You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
24 teams remaining
After two rounds of games, eight teams — out of the 32 that began — have been mathematically eliminated from the World Cup as of Sunday night. And with one round of games left in the group stage, a few other teams — Iran, Australia, Iceland, Serbia, South Korea — are hanging on by only a cleat lace. [FiveThirtyEight]
53 percent of the vote
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s long-time leader, has declared victory in the presidential election in that country, while his opposition claimed that it was too early to determine the outcome. Erdogan had 53 percent of the vote as of Sunday evening, according to state media. Turkey’s president will enjoy “considerable power” under a new constitution that is set to take effect after the election. “I hope nobody will try to cast a shadow on the results,” Erdogan said. [BBC]
“86”
Last week, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, was asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. In other words, she was “eighty-sixed,” a piece of bar and restaurant slang meaning “ousted” or that a menu item is no longer available, and a phrase apparently included in a note about Sanders written by the Red Hen’s staff. The Atlantic’s Ben Zimmer traces the phrase’s origins back to a 1933 column about soda fountain lingo. [The Atlantic]
489 pedestrians and cyclists killed
Between 2013 and 2017 in Los Angeles, 489 pedestrians and cyclists were killed by cars, according to the city, and the numbers remain “stubbornly high.” A culture of cyclist riding groups has emerged in that sprawling, car-centric city — which features only a “lackluster network of bike lanes” — both to capitalize on the idea of safety in numbers and to lobby their municipal government to address and redress the cycling tragedies. [The New York Times]
25,000 pounds of Parmesan cheese
In Italy, under the cover of night and armed with a blowtorch, thieves made off with 25,000 pounds of precious Parmesan cheese with a “street value” of $300,000 from a warehouse. In response, I imagine, the country’s pasta warehouses have now moved to DEFCON 1. [The Wall Street Journal]
6 billion pounds of seafood
Last year, the U.S. imported more seafood than it ever had in the history of the fish-loving republic: 6 billion pounds of it worth more than $21.5 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We exported seafood worth about $6 billion. These digits are making me hungry! Some Nova lox on a bagel sounds amazing right now. [AP]
If you see a significant digit in the wild, please send it to @ollie.