmingham, England is "a Muslim-only city "and "a no-go-zone" for non-Muslims. The truth is 80 percent of Birmingham residents are non-Muslim. (The Week)

* An Alabama middle school principal has asked students to bring in cans of food they could use as projectiles against school shooters. The principal said that students could throw cans of food to "stun the intruder" until police arrive. (The Week)

* A record 43 percent of Americans identified as political independents in 2014, according to a Gallup survey. Only 30 percent identified themselves as Democrats and just 26 percent identified as Republicans. (vox.com)

* Of the 540 people who were involved in the killing of 511 police officers from 2004 to 2013, 52 percent were white and 43 percent were black, according to FBI statistics. (Washington Post.com) Columnist note: Blacks make up only 12 percent of the population.

* There's a growing correlation between income and likelihood of voting. In the 2012 presidential election, 80.2 percent of Americans making more than $150,000 voted, while only 46.9 percent of those making less than $10,000 voted. On average, each income bracket turns out to vote at a rate 3.7 percentage points higher than the bracket below it. (Politico.com)

* 63 percent of Americans think it's more important to protect free speech than to avoid offending religious people. 19 percent say that the dignity of religious beliefs is more important. 18 percent are unsure (Huffington Post/YouGov)

* 60 percent of Americans believe the new Congress will not accomplish any more than the last one. Just 28 percent think that the Senate will function more effectively with Republicans in control (CNN/ORC)

* Only 36 percent of Americans say they have enough savings to cover an unexpected $500 car repair or a $1,000 emergency room visit. 28 percent said they would need to borrow from family or friends or use a credit card to cover the bill. (WSJ.com)

* More than half of the most financially secure Americans think poor people "have it easy" because they receive government benefits without doing anything in return, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.

* Christian bookstores pulled the best-selling afterlife memoir "The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven" from their shelves after its young co-author Alex Malarkey confessed he made the story up for attention. A staple of the booming "heavenly tourism" genre, the 2010 memoir was supposedly inspired by Malarkey's recollection of the two-month coma he endured after being paralyzed in a car accident when he was 6 years old. He claimed that during his coma, a spirit lifted him to heaven, where he met Jesus and experienced "miracles, angels, and life beyond This World." Malarkey, now 16, published an on-line confession this week admitting he fabricated the tale and that people have profited from his lies. His mother claims Malarkey previously admitted the truth to a pastor but was told to keep quiet. (The Week)

I enjoy doing this from time to time because there are all kinds of things going on in the world that most of us have no idea about unless someone tells us. And some stories make the front page of the newspaper only to be found on the back page, if at all, when they're debunked. We remember the headlines, not the retractions, and it affects our perception about everything.