You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
1 missile
North Korea fired off a ballistic missile on Sunday, but it exploded almost immediately after launching. [The Washington Post]
51 percent
Voters in Turkey passed a referendum giving President Tayyip Erdogan expanded powers and potentially keeping him in office until 2029. But the vote was closer than Erdogan had wanted, with just over 51 percent in favor, and the country’s two major opposition parties promised to contest the results. [BBC]
60 minutes
United Airlines, after violently kicking a man off an overbooked flight so some employees could get somewhere (and reaping the public relations rewards when video of the incident went viral), announced a new policy that would not allow employees to bump passengers from overbooked flights which were already boarded. A spokeswoman told The Times: “We issued an updated policy to make sure crews traveling on our aircraft are booked at least 60 minutes prior to departure.” [The New York Times]
117 years
Emma Morano, of Italy, has passed away at the age of 117. Morano had been the last person alive known to have been born in the 1800s (and therefore also the oldest person in the world). [BBC]
180 meters of ice
Scientists study ice cores to learn about historical atmospheric conditions. The long cylinders of frozen water contain trapped gasses and particles from thousands of years in the past — they’re basically priceless scientific data. Unless the cores melt! A freezer went on the fritz at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, accidentally exposing 180 meters of the Arctic ice to too high heat. [The Guardian]
$532.5 million
Worldwide gross of “The Fate of the Furious,” the eighth installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise, a new opening-weekend record at the global box office. [Variety]
If you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.