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By The Numbers

Tomorrow is your big day

Tony Wagner and Beidi Zhang Apr 14, 2015
6 percent

That’s how now-official presidential hopeful Marco Rubio has been polling, on average, for the past few months. While he’s a low-performer in the crowded GOP field, FiveThirtyEight argues Rubio belongs in contention with presumed GOP front-runners like Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. Rubio has a history of beating expectations and winning important party endorsements, says analyst Harry Enten, and he could be a very electable, middle-of-the-road option for voters.

1: 1.05

That’s the euro-dollar exchange rate this morning. If you’ve been thinking about visiting Europe, but haven’t wanted to pay top dollar, now is a pretty good time to take out your wallet. The attractive exchange rate is making everything from paella to rail tickets cheaper. 

$2,815

The average tax refund at the beginning of April, about $20 more than this time last tax season. All told, the IRS refunded about $374 billion last year. So why do so many people overpay? Turns out it has a lot to do with taxpayer psychology. We looked into it as part of our series, “I’ve Always Wondered…

April 15, 2015

Speaking of taxes, April 15 is the IRS tax filing deadline. As if you didn’t already know. Our own producer Josh Woo was the winner on Wheel of Fortune in the 2014 tax year. And with his tax return now signed and delivered, we look at what his game show victory meant for him this tax season. 

1995

The year Lynda Weinman started Lynda.com with her husband Bruce Heavin. Born out of Weinman’s do-it-yourself web design books, Lynda was bought by Linkedin last week for $1.5 billion. The Wall Street Journal has Weinman’s story, from doing special effects on “RoboCop 2” to shaping the current landscape of ed-tech.

5.6 percent

That’s how much Nokia’s stock went down on the Helsinki Stock Exchange today after news broke that the company is looking to buy Alcatel Lucent of France. While negotiations could always break down, Alcatel stock is up 12 percent in Paris now. And there are a few strands of American DNA in there. Lucent is descendent of the old AT&T, bell labs, the people who invented the laser. 

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