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Significant Digits For Monday, July 18, 2016

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news. Last Wednesday, FiveThirtyEight launched an in-depth look at gun violence in America. For the final time, Significant Digits is going to highlight that work.


1 in 3,400

Share of gun homicides in the U.S. from 2002 to 2014 that occurred in a terrorist attack. In the rest of the world, at least one of every 40 people shot to death died in a terrorist attack. [FiveThirtyEight]

40 to 80 percent

The range of estimated banned guns recovered under Australia’s buyback program. [FiveThirtyEight]

62.7 percent

Nearly two-thirds of all gun deaths in the U.S. each year are suicides. Explore the data on gun deaths in America, including on homicides and accidents, in our interactive graphic and read about some of the potential solutions in our multi-part package. [FiveThirtyEight]


7 points

Usually, it’s Republican candidates who gain an edge when a poll shifts from registered voters to likely voters. That’s not the case this time around: An ABC News poll found that while Clinton had a 4-point edge over Trump among registered voters, that edge expanded to 7 points when refining to likely voters. [ABC News]


Relevant sidebar: It’s the Republican National Convention! FiveThirtyEight has sent its crack political team and also for some inexplicable reason me to “the Cleve” (as it was called on “30 Rock” so I assume it’s true) to cover the events. FiveThirtyEight has its own show on ABC News Digital at 5 p.m. ET each evening of the convention, so tune in to that! I’ll be on the stream later on in the evening, so watch that too.


$235,941

It’s looking like Tom Brady will indeed be suspended for four games next season after losing his appeals against the NFL in court, but he did make a smart financial move in April to minimize the impact: Brady restructured his contract to categorize most of the money he makes this year as a signing bonus rather than salary, meaning the losses from missing four game checks amount to $235,941 rather than $2.11 million. [NBC Sports]


$200 million

Herbalife will pay $200 million in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission to customers who were deceived into believing that they could make lots of money by selling Herbalife stuff. The company will also have to restructure its business.[FTC]


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And if you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.

CORRECTION (July 18, 11 a.m.): An earlier version of this article misstated Clinton’s lead over Trump in the latest ABC News poll. She led by 4 points among registered voters, not 47 points. (Her share of registered voters in the poll was 47 percent.)

Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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