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Murders Down in First Half of 2009

John Fiore — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:59:27 +0000

The FBI reports a decrease of ten percent in nationwide murder rates during the first half of 2009. Overall violent crimes fell by 4.4 percent, and property crimes also dropped, by 6.1 percent. Car thefts also dropped significantly, falling nearly 19 percent and continuing a sharp downward trend in that category.

The figures are compiled from data supplied to the FBI by more than 11,700 police and law enforcement agencies across the country. They compare the first six months of this year to the first six months of last year.

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Schwarzenegger Performance at All-Time Low

John Fiore — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:17:49 +0000

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is facing his lowest-ever approval rating – in fact, compared with the six governors that preceded him, his approval rating ranks just above Gray Davis just before he was recalled from office. Schwarzenegger’s approval rating currently stands at twenty-seven percent, with sixty-five percent of voters disapproving of his current performance. His approval rating was at its highest in 2004, during his first full year in office, and has been slipping since December 2007 when his approval stood at about sixty percent.

These results were based on a telephone survey of over one thousand voters, conducted between September 18th to October 5th. The survey reports having a margin of error of about three percent.

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US, Among Others, Stops Counting Swine Flu Cases

John Fiore — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:04:57 +0000

The United States government has stopped keeping track of the number of H1N1 flu virus. Doctors working for government offices report that they stopped counting the number of swine flu cases in July, when there were estimated to be roughly one million infected people in the country. The number of deaths has been just over 600 since September.

Health officials say that their monitoring system is accurate, but since many infected people do not get tested the numbers are inaccurate. This means there isn’t a clear picture of which demographics are hit hardest, though experts guess they include children, young adults, the elderly, pregnant women, and the obese. Andrew Pekosz, a flu expert from John Hopkins University, says “This wasn’t as critical early on, when case numbers were low,” and that it is difficult now to tell how dangerous the virus is from group to group.

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First Half of 2009 Yields Record Low in Highway Deaths

John Fiore — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:04:05 +0000

Officials from a government study recently reported that the number of highway deaths in the first six months of 2009 were a record low. The number of people killed on the road was estimated at 16, 626 for the first half of 2009, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says. Fewer than thirty-eight thousand people were killed in 2008, which was the lowest number since 1961. The government reports that even fewer people will be killed this year.

Motor safety experts have attributed these falling numbers to several factors, including the economic recession, record-high seat-belt use, advances in vehicle safety, and a lower overall number of people driving. Highway deaths have been dropping steadily for almost five years.

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Gov’t Study says 60 Percent of Kids Exposed to Violence

John Fiore — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:41:46 +0000

A recent study by researchers for the Justice Department found that the majority of children encounter violence in their everyday lives. Attorney General Eric Holder called the results “staggering,” though a leading criminologist says that the survey may lump together serious and minor incidents. The survey found that over sixty percent of children were exposed to violence, either in the form of having been a victim, witnessing violence, or learning about violence against a relative, friend, or hearing about a threat to their school or home.

This approach concerned some – James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University, said that “What concerns me when you hear numbers like this is that in their attempt to be inclusive, which is commendable, the definition of violence becomes so broad that the results lack real meaning.”

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