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 connected to “zero-tolerance” policies at schools.
Read more
Percentage of countries worldwide in which girls outperform boys in academic achievement: 70
Read more
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India’s first air-quality index in April, but pollution will keep growing unless India stems coal production, which Modi has pledged to double by 2020.
Read more
75% – Percentage of workers worldwide who do not have a permanent job, according to the International Labor Organization. Global unemployment reached an estimated 201 million in 2014; most people work without a contract or are self-employed.
Read more
The average American woman now weighs 166.2 pounds, about the same as the average American man weighed in the early 1960’s. Over the same time period, U.S. men have gained nearly 30 pounds, from 166.3 in the ’60’s to 195.5 today.
Read more
2,500 – Number of U.S. military dogs on duty worldwide $2,000,000 – Amount the U.S. spent on developing a robotic mule
Read more
Reported incidents of unruly passenger behavior on airplanes soared from 339 in 2007 to 8,217 in 2013.
Read more
As the population ages and lives longer, dementia has become one of the country’s most expensive medical conditions, with $109 billion in direct medical costs in 2010, a new RAND study found. The medical cost of dementia exceeds that of both heart disease, at $102 billion, and cancer, at $72 billion.
Read more
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”.
Read more
The Pew Research Center asked adult Internet users in 32 developing and emerging countries if they use social networks. Here’s a sampling of who said yes: Philippines 93% Venezuela 88% Indonesia 86% Egypt 78% China 58%
Read more