Numbers

$8.9 million Maximum pay that Home Depot CEO Frank Blake will receive this year

$24 million Average annual pay, excluding stock options, earned by his predecessor, Robert Nardelli, who stepped down Jan. 2, partly over the size of his compensation

50,508 Number of wounded American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website in November

21,649 Number of wounded troops listed on the website as of Jan. 10, after it corrected an error that included noncombat injuries

$500 billion Annual cost to the U.S. economy of children growing up poor, a result of eventual lower productivity and earnings and higher crime rates and health costs

17% Portion of children in the U.S. living in or near poverty

114 Age of the world's oldest living person, Yone Minagawa, below, a Japanese woman who gained the honor when the previous record holder died Jan. 28

28,000 Approximate number of Japanese who are 100 or older--up from 1,000 in the early 1980s

Sources: Wall Street Journal (2); New York Times (2); Center for American Progress (2); Agence France-Presse (2)