April 13, 2014
Paula Munteanu
News Writer
News By Numbers
$481,098 He paid an effective tax rate of 20.4%, up from 18.4% in 2012, when he made $608,611. The rise in taxes is due to the policies he pushed to limit tax preferences for the wealthy.
Together with his wife Michelle Obama, the family reported to have donated $59,251 to charities. For the second year in a row, out of 32 charities Obama family contributed to, the largest donation went to the Fisher House Foundation, which supports military families. All in all, the president’s earnings have declined from 2009, when he earned $5.5 million, primarily from the sales of his books “Dreams from My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.” Obama’s official salary is $400,000 as president.
$185,000 is the price of a pair of Marilyn Monroe’s rhinestone earrings sold at a Los Angeles auction.
Monroe wore the jewelry to a Hollywood film premiere in 1955. The earrings were sold at Julien’s Auction and the buyer was a foreign collector whose name could not be released by the auction house. At the same sale, which was part of a two-day auction at Julien’s Beverly Hills gallery, a cigarette lighter used by Humphrey Bogart was purchased for $19,200. A 1986 Pontiac Firebird previously owned by David Hasselhoff was sold for $152,600.
$731 million is the fine that Microsoft had to pay over a browser miscue.
The lawsuit, brought by shareholder Kim Barovic in federal court in Seattle on Friday, is due to the way Microsoft handled an error with its Internet Explorer browser. The software company broke a legal commitment made in 2009 to give consumers in Europe the choice on how to access the Internet, rather than defaulting to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. An investigation showed that the updates software issued between May 2011 and July 2012 failed to give consumers an alternative. So Microsoft must pay up.
12 months is how long a family of four went without sugar in an attempt to live healthier.
Eve Schaub, after learning about the numerous diseases including type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease and liver cirrhosis the sugar consumption leads to, decided to experiment and live on a sugar-free diet in 2011. Her husband and daughters Greta, 11, and Ilsa, 5, joined her. Schaub describes the entire process in her new book “Year of No Sugar: A Memoir.”
101 people in Guinea and 10 in Liberia have been killed by Ebola virus.
The WHO described the case as “one of the most challenging Ebola outbreaks we have ever dealt with.” The reason for the swift spread of the virus is the porous borders in many West African countries and people who travel frequently. Ebola kills between 25 and 90 percent of the victims and is spread by close contact. The first case was reported in the Guinea last month. “We fully expect to be engaged in this outbreak for the next two to three to four months before we are comfortable that we are through it,” WHO’s assistant director general, Keija Fukuda said at a news briefing in Geneva.
