Facts & Trends

The five most popular names for baby girls in 2014 were (in order) Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Isabella, and Ava, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration.  For boys, the most popular were Noah, Liam, Mason, Jacob, and William ...

Yearly odds of an adult being hit by lightning: 1 in 1 million ...

A Chinese pedestrian narrowly escaped death after a knife fell from the sky and stuck in his head. XiaoYunzhi, 57, was walking below a high-rise apartment when the wind blew a kitchen knife from an eighth story balcony. The blade ...

Representatives from eight rural Colorado counties began making plans to form a breakaway state, North Colorado, to escape the state’s gun-control laws and oil-industry regulations. “This is not a stunt,” said Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway. “Our very way of ...

Percentage of all criminal defendants in the United States who forgo a trial by pleading guilty: 97 Percentage of U.S. convicts exonerated last year who had previously pleaded guilty without a trial: 17 ...

The Kentucky Baptist Convention started giving away free steak dinners and guns to encourage “unchurched young rednecks” to come to church and accept Jesus.  “Can you picture Jesus giving away guns?” asked one disapproving pastor ...

A major Gates Foundation- backed study found that over 95% of people in 2013 lived with a health problem. The leading issues varied across the 188 countries surveyed: U.S. Back pain Ireland Major depressive disorder Saudi Arabia Diabetes Iraq Iron-deficiency anemia ...

Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, has blistering 800-degree temperatures at its equator—but its poles are full of ice. New data from NASA's Messenger spacecraft, which began orbiting Mercury last year, has revealed that as much as a trillion ...

Police arrested a New Hampshire man who posted 35 videos on YouTube explaining how to grow marijuana at home.  Kyle Berry didn’t appear in the videos, but authorities said his reflection could be seen in one of the tutorials.  “He’s ...

Ninety-five percent of all economic gains in the U.S. since the Great Recession went to the top 1 percent ...