Numbers in the news.

• Position: News & TRENDS

$8 billion

ESTIMATED PORTION of the $80 billion spent on gift cards in 2006 that will never be redeemed by recipients.

SOURCE: TOWER GROUP

$54.3 million

THE 2006 BONUS that was paid to LLoyd C. Blankfein, the chairman of Goldman Sachs, a large New York investment bank. This was in addition to his regular salary of $600,000.

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES

50

NUMBER OF YEARS until most ocean seafood will be extinct if the current rate of pollution and overfishing continues, according to a report by marine biologists.

SOURCE: SCIENCE

20

DURATION, IN MONTHS, of the prison sentence given a woman in Japan for blasting rock music at her...