• Microsoft founder Bill Gates leads a list of eight men with a combined net worth matching that of half of the rest of the planet, according to a report released Monday by the charity Oxfam. Oxfam does the math each year and publishes its results just in time for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where many of the extremely wealthy are often among the attendees, along with diplomats, political figures, and business and cultural leaders. The Oxfam report on income inequality is on the agenda for discussion at the forum. Oxfam bases its figures in part on Forbes' annual list of billionaires and the magazine's estimates of their wealth. This year, Oxfam said, new data gathered by Credit Suisse about the global poor led it to lower its estimates of their assets and to revise its findings about how few rich men -- the eight are all men -- were needed to equal the estimated wealth of 3.6 billion people. The report placed Gates in the No. 1 spot, with a net worth of $75 billion. He is followed by Amancio Ortega Gaona, the Spanish founder of the fashion company Inditex, with a net worth of $67 billion; Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett, $60.8 billion; Mexican telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim Helu, $50 billion; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, $45.2 billion; Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, $44.6 billion; Oracle founder Lawrence Ellison, $43.6 billion; and former New York Mayor and Bloomberg LLP founder Michael Bloomberg, $40 billion.
• Actor Ryan Reynolds, who earned a Golden Globe nomination for playing the title role in 2016's Deadpool, was named Man of the Year by Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals student group. The award is presented annually to performers who have made lasting and impressive contributions to the world of entertainment. "Ryan Reynolds is one of Hollywood's most diverse leading men seamlessly transitioning through varied genres of drama, action and comedy in his rich and ever evolving career," the group said in a statement Friday. Reynolds is scheduled to be roasted and receive his pudding pot Feb. 3. In addition to Deadpool, the Canadian-born actor has appeared recently in R.I.P.D., Mississippi Grind and Self/less. He stars with Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson in the science fiction movie Life and with Salma Hayek and Samuel L. Jackson in The Hitman's Bodyguard, both due out this year. Reynolds also has a TV production company, DarkFire, which recently sold its first two projects. He serves on the board of directors for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, and in 2007 raised more than $100,000 when he ran the New York City Marathon in honor of his father, who has Parkinson's disease.
A Section on 01/17/2017