Facts & Trends

A cybersecurity firm has traced scores of attacks on U.S. corporate and government computers to a single building in Shanghai. The security firm, Mandiant, found that the attacks originated in a 12-story building known as the headquarters of People’s Liberation ...

Russia, the world’s second biggest cigarette consumer after China, has banned smoking in most public places as well as all tobacco advertising.  Even popular Soviet-era cartoons featuring pipe smokers are to be censored. It’s unclear, though, how the ban will be ...

"Women deprived of the company of men pine; men deprived of the company of women become stupid." - Anton Chekhov ...

Percentage by which New York City’s homeless-shelter population increased under Bloomeberg: 65 Portion of the city’s shelter population who are children: 2/5 ...

A dedicated graffiti zone was set up at the Great Wall of China, in the hope it would stop visitors from scratching their names on the historic barrier.  Most of the graffiti on the wall, said the Chinese media, is ...

Bird calls, after firefighters in Idaho rushed into a burning building when they heard voices calling “Help! Fire!” only to discover a pair of “talking” parrots.  “There was nobody besides the birds inside,” said one fireman. “Smart birds.” ...

A New York City woman set off 21 bug bombs inside her apartment, causing an explosion that collapsed her five-story building, injuring 14 people ...

Estimated number of people held in forced labor worldwide: 21,000,000 Portion who are 18 or younger: 1/4 ...

. . . painless budget cuts, after 14-year-old Suvir Mirchandani of Pittsburgh calculated that government agencies could save $370 million a year in ink and paper costs by printing all documents in the thinner Garamond typeface instead of Times New Roman ...

About 25 percent of the world's population, or 1.6 billion people, do not have electricity in their homes ...