Facts & Trends

Assault Weapon Deaths
Of the approximately 11,000 people murdered with guns in the U.S. in 2012, just 322 were killed by an assault weapon or any kind of rifle.The vast majority of killers used handguns ...

SEAFLOOR SCRAPING
Bottom-trawling nets, which scrape up anything in their path in pursuit of fish, have left their mark on 20 million sq. mi. (52 million sq km) of seafloor ...

How Optimistic Are the World’s Millennials?
A Telefonica - Financial Times survey asked more than 12,000 millennials if their country's "best days" lay ahead. Here's the positive vote by the region... Asia - 79% Latin America - 78% Central and Eastern Europe - 69% Middle East ...

Driving and Cell Phones
Chance that a U.S. automobile accident occurs when at least one of the drivers is texting or talking on a cell phone: 1 in 4 ...

It Was A Good Week For . . .
Knowing your limits, after Molly Schuyler, a 120-pound mother of four, won a Texas eating competition by wolfing down 13 pounds of steak in four minutes, 18 seconds. Schuyler said she had room for more steak but got sick of ...

FBI Files
The FBI has files on roughly 77.7 million people in the U.S.—the equivalent of one in three American adults. As many as 12,000 new names are added to its master criminal database every day, largely as the result of minor arrests ...

Standing Up For Your Family
A Tennessee woman was banned from her lifelong church after she refused to publicly condemn her lesbian daughter. The Ridgedale Church of Christ said it was exiling Linda Cooper for the sin of condoning homosexuality. "They're exiling members for unconditionally ...

WORLD’S MOST COMMON HEALTH COMPLAINTS
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 ...

Inches of Rainfall
4.36 - The average rainfall, in inches, for the contiguous United States in May, the country’s wettest month since record keeping began in 1895 ...

Sportsmanship At Its Finest
A Spanish long-distance runner showed exemplary sportsmanship last month when he helped a confused rival finish before him. Iván Fernández Anaya was in second place to Olympic bronze medalist Abel Mutai in a race in Navarre, Spain, when he noticed ...