2/97Average percentage increase in the national homicide rate for everyone percent increase in the unemployment rate: 5.6
2/97Number of serious crimes prevented by every $1 million spent incarcerating repeat felons, according to a RAND study: 61
Number prevented by every $1 million spent on high-school graduation incentives: 258
Percentage of budget cuts to entitlements made by the 104th Congress that will come from those programs: 93
2/97Ratio of U.S. defense spending to the combined total spent by Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Libya: 2:1
2/97Amount that “side agreements” in NAFTA require the U.S. to spend on environmental cleanup: $1,500,000,000
2/97Amount that is being spent by the federal and state governments to preserve the Florida panther, per panther: $4,800,000
2/97Percentage of Americans who believe that Joan of Arc is Noah’s wife: 12
2/97Price paid at an Indiana auction last September for a 1975 Ford Escort previously owned by Pope John Paul II: $102,000
2/97Price paid at a Los Angeles auction last September for a drug-rehab discharge form signed by Kurt Cobain: $1,150
2/97Percentage of the heroin and cocaine consumed each year that is consumed by people on bail, probation, or parole: 60
2/97Number of times that the mother-in-law of Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry has run for president: 2
2/97Amount that Western Village, a Japanese theme park, spent constructing an 80-foot replica of Mount Rushmore: $30,000,000
2/97Number of minor planets named after rock musicians: 8
2/97Amount that image consultancy Double XXposure charges to teach etiquette to hip-hop and rap artists, per class: $250
2/97Year in which Tupperware salespeople began to say that air is “whispered” out of containers rather than “burped”: 1990
2/97Number of years the mother in the Family Circus cartoon had the same hairstyle before changing it last year: 36
2/97Hours of training required to become a licensed hair braider in New York City: 900
Hours of training required to become a New York City emergency medical technician: 117
2/97Percentage of Americans who believe that career preparation should begin in elementary school: 18
2/97Percentage of children between 6 and 9 who know that Jerry Lewis was the star of the original Nutty Professor: 66
2/97Chances that a public-high-school student is taught physical sciences by a teacher without a science background: 1 in 2
2/97Percentage of public-high-school teachers who favor banning students from kissing and hugging on school grounds: 69
2/97Percentage of the light switches in Bob Packwood’s private Senate quarters that were on dimmers: 100
2/97Number of Shakespeare’s 37 plays that West Virginia senator Robert Byrd has quoted on the Senate floor: 37
2/97Number of seconds that the average person can wait for an elevator before becoming visibly agitated: 40
2/97Chances that a patient on the national waiting list for an organ will receive one this year: 1 in 3
2/97Cost of a 1-pound, anatomically correct, chocolate human heart replica, from the Anatomical Chart and Model Catalog: $16.95
2/97Number of candy hearts that the New England Confectionery Company made last year: 8,000,000,000