A company that supplies color-coded keyboards has launched a nationwide speed typing contest offering $1 million worth of prizes to the fastest typists in the U.S.

KeyRight USA said its America's Fastest Typist contest aims to improve the nation's keyboard literacy by offering cash prizes and educational scholarships to participating individuals, students, school teams and corporate teams.

A 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant in Sweden has solved a 300-year-old mathematical puzzle dubbed the Bernoulli numbers, though the formula was previously known and available, according to the Swedish press.

It took Mohamed Altoumaimi just four months to find the formula for the complex calculation named after 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli, the Dagens Nyheter daily reported Thursday.

Canadian retail chain Metro, Inc., announced the launch of its Green Apple School Program. The program, which officially starts June 1, 2009, will have Metro stores in Ontario and Quebec collect five cents for plastic shopping bags.

The initiative aims to cut the number of plastic bags in circulation in the two Canadian provinces. Metro's target is to halve its plastic bag issuance by December 2010.

More American fathers are taking an active part in the Parents Teachers Association, not just in sports activities of the schools, but also in room concerns.

The growing incursion of males into the PTA will be particularly felt middle of this year when Charles Saylors assumes presidency of the national organization, the first time a man will head it. The PTA was originally the National Congress of Mothers, established over 100 years ago. A concrete measure of the growing paternal influence in the PTA is the hike in membership to 10 percent of 5.5 million members, from 3 percent in 2004.

Zimbabwe's finance minister has announced that salaries of government employees, teachers and soldiers in the African country are being paid in U.S. dollars instead of in the local currency.

Some 130,000 government employees will receive $100 a month tax-free, replacing their local currency salaries, said Finance Minister Tendai Biti on Tuesday, according to Newzimbabwe.com.