Population | featured news

Drought, floods and a lack of fresh water may cause significant global instability and conflict in the coming decades, as developing countries scramble to meet demand from exploding populations while dealing with the effects of climate change, U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report released Thursday.

What's advertised as the smallest town in the United States is scheduled to go up for auction next month. Buford, located between Cheyenne and Laramie in southeast Wyoming, is famous for having just one inhabitant, Don Sammons. Sammons plans to retire from managing his businesses at Buford and move on. The auction is set for noon on April 5.

The world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population and to avoid sending up to 3 billion people into poverty, a U.N. report warned on Monday.

Japan's rapid aging means the national population of 128 million will shrink by one-third by 2060 and seniors will account for 40 percent of people, placing a greater burden on the shrinking work force population to support the social security and tax systems.

The U.S. population is expected to top out at close to 312.8 million people just around the time crowds gather to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve, according to new census data released Thursday.

It took only a dozen years for humanity to add another billion people to the planet, reaching the milestone of 7 billion Monday — give or take a few months. Demographers at the United Nations Population Division set Oct. 31, 2011, as the "symbolic" date for hitting 7 billion, while acknowledging that it's impossible to know for sure the specific time or day. Using slightly different calculations, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the 7-billion threshold will not be reached until March.

The world's 7 billionth person will be born into a population more aware than ever of the challenges of sustaining life on a crowded planet but no closer to a consensus about what to do about it.

Family planning experts say keeping girls in school is one way to curb the population boom in high-fertility regions.

By the time Ndageramiwe's ninth child arrives, and any further members of the Kasadha clan, the world's population will have passed a momentous milestone. As of Oct. 31, according to the U.N. Population Fund, there will be 7 billion people sharing Earth's land and resources.

A Brookings Institution report says the populations of Hispanics and Asians are rising the fastest.