You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news. Oliver Roeder is out, so the politics intern, Erin Doherty, is back with the digits.
$1.82 million
Three original videotapes of the Apollo 11 moon landing sold for $1.82 million in an auction this weekend. The videos, which have not been edited or modified since they were filmed 50 years ago, sold for more than 8,000 times what a NASA intern paid for them in 1976 at a government surplus auction. [CNN]
300 feet deep
A missing American World War II warship has been found 5 miles off the coast of Maine — 300 feet below the ocean surface. A team of eight divers searched the seabed for four years before discovering the ship, which is believed to have been hit by a German submarine. [BBC]
$185 million
There must be something to the name. “The Lion King” raked in $185 million in U.S. theaters during its opening weekend, the highest movie opening ever in July. The film brought in $269 million more internationally, contributing to its total earnings of $531 million. [CNBC]
3,000 prisoners
Under the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform act signed into law last year, 3,000 people were released Friday from custody. Norah Yahya, who had been jailed on a nonviolent drug offense, said her release under the law will allow her to start anew. “It was just unreal to me — I was ecstatic about it,” she said. [CBS News]
100 degrees
The dangerous heat wave that roasted much of the country over the weekend brought temperatures that approached 100 degrees in New York. The New York City Triathlon and OZY Fest, a music and food festival scheduled for Central Park, were both canceled — and Mayor Bill de Blasio called off presidential campaign events to stay in the city. I hear movie theaters have good air conditioning — good timing for “The Lion King.” [The New York Times]
4 alligators
A 2-foot-long alligator was found in the parking lot of a grocery store outside Pittsburgh on Friday, making for the fourth alligator sighting around the city since May. But this one was a friendly creature, said Paul McIntyre of Big Daddy Wildlife Removal, who took the gator from police. “It was somebody’s pet, I can guarantee you,” McIntyre told the Tribune Review newspaper. “He’s so friendly. Somebody had him as a pet, couldn’t take care of him and let him go.” [The Associated Press]
From ABC News:
SigDigs: July 22, 2019
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