As of Dec. 29, the number of homicides recorded for New York City this year stood at 332. It’s a drop of 20% below the homicide rate of 2012 (419 murders) and the first time in over half a century that the city saw less than one murder a day on average. The historical data for homicide rates come from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data.
This is an updated version of an article first published on Sept. 26, 2013.
The data shown above come from the Facebook dating app, Are You Interested (AYI), which works like this: Users in search of someone for a date or for sex flip through profiles of other users and, for each one, click either “yes” (I like what I see) or “skip” (show me the next profile). When the answer is “yes,” the other user is notified and has the opportunity to respond. It’s very similar to another dating app, Tinder.
A mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, has—as of the most recent police statements—resulted in the deaths of 27 people, including the gunman. Twenty of those victims were children.
The US economy added 146,000 jobs in November, beating expectations, and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7%. Here’s the breakdown of employment status for all Americans age 16 and above (Note: correction below):
Describing yourself to a potential employer can be an excruciating challenge: you have to hit all the generic key points while still sounding unique. To me, the box is a lot bigger than it is to most people—and I’m still thinking outside of it!
RICs, anyone?
“If we raise enough money to buy more than $5 million of debt, Donald Trump’s head will literally explode!”
Dog ownership, like cocaine use, can be seen as an economic indicator. As incomes rise, some people can afford to have pets for the first time, while others decide they can spring for new toys, trips to the groomer, or pricey organic kibbles. On a macro level, as countries develop, new industries—dog shows, puppy hotels—grow up around dog doting and pampering.
The US economy added 171,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate rose to 7.9%. Here’s the breakdown of employment status for all Americans age 16 and above:
The US jobs report was just released, and national unemployment in October stood at 7.9%. Because this is the last report before Tuesday’s presidential election, everyone is naturally asking: What does this mean for President Obama’s reelection chances?
Europe is a dog-friendly place. Countries across the region have more dogs per capita and per square mile than most other parts of the world (although in some European nations, the total pooch population has been shrinking along with the species that owns them).
Members of Brazil’s rapidly urbanizing middle class are working more, earning more, and having kids later. And to fill their tiny apartments in the meantime, they’re buying more and more dogs as pets. Brazilians, in fact, have nearly 20 million small dogs at home—more per capita than any country in the world, according to data from market research firm Euromonitor International.
If you’re wondering why Apple has bothered to release a smaller iPad, consider that the company’s share of the tablet market went from 81% to 52% in the course of one year. Not only have contending Android products captured a large piece of the market, but so has the Kindle Fire, with its 7-inch screen and $159 price tag.
Compared to other nations, the Chinese have been consistently sanguine (paywall) about the direction their country is taking and the opportunities they have. In a Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes survey published in July, 83% of Chinese polled believed the country’s economic situation was good. Of the 21 countries surveyed in the study, China was the only one where a majority (57%) believed it would be easy for young people to become wealthier than their parents.
Clearly, there have been more successful stints as chief executive. Citigroup’s share price is down just shy of 90% from Dec. 10, 2007, the day before Pandit was officially given the top job at the bank. The market capitalization of the stock doesn’t look quite so bad; it’s down only some 38% over the same period. Still, that equates to a vaporization of about $64 billion in shareholder value. The only reason the the decline in value of the company wasn’t a lot worse was because the US government had to bail the bank out by injecting taxpayer cash.
The Nobel Prize in Economics is out. The winners—Alvin Roth of Harvard and Lloyd Shapley of UCLA—are joining the ranks of some serious math nerds in a field increasingly flush with equations. Shapley, in fact, holds a PhD in mathematics rather than economics.
Greece’s latest unemployment figures hit yet another record. (Here’s a PDF of the release in Greek.) Total unemployment surpassed 25% in July for the first time, and unemployment among the young was well above half. As the BBC pointed out, Greece lost over 1,000 jobs a day from July 2011 to July 2012.
Circuit breakers shut down India’s fourth-biggest stock exchange after an apparent human error at broker Emkay Global Financial Services placed 59 mistaken orders worth 6.5 billion rupees ($125 million), the NSE said in a statement.
Labor force participation rate — the share of people looking for work or working — was little changed at 63.6%.
Europe is consumed by the threat of imminent monetary fission. The Arab world is either embroiled in a revolution or recovering from one. And a black president in America is no longer a dreamlike possibility but a humdrum reality. It’s not hard to see why this U.S. election is capturing less attention than the last one almost everywhere on the planet… except China, where more than twice as many people are following election coverage as in 2008, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.
The new novel from J. K. Rowling, author of the wildly successful Harry Potter series, debuted yesterday and is being sold at a celebrity price. For the hardcover version, it’s just business as usual. But for the ebook? At $17.99 in the US, it’s more than twice the country’s average ebook price of $8.19. And in Europe, The Casual Vacancy is even more expensive.
Most news coverage of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s 2011 tax return focused on the low, 14.1% effective tax rate he paid in the US. But that’s nothing compared to the rate Romney paid to foreign governments for the $3.5 million, or 26% of his income, that he earned overseas.
Brazil’s growing middle class has poured money into the trappings of wealth and recreation: flat-screen TVs, get-away vacations, and, now, lots of cocaine.
