Facts & Trends

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 ...

THE PROBLEM Congestion caused by commuters carries an annual price tag of $121 billion in wasted time and fuel costs. The average American who drives to work wastes 38 hours in traffic each year. THE INNOVATION City planning authorities increasingly ...

Men kick friendship around like a football but it doesn’t seem to break. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces ...

Danielle Shea, 22, was charged with trying to cancel Quinnipiac University’s graduation ceremony by calling in a bomb threat.  Shea, police said, didn’t want her parents to find out she had dropped out and was pocketing their tuition money ...

Pope Francis has declared Oscar Romero a martyr of the faith, paving the way for the murdered Salvadoran archbishop to be beatified, a step toward sainthood.  A right-wing death squad executed Romero in a hospital chapel in 1980 while he ...