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.”
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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.
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Estimated number of people held in forced labor worldwide: 21,000,000 Portion who are 18 or younger: 1/4
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. . . 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.
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About 25 percent of the world’s population, or 1.6 billion people, do not have electricity in their homes.
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Percentage change in the per-capita consumption of alcohol by Britons since 1960: +102
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Neopagans in Iceland are erecting a temple dedicated to the Norse gods Thor, Odin, and Frigg for the first time in over 1,000 years. The temple will be built by the Asatru movement, which was founded in the 1970s to revive the ancient religion and now has more than 2,000 followers ina coutnry with just 320,000 people. Hilmar Orn Flilmarsson, Asatru’s […]
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Yearly odds of a U.S. student being killed at school: 1 in 3 million
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In many developing countries, poor hygiene and sanitation can be a death sentence. That fact led sales exec Shawn Seipler to quit his job seven years ago to launch Clean the World, a charity dedicated to collecting and recycling leftover hotel soap for those in need. His company has since partnered with Global Soap, and together the two groups have […]
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Size of India’s annual deficit in female births, based on 2011 census data: 600,000
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