You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
6 championships
It’s been one year since North Carolina Republicans passed HB2, a bill that banned cities from extending legal protections to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. It has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of economic losses and remains on the books. The NCAA — which moved March Madness games out of the state in reaction to the law — is considering where to hold six years’ worth of championship games next month. If North Carolina wants to be in that conversation, the clock is ticking for the GOP legislative supermajority and new Democratic governor to cut a deal. [POLITICO]
22 votes
House Speaker Paul Ryan can afford to lose only 22 GOP votes in any attempt to pass House Republicans’ bill to replace the Affordable Care Act. President Trump’s budget director said Thursday that today is the last day for the House to pass the bill before the president gives up and moves on to other priorities. The vote was supposed to be Thursday night anyway, so let’s see how this goes. [POLITICO]
25 trips
Because of travel restrictions proposed by President Trump, the Toronto District School Board will not approve new trips to the United States out of concern for students being turned away at the border. For perspective, about 25 trips involving 900 students are scheduled for the rest of the spring semester. [The Star]
149 spotlights
The Germans have used 149 spotlights to make an artificial sun that produces light that is 10,000 times stronger than natural sunlight on Earth. They can produce temperatures of 3,500 Celsius by directing them at a single spot. Listen, I’m not saying they made a death ray, I’m just saying they made a scientific device that shares a lot of death-ray-esque properties — and I think we need to have a more open conversation about the death-ray potential here, because I’m not 100 percent cool with a fake sun in a protective radiation chamber after seeing “Spider-Man 2.” [The Guardian]
$3 million
Credit bureau Experian will pay a $3 million fine related to giving credit scores to consumers that were not their true credit score. Peers Equifax and Transunion reached a settlement on similar allegations in January. [Los Angeles Times]
$13 billion
Estimated revenue YouTube brought to Google in 2016, according to a senior media analyst at Wedbush Securities. Advertisers are freaking out about the content their ads are adjacent to. [The New York Times]
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