Suicides surpass motor vehicle deaths, and more

Suicides surpass motor vehicle deaths

More Americans now take their own lives each year—about 37,000—than die in car crashes, a new study has found. While safety improvements have cut the death toll of car crashes by 25 percent, suicides have kept rising, at least partly because of the country’s economic problems, foreclosures, and joblessness.

HuffingtonPost.com

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Digital devices and lack of sleep

Thanks in part to the pinging and ringing of our digital devices, roughly 41 million people in the U.S.—nearly a third of all working adults—get six hours or less of sleep a night, according to a new study.

The New York Times

Lucy is still thriving

I Love Lucy made its last episode in 1957, but the show still earns CBS $20 million a year through syndication fees.

Los Angeles Times

The new electricity hogs

The huge Internet data centers that store and process everything from old emails to Facebook data and Google searches use about 30 billion watts of electricity worldwide—equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants. Only about 10 percent of that energy powers actual computations; the rest keeps servers running around the clock, so as to avoid any slowdowns that would annoy users.

The New York Times

Adelson showers Republicans with millions

Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate worth $21 billion, has given $70 million to Republican Super PACs this year, and he plans to give $30 million more. That crushes the previous record, by liberal George Soros, who gave $24 million to Democrats in 2004. Adelson says he will do “whatever it takes’’ to beat President Obama. “I put my money where my mouth is,” Adelson says.

Politico.com