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.
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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
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Schools: The return of a dreaded fitness testFeature Donald Trump is bringing the Presidential Fitness Test back to classrooms nationwide
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An insatiable hunger for proteinFeature Americans can't get enough of the macronutrient. But how much do we really need?
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Health: Will medical science survive RFK Jr.?Feature Robert F. Kennedy Jr. scrapped $500 million in mRNA vaccine research contracts
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Very rich and very poor in California, and morefeature California is home to 111 billionaires, yet it also suffers the highest poverty rate in the country.
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Arctic cold kills tree insects, and more
feature This winter’s arctic temperatures have had at least one beneficial impact: They’ve killed ash borers, gypsy moths, and other tree-eating insects.
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Congress's poor record, and more
feature The 113th Congress is on course to pass less legislation than any Congress in history.
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Gender differences in employment, and more
feature
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A first for West Point, and more
feature For the first time, two male graduates of West Point were married at the military academy’s chapel.
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A God given land?, and more
feature More white evangelical Protestants than U.S Jews believe that Israel was “given to the Jewish people by God.”
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Jailing the mentally ill, and more
feature American prisons have replaced state mental hospitals as a place to warehouse the mentally ill.
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Treating Internet addiction, and more
feature Treating Internet addiction; Freshman virgins at Harvard; A salary handicap for lefties; Prices for vintage automobiles soar; Gun permits for blind people