26. What’s wrong in the following quotations?
President Bush visited California, where 12 forest fires have charred more than 700,000 square miles.
—Steve Stadelman, WTVO television news, Channel 17, Rockford, Illinois, October 2007. (Curiously, exactly the same number, 700,000, also appeared in news reports for California fires in 2014, 2011, 2003, 2000, and 1987.)
The population of the USA has topped 300 million … If current trends continue, it is expected to reach 400 billion by 2043. This makes it an acceleration of growth.
—Significance 3(4) (December 2006): 146