Facts & Trends

The United States costs of military and nation-building activities in Afghanistan and Iraq since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, is approaching half a trillion dollars - nearly the same cost as the 13-year-long Vietnam War ...

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and its supporters produce as many as 90,000 tweets and other social media posts every day. The U.S. State Department is now assigning 80 people to counter ISIS's propaganda on Twitter and Facebook ...

61% - Percentage of employed vacationers who plan to work during their time off doing tasks such as... 38% - Emailing 32% - Accessing work documents on computer 30% - Calling 24% - Texting 20% - Fielding requests by boss, client or co-worker to do work ...

Number of U.S. police officers who have been prosecuted in the past decade for shooting someone in the back: 28 Number convicted: 6 ...

In just one year, 28,745 Americans injure themselves with paper money and coins ...

The European Union’s environmental agency said targets to curb pollution and climate change by 2050 would he missed without “profound changes” in technology, lifestyle and policy. The agency said poor air quality in Europe causes hundreds of thousands of early ...

Fish flee existing habitats in search of better ones.  Atlantic sea bass, for example, are migrating north to cooler waters—but the heat will chase them there ...

Portion of the global expenditure on social-welfare programs that is spent on Europeans: 1/2 ...

By 2021, the White House forecasts, the U.S. will be spending more on interest for the national debt than on the entire defense budget ...

A Chinese fishmonger found a 3-pound live bomb inside a squid he was cutting up.  Police took the squid away and blew it up in a controlled explosion ...