• The view from Citizens Bank Ballpark: In the 9th inning of a tied game between the Mets and Phillies tonight, the crowd collectively got word of the death of Osama bin Laden. source

• 154M number of Americans who live in areas of the country where the air is sometimes dangerous to breathe
• 17M number of Americans that live in areas with three different types of dangerous pollution source

• » California cities the worst: According to the American Lung Association’s “State of the Air 2011” report, released last week, eight of the ten worst metropolitan areas for pollution are based in California (though one county crosses the Nevada border), with Los Angeles being the worst and Sacramento and San Diego also making the list. Uh, yikes.

• I have never seen devastation like this. It is heartbreaking. This is something I don’t think anyone has seen before.
• President Barack Obama • Discussing his reaction to the damage in Tuscaloosa. The president, flanked by Michelle Obama and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley. The storms have killed at least 310 — 210 in Alabama alone — and left hundreds injured, along with tearing up a huge chunk of a number of towns across the South, especially in Tuscaloosa. “We can’t bring those who’ve been lost back,” he said. “They’re alongside God at this point … but the property damage, which is obviously extensive, that’s something we can do something about.” For their sake, let’s hope so. source

• 5.3M number of pageviews the Royal Wedding got per minute this morning — impressive, but not one of the best ever
• 10.3M number of pageviews per minute the World Cup (and the longest Wimbledon match ever) got back in June
• 4.3M number of pageviews the 2008 election, where Obama coasted to victory on hope and change, earned source

• » As a video event, usage was high: At its peak, the event was larger than Egypt but these comparisons are a little difficult — all of the top online events except for the 2008 election happened since June of last year. That said, what’s notable is that lots of people watched the event live on the Internet. Around 300,000 people watched the wedding on Livestream at its peak.

• An earlier version of this post said that Groupon dropped their sponsorship of “Celebrity Apprentice.” That’s half-true. The company will no longer allow their ads to show up on the Apprentice Web site. However, they never actively sponsored them, but instead showed up on the site thanks to Google and other ad networks. So, while ThinkProgress (30,000 followers), did throw the tweet to the company (35,000 followers), and Groupon did agree to it, it’s something of a misnomer. They agreed to “dump Trump” … if Trump happens to be in the same room as Groupon. But he isn’t right now. Still, there are examples of this technique being used against sponsors, including:

• left A 2009 YouTube clip put brand logos on Glenn Beck’s head as he said offensive things. The clip was so effective that Beck lost most of his advertisers.
• right Last week, Wonkette removed a story that mocked Trig Palin’s birthday after an online campaign went after the site’s advertisers; many dropped their ads. source

(via BrooklynMutt; photo originally by Gage Skidmore)

• A frightful video: The internet has been deluged with amateur footage of violent tornadoes in recent days. This one’s became pretty popular through Twitter, and has been making the rounds elsewhere since. It was posted by Clay Hasenfuss, who shot this video out the third story window of his apartment. Wow. Please stay safe, everyone. source

• The carnage in context: Obviously, it’s tough to quantify the costs in property damage, land damage, and the hideous trauma that has been thrust upon so many, and in the case of the trauma it’ll probably never be. That said, in terms of the most irreversible damage done, lives lost, we at least know this much — this was a big one by America’s standards. With the death-toll grimly ticking upwards as hours roll by, this will be at least the 7th largest loss of life by storm in American history, and that could easily change in the following days. Our thoughts are with them. (photo by Dusty Compton, from the Tuscaloosa News’ photo gallery) source

• problem Painkiller addiction is a big problem in America. The CDC says in 2007, around 12,000 people died of opioid overdose. There’s an environmental cost as well; unused drugs are often flushed down the toilet into water systems.
• solution? Police departments and the DEA are trying to combat this with “National Take Back Day” this April 30th, wherein you can safely, cleanly unload unwanted prescription drugs at a number of sites, searchable here. source