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$25 million
Amount California finance officials estimate the state's red ink increases every day that goes by without a balanced budget in place, with the state's deficit now forecast at $26.3 billion
Source: Sacramento Bee
$1 billion
Cost of an ongoing rehabilitation of New York City's Robert F. Kennedy Bridge (formerly and still better known to most New Yorkers as the Triborough Bridge), which opened in 1936 and cost $60.3 million — $927 million in 2008 dollars — to build
Source: New York Times
54%
Portion of the growth in San Francisco's $6.6 billion budget over the past 10 years that is accounted for by city workers' salaries, as city leaders engage in a heated battle over whether to make big cuts to public safety or social services
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
99.1 million
Number of televisions, many of them made obsolete by the switchover to all-digital broadcasts, that sit unused in closets and basements across the country, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates
Source: New York Times
1873
Year that Boston's mounted-police unit, the nation's oldest and which is being disbanded in a budget-cutting move, was founded
Source: Boston Globe
Up to 2.6 feet
Possible rise in the sea level along the Texas coast by the 2080s, according to a Texas A&M study that forecasts significantly more flooding and damage from hurricanes because of global warming
Source: Houston Chronicle
9
Number of consecutive months, as of May, of month-over-month gains in sales of existing Florida homes and condominiums, according to the Florida Association of Realtors
Source: Miami Herald
257
Number of Detroit public schools' estimated 13,880 workers whose names turned up in a payroll audit because they failed to pick up paychecks or direct-deposit slips in person and who will be subject to an investigation into ghost employees
Source: Detroit Free Press
0.4%
Growth in California's Gross Domestic Product in 2008, as the state's economy withstood declines in the construction, finance and insurance sectors by enjoying slight growth in information, professional and technical services, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Source: Sacramento Bee
16.2%
Percentage of personal income that government benefits such as Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance and health care accounted for in the first quarter of this year, the highest since record-keeping began in 1929, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis
Source: USA Today
160
Number of Massachusetts rivers and streams that the state says suffer from low flows or water levels, imperiling freshwater fish, as almost 100 communities in the state exceed state guidelines that aim to limit water use to 65 gallons a day per person, with much of the excess water being used for lawn watering in affluent communities
Source: Boston Globe
40%
Increase in hate crimes targeting Hispanics in the U.S. from 2003 to 2007, according to civil rights leaders who say the increase "correlates closely" to the nation's increasingly contentious debate over immigration
Source: Washington Post
37%
Decline in U.S. motor-scooter sales in the first three months of this year, a fall from last year's record sales of an estimated 222,000 scooters — which were up roughly 40 percent from 2007 — as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon
Source: Kansas City Star
2,719
Decrease in Colorado food-stamp applications in May, the largest drop in a single month since December, although caseloads remain at an all-time high with 144,655 households in the state receiving some type of food assistance
Source: Denver Post
More than 18,000
Size of the cumulative workforce of California's three tax-collection agencies — the Board of Equalization, the Franchise Tax Board and the Employment Development Department — which spend about $2 billion a year to collect about $106.5 billion and which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to merge into a single Department of Revenue
Source: Sacramento Bee
$300,000
Price paid for a private parking space — outdoors and uncovered — in Boston's Back Bay section, making it the most expensive parking space in the city's history, according to the real-estate firm that handled the deal
Source: Boston Globe
69.2%
The nation's high-school graduation rate in 2006 (the most recent year for which data were available), an increase of almost 3 percentage points from the rate in 1996 but a decline of more than 1 percentage point from 2005
Source: Education Week
31%
Share of federal stimulus funds for weatherization being spent not to cut heating bills and conserve oil but to help residents of states in hot climates save on air-conditioning, nearly double the percentage spent on cooling in the weatherization program created in the 1970s
Source: New York Times
5,866
Square footage of the million-dollar rented home in Southlake, Texas, into which former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his family have moved, two months after his lawyers claimed he had only $6 left each month from his salary at a technology firm to pay the $1 million in restitution to the city of Detroit that was part of his plea deal
Source: Detroit News
7.3%
Percentage of 10th-graders in Hawaii who said they had used methamphetamine, up 87 percent from 2005, according to a 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey
Source: Honolulu Advertiser
41
Number of vetoes issued in this year's legislative session by Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons as of May 29, eclipsing the record of 30 set by Gov. H.G. Blasdel in the 1864-65 session
Source: Associated Press
41.4%
The percentage arrested in drunk driving cases in Illinois that refused a Breathalyzer test in 2007, according to state data. The percentage of people who reject the test has been increasing since 2001.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
9,342
Average number of inmates housed in Philadelphia's jails in May, a count that has declined each month since January but is still higher than in previous years
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
50%
Amount that studies suggest a complete conversion to light-emitting diode light fixtures could decrease carbon dioxide emissions from electric power use in just over 20 years.
Source: New York Times
$411 million
Cost of tax incentives from the Michigan Economic Growth Authority tax-credit program, the state's primary economic development tool, which has produced only about 24,000 new jobs over its 14-year life while the state has shed more than 700,000 jobs since the decade began.
Source: Detroit Free Press