Bona Fide Good News

Jesse Walker | April 20, 2006

The AP reports some genuinely happy news -- though like all good things, from young love to high culture, it'll probably turn out to be a statistical error:

The U.S. population may be aging, but the number of Americans who died in 2004 represents the biggest one-year decline since World War II, according to preliminary government data released Wednesday.

Nearly 50,000 fewer Americans died in 2004 than in 2003, according to data based on about 90% of U.S. death certificates....The age-adjusted death rate declined greatly for 10 of the 15 leading causes of deaths, according to the preliminary data. One of the biggest drops, 6.4%, was in the death rate for heart disease, the No. 1 killer.