MATH EXTRA CREDIT #3 LAST ONE

BILL GATES IS NOT THE RICHEST MAN ANYMORE!!!!

It's true! Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has been thrown down from his throne after 13 years. Even though he's worth $2 billion more than last year, now at $58 billion, Bill Gates has become the third-richest man in the world. He's after his good friend and partner in philanthropy, Warren Buffett, whose net worth jumped $10 billion to $62 billion. In second place is Carlos Slim Helú, a famous Mexican telecom tycoon. His fortune doubled in just two years to $60 billion. This also changes some other things. In the U.S. there used to be 10 billionaires (half of all of the world's richest) but now there are only four, with India getting the bragging rights because they have four of the world's richest among the top ten. Another first, besides Bill Gates losing his first place ranking, is that the number of billionaires is 1,125. That means that the total net worth of the group is $4.4 trillion, up to $900 billion from last year. Even though the U.S. markets ahve been down Americans account for 42% of the world's billionaires and 37% of the total wealth.


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MATH EXTRA CREDIT #2

THIS JUST IN!

Who: President Lincoln, States

What: Civil War Emancipation Letters

Where: Rochester, New York

When: barely a year in to the Civil War

Why: to end the Civil War

Found in the University of Rochester's archives was 72 letters personally written by President Lincoln, along with 215 other letters from political and military leaders. Vice President Andrew Johnson and General Ulysses S. Grant had also written letters to Lincoln, which is also included on the University of Rochester's website. Among the letters was one sent to Illinois Senator James A. McDougall written on March 14, 1862. In this letter Lincoln made a proposal of his "emancipation with compensation". What this means is that Lincoln was willing to cough up $719, 200, $400 for each of the 1,798 slaves in Delaware. This is added to the war costs of 2 million dollars a day. Then President Lincoln would have to buy the freedom of an estimated 432,622 slaves in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Washington, D.C. all together would cost $173,048,800 which is almost exactly the same as the estimated $174 million needs to keep the war going for only 87 days. But this proposal never went farther than the drawing board. Then, six months later President Lincoln made the famous speech-the Emancipation Proclamation.

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SCIENCE BLOG #4

We've all taken medicine some time in our lives. Maybe then, you've heard of Airborne, which was made by Victoria Knight-McDowell, a second grade teacher who '"studied the benefits herbal therapies used in Eastern Medicine."' The company's web site also says that Airborne is supposed to '"boot the immune system with seven herbal extracts and a proprietary blend of vitamins, electrolytes, amino and antioxidants."' Why am I talking about this? Well, starting in 2006, a huge class-action lawsuit ($23.3 million) was filed against the company for 'false advertising, according to one of the groups that joined the suit.' It says in an article that The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit advocacy group, said the company will refund money to consumers who bought Airborne's product. It also says that the company will pay for advertisements in major publications instructing consumers on how to get their money refunded.

Source:
http://biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/080304/030408_airborne_settlement.html?.v=2

MATH EXTRA CREDIT #1

For extra credit one current event would be that the euro, the European currency, has gone up again making the exchange rate $1.5167 for every one euro. That means that for every one euro we are paying at least half more than we should. All those halves add up and could eventually become millions. Microsoft should know, after being fined for 899 million euros, the largest antitrust penalty the European Union has ever fined a single company.

Source:
en.wikipedia.org