You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.
2 contests
Marco Rubio, the Republican establishment choice, has now won two of the 20 contests the GOP has held in states and territories to select its presidential nominee. He won the Minnesota caucus last week and had a big win in Puerto Rico on Sunday. But it’s looking increasingly difficult for Rubio to win an outright majority of delegates to score the nomination given the results so far and the state of the campaign in upcoming states. [The Washington Post]
7 months
After announcing a melanoma diagnosis seven months ago, former President Jimmy Carter says he no longer needs treatment for the cancer. Doctors will continue to monitor his health, but he’s looking good, and can get back to single-mindedly annihilating an ancient plague from this earth with the incandescent fury of a man seeking to accomplish one last thing before he is greeted by a then-wounded Death. [ABC News]
10 to 50 microwatts
Researchers at the University of Washington are working on new Wi-Fi hardware that consumes power at a vastly lower rate than current technology — something on the order of 10,000 times less power than typical Wi-Fi equipment. [Wired]
17 seasons
Peyton Manning is expected to announce his retirement today after 17 seasons in professional football. Manning is an undisputed shoo-in for the Hall of Fame; indeed, looking at the stats from just half of the years he played shows a career good enough on paper for the Hall of Fame. [FiveThirtyEight]
55 delegates
Bernie Sanders had a good weekend, winning the Democratic contests in Nebraska (57 percent to Hillary Clinton’s 43 percent) and Kansas (68 percent to Clinton’s 32 percent). Still, Clinton will walk away with more delegates from the “super Saturday” contests after routing Sanders in Louisiana. [NPR]
447 crossword puzzles
A group of crossword enthusiasts believe they have found a plagiarist in their midst: Since 1999, hundreds of puzzles distributed by Universal Crossword and printed in USA Today have looked suspiciously like puzzles first printed elsewhere. For example, 65 puzzles appear to have lifted their themes directly from New York Times puzzles. [FiveThirtyEight]
$1,262
According to a local man who tried it, that’s how much it costs for a New York City resident to eat Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s absurd diet — which involves 2.3 pounds of cod per day, plus chicken, vegetables, eggs and steak — for a month. [FiveThirtyEight]
$1 million
How much the average Arby’s restaurant makes in a year. That’s a new record for a brand once reviled for its disgusting sandwiches that remains reviled for it disgusting sandwiches but somehow sells far more of them, judging by consistent sales growth over the past five years. [BuzzFeed]
$3 billion
Louisiana is in pretty dire fiscal straits: The state is short about $3 billion to cover services over the next 16 months, and Gov. John Bel Edwards has given the GOP-controlled legislature a deadline to figure out a way to keep the state afloat. [The Washington Post]
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