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Significant Digits For Friday, Jan. 16, 2015

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news. A Significant Digits daily newsletter is coming soon. If you want to be one of the first to receive it, sign up here.

9 women

Ava DuVernay is the ninth woman to be passed over for a best director nomination even though her film received a best picture Academy Award nomination. [@SpencerAlthouse]


21 percent lower

A study by the Pew Research Center found that heavy Internet and social media users did not report higher levels of stress. Indeed, among women stress levels were 21 percent lower for those who shared things on social. [Reuters]


39 percent

President Obama has proposed legislation to give workers seven days’ paid sick leave. About 39 percent of Americans do not receive paid sick leave. Regardless of your politics, it’s worth remembering that some of these people make your food. [The Washington Post]

69 percent

Proportion of New York City voters who disapprove of police officers turning their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio. [Quinnipiac]

133 stores

Canada is poised to lose its 133 Target locations after the retailer decided to close the stores and lay off 17,600 employees. [Los Angeles Times]


300 couples

A judge ruled that the state of Michigan must recognize the marriages of 300 same-sex couples who wed last year. [Detroit Free Press]


$25,200

Kentucky workplace safety regulators fined a fire department $25,200 after one firefighter was killed by electrocution and three others were injured while they made an ALS ice bucket challenge video. [WAVE 3 News]


$5.86 million

The sum that a really popular, really stylish, pretty good iPhone game can make. [Polygon]

20 million square miles of ocean

Area affected by bottom trawlers scraping nets along the ocean floor, a process which has torn up vast areas of the continental shelf. [The New York Times]

$6 billion

Estimated cost of the Hyperloop, a high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, according to entrepreneur and proposer Elon Musk. Eighty-four bazillion. Eleventy six. “e.” I can also make up completely irrational numbers in my head without justification. [The New York Times]


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We’re off Monday. See you Tuesday. As always, if you see a significant digit in the wild, tweet it to me @WaltHickey.

Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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