Owned Stock
Percentage of U.S. stock owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans: 89
Read moreTag: trends
Rising Demand for Meat
Appetite for meat is growing as the developing world becomes more prosperous. But meat—especially beef-can be polarizing, on health, environmental, and ethical grounds. Chicken outpaced beef in the U.S. in 2010. Total U.S. meat consumption peaked in the mid-2000’s and has declined ever since. Argentina’s famous appetite for beef has fallen because of cholesterol consciousness and economic downturns. In countries […]
Read moreInequality in Wealth
What’s most important—and troubling— is the decades-long, systemic expansion of the economic distance between the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor, and the long, backward slide for the majority of those in-between.
Read moreCost of War
$6 trillion – Upper estimate of the cost to the U.S. of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan
Read moreSuicide rate in South Korea soars
The suicide rate in South Korea has more than doubled in the past decade, the government said this week. South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world; for citizens in their 20s and 30s, suicide is the leading cause of death. Some analysts say the act has become normalized by a spate of high-profile suicides, including […]
Read moreNaked Surprise
An Australian man hid naked inside a top-loading washing machine to surprise his girlfriend, and had to be freed by police, who used olive oil as a lubricant.
Read moreOscar Romero on path to sainthood
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 was celebrating Mass just a day after he preached a sermon asking government soldiers to stop their repression. No one […]
Read moreMarijuana Related Tweets
Percentage of marijuana-related tweets that support use of the drug: 77
Read moreCoping with rejection
Gerald and Lily Chow of Hong Kong sued Mark Zimny, a college admissions consultant and former Harvard professor, when their two sons didn’t get into an Ivy League university. The Chows say they gave Zimny more than $2 million to get their kids into elite schools by any means necessary.
Read moreSecret Santa
An anonymous “Secret Santa” traveled to New Jersey and New York last week to hand out $100 bills to people who’d lost their homes and possessions in Hurricane Sandy. The Kansas City, Mo., businessman spent a day in Elizabeth, N.J., and Staten Island, N.Y., giving C-notes to the poor and homeless; he plans to give away $100,000 this holiday season. He was […]
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