You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
$2.5 billion
The nation’s power utilities are just beginning to understand the costs of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. NextEra Energy, the owner of the largest utility in Florida, estimated $1.3 billion in damages last week. Duke Energy estimated $500 million in damages in Florida, Southern Co. estimated $150 million. NRG Energy put their costs at $40 million and Texas’ American Electric Power Co. put their costs at $250 million to $300 million. All told, about $2.5 billion. [Bloomberg]
$600 per month
That’s the top average rate in New York and London to rent a parking space. Investing in parking spaces — buying them for thousands of dollars, renting them for hundreds, and years later flipping them for hundreds of thousands — is a legitimate financial strategy, with all the benefits of owning real estate and none of the problems of dealing with tenants. [The New York Times]
11 arrested princes
Saturday night 11 princes, four ministers, and many further former ministers were arrested in Saudi Arabia. The most prominent of those arrested was Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an international financier who controls Kingdom Holding and has had staked in Twitter, Apple, Citigroup and 21st Century Fox. [The New York Times]
8 percent
That’s the percentage of Facebook owned by companies controlled by Yuri Milner, a Russian billionaire investor who also owns 5 percent of Twitter. New documents leaked indicate that the investments were backed by “hundreds of millions of dollars from the Kremlin” obfuscated through shell companies. [The New York Times]
$121 million
“Thor: Ragnarok” had a huge weekend at the box office, pulling in $121 million domestically on top of $427 million over its two week international release. [The Associated Press]
68 percent
Percentage of people in STEM master’s degree programs last year who were international students, according to an annual survey of U.S. and Canadian universities. In 1994, only 40 percent of computer science Ph.D. students were international. [The New York Times]
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