You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
24-17
The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, 24 to 17, to authorize subpoenas for the full report of special counsel Robert Mueller. Attorney General William Barr has said that he will release a redacted version of the 300-plus-page report by mid-April. [NPR]
20-20-20 game
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s Russell Westbrook became the second player in the history of the NBA to achieve a “20-20-20” game — he finished a Tuesday game against the Lakers with 20 points, 20 rebounds and 21 assists. He dedicated his performance to the rapper Nipsey Hussle, who was fatally shot in Los Angeles on Sunday. Westbrook joined the annals alongside Wilt Chamberlain, who went 22-25-21 in a game in 1968. [ESPN]
20 percent
President Trump signed a memo “to clean up this Wild West of counterfeiting,” as his economic adviser put it. The directive is aimed at counterfeit products on online marketplaces such as — though the memo didn’t name them explicitly — Alibaba, Amazon and eBay. According to the memo, the worldwide value of the counterfeit and pirated goods trade could reach half a trillion dollars a year, with about 20 percent of that infringing on American intellectual property. [Reuters]
0 charges
In 2015, a gunfight between rival biker gangs in a Waco, Texas, restaurant parking lot killed nine people and injured at least 20 more. This week, however, prosecutors announced that all charges would be dropped. Continuing to prosecute the case would be a “waste of time, effort and resources,” the McLennan County district attorney said. This despite the fact that 177 bikers were initially arrested after the shooting. [Associated Press]
Since 1993
For the first time since 1993, a vote in Britain’s House of Commons ended in a tie — 310 to 310. The vote had to do with (what else?) Brexit, specifically whether to hold a third day of voting on alternative options. The speaker, John Bercow, gets to break the tie, and he voted “no.” He said that “it is not for the chair to create a majority that otherwise doesn’t exist.” [Associated Press]
5 hours, 45 minutes
Speaking of Britain, the new official Instagram account of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — aka Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — set a record for the shortest amount of time to amass 1 million followers, at 5 hours and 45 minutes, according to Guinness World Records. That smashed the previous record held by Korean pop star Kang Daniel, who took 11 hours and 36 minutes. He supplanted the pope, who took 12 hours. [BBC]
From ABC News:
News headlines today: April 4, 2019
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