1952. Gamal Nasser seizes power in Egypt. Egypt's population: ~20 million.1981. Anwar Sadat assassinated; Hosni Mubarak succeeds him. Egypt's population: ~40 million.2011. Mubarak overthrown. Egypt's population, over 80 million.New York Times today:After two decades of steady declines and modest increases, the birthrate in 2012 reached about 32 for every 1,000 people — surpassing a level last seen in 1991, shortly before the government of the longtime president, Hosni Mubarak, expanded family planning programs and publicity campaigns to curtail population growth that he blamed for crippling Egypt’s development.

George Frey/Getty

In Kentucky this week, a 2-year-old was killed with a .22-caliber rifle that’s sold for children. Yet few states have meaningful rules when it comes to the youngest shooters.

Savage Arms, a Massachusetts-based gun manufacturer, sells the Rascal, a .22-caliber single-shot rifle touted for its ease of use. Thompson/Center, in New Hampshire, makes the Hot Shot, which comes in pink and, according to the marketing materials, “has all the features young shooters need and the cool looks of dad’s hunting gun.” Mossberg sells a mini .410 shotgun that enthusiasts like to call the Mighty Mouse.The news that a 5-year-old had shot and killed his 2-year-old sister sparked a storm of outrage Wednesday, and much of the ire was directed at the fact that he used a .

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Good news, the government turned a big profit in April! Sadly, says Daniel Gross, that came at the expense of jobs, salaries, and retail sales.

You can never be too thin, or too rich. Or have too much deficit reduction. Right?Maybe not. The latest cause for anxiety over the current expansion, which just entered its 47th month, is that the deficit is falling too rapidly.The government won’t release the official April monthly data until it relates the Treasury Monthly Statement next week. But the Treasury Daily Statements provide a real-time look at the government’s revenue collection efforts.

PRNewsFoto/Los Angeles Auto Show

The numbers are tiny, and it remains very much a niche market, but April’s sales figures suggest electric cars are beginning to catch on.

Electric cars have long been criticized for not being sufficiently mainstream to find a large audience in the U.S. And it’s true that the typical suburbanite family may not be ready for a short-range car powered by electrons instead of gasoline. But the April car sales data, reported Wednesday, suggest that electric cars are beginning to carve out a niche. The all-electric Nissan Leaf notched its second-best monthly sales total and surpassed the volume of its plug-in hybrid competitor, the Chevy Volt.

Chevy, Mountain Dew, Hyundai—they’ve all yanked advertisements in the past week in response to public outcries of bad taste. Watch the commercials and decide for yourself.

After a week like this, one gets nostalgic for the days of a cheesy jingle, a dancing cartoon, and a slogan with a smile.A jarring amount of advertisements in recent days have either been pulled by the companies that commissioned them or incited controversy for offensive content—including glaringly racist lyrics, mockery of suicide, and attempts to make violence against women funny. Here’s a quick tour through the hall of shame.General MotorsGM on Wednesday decided to pull a TV ad for the new Chevy Trax compact SUV after receiving complaints over lyrics in a song used in the commercial that were blatantly offensive to anyone of Chinese ancestry…if not any person with a conscience.

Courtesy of True & Co

True&Co, an online lingerie company that fits bras without actual measurements, says it has reappropriated 'MILF' with a "Mom I'd Like To Fit" campaign. But, Misty White Sidell asks, will it actually work?

Whether or not you’d enjoy being called a MILF, it’s unlikely most women would want to mark their bodies with a temporary tattoo baring those four letters.But True&Co, an online lingerie startup that somehow fits women for bras without actually measuring them, is sending that to their customers as part of a Mother’s Day sales promotion they’ve quizzically named: “Are you a MILF?.”For a company whose core clientele consists of post-natal mothers looking for new lingerie, MILF is not in the least bit smutty.

First tractors with GPS, now farmers coordinating things with an iPhone app? Progress is scary.The app tracks everything needed in a farm’s upkeep, says iCropTrak’s Aaron Hutchinson—from tillage, to planting, to irrigation, to scouting, to spraying, to harvest, to soil sampling. The service also connects labourers, ensuring everyone is aware of completed and uncompleted tasks. Fields are divided up using map data, allowing farm owners to analyse each section of their farm to see whether wheat, for example, is performing better than maize (corn).

You won't be flying in any of these bad boys any time soon, but "solar powered drones that can fly for days at a time" has a great ring to it, no?

Condemns worker conditions in poor countries.

On Wednesday Pope Francis described the situations of workers in factories like the recently collapsed in Bangladesh as “slave labor.” In his homily, he also harshly criticized the unrelenting desire for profits, which he says leave many unemployed or underemployed and without human dignity.

Read it at Business Insider