Traffic safety officials predict that drivers will be equally likely to exceed the proposed speed limit as the current one.

According to United States census data, while there was about one-third of mothers with young children working outside the home in 1975, in 2000, almost two-thirds of those mothers were employed outside the home.

In 1981 children in the United States spent an average of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing household chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours a week.

Responding to the public's fascination with-and sometimes undue alarm over-possible threats from asteroids, a scale developed by astronomers rates the likelihood that a particular asteroid or comet may collide with Earth.

The most vexing problem faced by researchers exploring wind-powered generation of electricity is achieving a constant flow of power from an unpredictable natural source that meets demand, but so the flow does not overload electrical grids with sudden voltage increases

The reasons for yesterday's sharp rise in the stock market were much the same as that behind last week's rally: a surge in the economy to a 5.6 percent annual growth rate and improved corporate earnings balanced by the lack of signs of inflationary pressure.

The relative prosperity of the first years of the twentieth century came to a halt in 1907 when drains on the money supply, revealing a weak national financial infrastructure of banking and credit, it precipitated an economic crisis that lasted nearly a year.

Deliberately imitating the technique of Louis Armstrong, jazz singer Billie Holiday's approach to singing was to use her voice like an instrument, in that she ranged freely over the beat, flattened out the melodic contours of tunes, and, in effect, recomposed songs to suit her range, style, and artistic sensibilities.

Though the law will require emissions testing of all diesel vehicles, from tractor trailers to excursion buses, it will have no effect on sport utility vehicles, almost all of which are gasoline powered, and will not be subjected to emissions-control standards as stringent as they are for diesel-powered vehicles.

New items developed for automobiles in the 1997 model year included a safer air bag, which, unlike previous air bags, eliminated the possibility that a burst of smoke would appear when the bag inflated, and making an already terrified passenger think the car was on fire.