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(Continued from page 26)
Median age in Great Plains states slides amid oil boom as rest of America keeps getting older
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is still growing older, but the trend is reversing in the Great Plains, thanks to a liberal application of oil.
• The aging baby boom generation helped inch up the median age in the United States last year from 37.5 years to 37.6 years, according to data released Thursday by the Census Bureau. But a closer examination of those numbers shows that seven states -- Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming -- actually became younger.
• Credit for the de-aging of the mainland states between 2012 and 2013 goes to the increase in oil and gas exploration in the Great Plains. The Census Bureau offered no reason for the decrease in Alaska and Hawaii.
• "We're seeing the demographic impact of two booms," Census Bureau Director John Thompson said. "The population in the Great Plains energy-boom states is becoming younger and more male as workers move in seeking employment in the oil and gas industry, while the U.S. as a whole continues to age as the youngest of the baby boom generation enter their 50s."
• Williams County, North Dakota, which the Census Bureau called the center of the country's Bakken shale energy boom, had the largest decline in age in the United States -- 1.6 years.
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Outside Rio's soccer stadium, fans hunt for tickets at inflated prices as scalpers dodge cops
• RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- After an overnight flight from the United States, Greg Thomas swigged a beer Wednesday afternoon on a sidewalk near Rio's famed Maracana stadium and raised his arm high into the air with four fingers displayed to attract scalpers who might sell him and three friends tickets to get into the Ecuador-France World Cup game.
• They were willing to pay about $500 each, but the asking price from scalpers working the crowds and dodging police was $1,000 per ticket just before the game started. That didn't leave Thomas angry, but wondering whether he and his old college buddies would manage to get into a game during their reunion for a one-week Brazil soccer trip.
• "Scalpers are scalpers, they're going to gouge you wherever you go," said Tho (Continued on page 28)
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