Forbes magazine ranks farming just below lumber-jacking for stress, says Stephen Cadogan

THE estimated time when whites will no longer make up the majority of Americans has been pushed back eight years — to 2050 — because the recession and stricter immigration policies have slowed the flow of foreigners into the US.

Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.

The pace of rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina has slowed, leaving some Gulf Coast areas with less than half the people they had before the storm.

The population of the United States officially hit 300 million at 7.46am EDT (12.46pm Irish Time) today, when the Census Bureau’s population clock rolled over to the big number.

America's population is on track to hit 300 million on Tuesday morning, and it is causing a stir among environmentalists.

AMERICA’S poverty rate rose to 12.7% of the population last year, the fourth consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau said.

THE growth in mobile phone use could have excluded large numbers of young, newly-registered voters from the opinion polls in the run-up to the presidential elections.

SOME 1.3 million Americans slid into poverty in 2003 as the ranks of the poor swelled to 35.9 million, with children and blacks worse off than most, the US government said yesterday.

THE number of people without health insurance in the US rose to 43.6 million last year, a jump of almost 6% from 2001 and the second consecutive annual increase.

NEARLY 35 million people lived in poverty in the US in 2002 and incomes slipped for the second year in a row, the US government said yesterday, in a report sure to provide new ammunition for Democrats trying to unseat US President George W Bush.