Hopefully Wednesday isn’t as hard on you as the Boston Dynamics team is to their robots. Here are some need-to-know numbers for the day.
Now might be a good time for international students to be California-bound — Nike co-founder and chairman Philip H. Knight announced Wednesday a $400 million gift to Stanford University, which will go towards a Rhodes Scholar-like program for graduate students. The total amount raised for the program so far is $750 million. As the New York Times writes, the program offers 100 students free tuition as well as room and board, with two-thirds of the student body composed of international scholars. The hope is they will become world leaders following their education. Some critics, however, have already pointed out how beneficial gifts of this size could be if given to several institutions, instead of being directed towards a single, private university.
And as you dream about the weekend, keep in mind that the next Democratic primary is coming up on Saturday in North Carolina. Marketplace’s Wealth & Poverty team recently paid a visit to Bamberg County — the hometown of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley — where almost a third of all residents live in poverty. It’s part of a six-county region that was named a “Promise Zone” last year by President Obama. That means over the next 10 years, the area will receive federal grants and loan packages. And it’s no small feat to be picked — they were one of 123 communities to apply for the designation.
How’d you feel about that last story? Did you love it? Were you angry about it? Or maybe it just made you say, “Wow.” Any one of those emotions are part of the 6 reactions you can now utilize on Facebook posts. While the company has been talking about adding the emoji options for a while, Wednesday was the official launch. And Marketplace listeners had a lot of feelings about it.
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