You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.
1.5 kilometers
The head of the Sinaloa Cartel escaped from a maximum security Mexican prison this weekend through a 1.5-kilometer tunnel the cartel had evidently constructed. This is the second time that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has escaped from prison, and something tells me incarceration has not helped him learn his lesson or made him change his ways. [ABC News]
3 titles
Novak Djokovic won his third Wimbledon title this past weekend. He then ate some grass, because the trophy wasn’t filling. [Digg]
20 colleges
Twenty schools are responsible for a fifth of all grad school college loan debt, a group that counts among its number several for-profit colleges, expensive private schools and off-shore medical schools. [The Washington Post]
$23 million
The Decision: LeBron James signed a one-year contract to stay in Cleveland next year, with an option for another year following it. [Cleveland.com]
25 percent
Advertisements take up more bandwidth than one might think. AdBlock Plus funded a study to see what would happen if an entire college network used its product, and Simon Fraser University saw overall data transfer on its network drop 25 percent. [Slashdot]
$65 million
That’s the tax haul for Washington state after its first year of legal marijuana. Pot sales brought in more than $260 million in their first year. [Reuters]
$115 million
“Minions” took the top spot at the box office this weekend, heralding a new benchmark in the gradual decline of western civilization. Domestically, the film made $115.2 million. [Los Angeles Times]
460 visits
That’s the estimate for the number of “Make-a-Wish” foundation visits that professional wrestler John Cena has made, a record for the organization that matches sick kids with people they want to meet. [New York Post]
$985 million
That’s how much the International Olympic Committee reported it took in from the 2004 Athens Games. The games were nowhere near as fruitful for the host nation, which is now trying to handle a series of crippling debts while still having the real estate detritus of a sports event from a decade ago. [Politico Europe]
$60.59 billion
Estimate for how much money Americans will spend on their pets in 2015, about 25 percent higher than how much they spent in 2010. Dogs are the most expensive to raise. [NBC News]
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If you see a significant digit in the wild, tweet it to me, @WaltHickey.