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The total of privately owned guns in the United States is estimated to have passed 500 million after gun sales for the month of October were the third-highest on record. A year-over-year increase in gun sales for October 2023 signaled a new landmark for private gun sales in the United States. Ammoland reported approximately 1.33 million firearm sales, an 8.3% increase from October 2022, which has pushed the total number of privately owned guns in the country over the 500 million mark. As well, October 2023 was the third-highest October on record in terms of gun sales. Sales for 2023...

As expected in last month’s article, gun sales increased in October. According to the figures released by the FBI National Instant Background Check System (NICS), gun sales were about 1.33 million for October 2023, roughly a nine percent increase over the gun sales figures for October 2022. 1.33 million gun sales make October 2023 the third-highest October for gun sales. Checks done in the NICS system in October 2023 were about 2.26 million, making October 2023 the sixth-highest number of checks done in October since the first October in the system was recorded in 1999. The number of gun sales...

President Obama announced Friday that he was replacing retired Marine Gen. John Allen with lawyer and diplomat Brett McGurk as his special envoy for Iraq and Syria with a wide-ranging portfolio that includes holding together a coalition against ISIS. Allen, who reportedly had clashed with the military over the now-defunct $500 million effort to create an army of Syrian volunteers, was departing after 13 months as special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, another name for the terrorist group.

It's a project 500 million years in the making. Only this time, instead of playing on a movie screen in Jurassic Park, it's happening in a lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Using a process called paleo-experimental evolution, Georgia Tech researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli(E. coli) bacteria. This bacterium has now been growing for more than 1,000 generations, giving the scientists a front row seat to observe evolution in action. "This is as close as we can get to rewinding and replaying the molecular tape of life," said scientist...

The 70% Discount on Goldman's $500M Gift IT’S BEEN DUBBED the apology with a half-billion-dollar gift attached. In an attention-grabbing move this week, Goldman Sachs (GS: 173.26*, +3.25, +1.91%) said it would launch a $500 million initiative to help small businesses with Warren Buffett as a key adviser, an announcement that coincided by hours with a public mea culpa from CEO Lloyd Blankfein for mistakes in the financial crisis. But it turns out Goldman’s program includes its own discount — the kind that only an investment banker could love. According to a review of Goldman’s program by SmartMoney in consultation...

Former Gov. Janet Napolitano made a lot of noise back in 2005 by sending a "bill" to the U.S. Justice Department for costs Arizona bore by housing illegal immigrants. Needless to say, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales never put a check in the mail. At the time, Napolitano took the move pretty seriously. But when tapped to serve as President Obama's homeland security secretary in December, Napolitano sidestepped questions about whether she would make sure that invoice finally gets paid. Napolitano pointed out the $500 million tab — adjusted by her with delinquent penalties and $11 million in interest — never...

There are apparently a hell of a lot of babies being made in this country.Last July 4th, President Bush marveled at how our country had grown from 13 colonies to a nation of 300 people. In seven months time, we have exploded to the point that a half-billion Americans a month are losing jobs – according to Nancy Pelosi. At this rate, by next July 4th, there will be two-and-a-half-trillion people out of work here in the United States.I’m no economics guru, but I would think that is something we as a country would want to avoid, no?It’s been out...

Volvo’s treasure hunt finds real-life pirate treasure worth $500 million Posted on: June 22nd, 2007 Filed under: Industry News, Volvo Remember Volvo’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End treasure hunt? The Volvo treasure chest is filled with $50,000 in gold and a key to a new Volvo from the sea floor. Well the retrival of that chest will hang in the balance until controversy dies down over the discovery of real life treasure by Volvo’s Hunt partner, Odyssey Marine Exploration. Earlier this year, Volvo selected Odyssey to sink a treasure chest in the Western Mediterranean. They had planned to...

Disturbed by the sound of the approaching boat, a heron stirs from its perch and takes flight, its broad wings flapping just inches above the water's glassy surface. Mullet jump in the bird's path. A warm September breeze sighs through the trees lining the banks of Buffalo Bayou. As the boat rounds a bend, this image of sylvan wilderness gives way to a glaring industrial landscape. Cranes belching smoke lurch around a scrap metal yard, and farther east the vats and pipes of a huge sewage treatment plant stretch along the northern shore. Achieving a better balance between nature and...