Numbers

$50 million Estimated value of trips taken by members of Congress and their aides and paid for by private groups from 2000 through mid-2005

$31,171 Value of the priciest trip--a London sojourn for Virginia Republican Thomas Billey Jr., courtesy of Brown & Williamson Tobacco

444% Increase in the number of cosmetic procedures--such as Botox injections--performed in the U.S. from 1997 to 2005

$12.4 billion Amount Americans spent on such work in 2005

73% Proportion of white people in New Orleans, up from 59% pre-Katrina. The black population fell from 37% to 22%

$3,654 Post-Katrina rise in the city's median income, to $43,447, owing largely to displacement of poorer black residents

148 million gal. Amount of wine France and Italy plan to distill into fuel or disinfectant, to avoid a wine glut and keep prices up

$165 million Cost of the distillation, which will be paid by the European Union's "wine budget"

666 Number of legs on a rare inch-long species of millipede recently rediscovered in California

80 Years Illacme plenipes--the leggiest of all 10,000 millipede species--had remained hidden since it was first identified in 1926

Sources: Washington Post (4); USA Today (2); New York Times; International Herald Tribune; AP (2)