Facts & Trends

A Pew survey found that one in five Americans is not affiliated with any religion. “Nones” are growing faster than any religious group in America ...

Homicide is the leading cause of on-the-job death among women. And taxi drivers are the people most likely to be murdered while working ...

A farmer sits on his parched land in the village of Gauribidanur in India’s southern Karnataka state on May 26, as a brutal heat wave continued to blister the country, claiming at least 1,100 lives and causing roads to melt ...

"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man.  If you want anything done, ask a woman." - Margaret Thatcher ...

Italy and Switzerland have agreed to redraw their border because global warming is melting the Alpine glaciers that mark their respective boundaries. The border had been fixed since 1861 ...

. . . 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 ...

PENNSYLVANIA Longest-running gas station (since 1909) RHODE ISLAND First U.S. circus performance SOUTH CAROLINA Largest sculpture garden (more than 1,400 works) SOUTH DAKOTA Most well-rested state TENNESSEE First self-service grocery store TEXAS Largest bat colony UTAH Highest per capita consumption of Jell-0 VERMONT Highest percentage of ...

A New Zealand man who was bitten by a shark calmly stitched up his own wounds, then joined his friends at the pub while still bleeding and drank a beer before heading to the hospital. James Grant was spearfishing when the ...

88: Number of executions carried out in Saudi Arabia so far this year, already surpassing the total number in 2014; Amnesty International called the increase under Saudi’s new King Salman a “macabre spike” ...

A California man has paid off a $14,000 property-tax bill using only dollar bills and loose change.  Larry Gasper says he wasn't deliberately trying to inconvenience county officials with the unorthodox payment, which he transported to county offices in a ...