I was just reading the news this morning when I stumbled across this headline and the corresponding article summary. Anything seem odd to you?

In case you didn't notice it, the BBC makes two very different statements: (1) that the total number of HIV infections may have peaked, and (2) that the world's HIV infection rate may have peaked. This confusion in their headline is analogous to saying a car stopped moving when in reality it just stopped accelerating. Of course nobody's hypothesizing that HIV infections might actually start to drop off (although it's tempting to think that based on the headline). Once again we see the importance of having basic math skills, no matter what Richard Cohen says about its importance in journalism.

Derivatives, people. Derivatives...

UPDATE (2005-05-31): Today's New York Times gets it perfectly right:

We Yanks may not get cricket, but at least we understand math.