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.
5 hours
That’s about how long former special counsel Robert Mueller spent testifying in front of two congressional committees on Wednesday. The bulk of Mueller’s answers referred back to what was written in his 448-page report, but there were a few telling moments, such as when he said that he and his team decided against subpoenaing President Trump to prioritize “expediting the end of the investigation.” [FiveThirtyEight]
$5 billion
The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday fined Facebook $5 billion — the largest fine in FTC history. The penalty came after investigations revealed that Facebook mishandled millions of users’ personal data. The fine is aimed at punishing the company but also changing “Facebook’s entire privacy culture to decrease the likelihood of continued violations,” said FTC Chairman Joseph Simons. [CNN]
2,000 years
A new report has revealed that the temperature variations that occurred during the end of the 20th century were more widespread than any climatic variations experienced during the previous 2,000 years. The report, published in the journal Nature, found that previous weather phenomena had been confined to specific areas and were not global challenges, said Nathan Steiger, one of the report’s authors. According to Steiger, “climate variability in the contemporary period is very different than what’s happened in the past 2,000 years.” [Reuters]
18 years
Hungarian swimmer Kristóf Milák broke Michael Phelps’s 18-year-old world record in the 200-meter butterfly at the FINA World Championships on Wednesday. Milák, 19, beat Phelps’s time by 0.78 seconds. Phelps, who won the event in three different Olympics, praised Milák’s effort, saying, “My hat’s off to him.” [The New York Times]
$2.9 billion
Boeing announced on Wednesday that it lost $2.9 billion in the second quarter, continued fallout from the two fatal crashes that led to the grounding of all 737 Max airliners in March. Though the company said it expects to get the planes back in service by the end of the year, the uncertainty over when they will fly again is delaying new financial forecasts. [NPR]
185 pounds
Cynthia Arnold, a 35-year-old runner from Montana, unofficially broke the Guinness World Record for fastest marathon run while pushing a three-person stroller. Arnold, who already holds the record for fastest half-marathon with a triple-stroller, has three kids who, when in the stroller, weigh a total of approximately 185 pounds. Running with a stroller and kids, however heavy the load, “gives one the freedom to carry on a lifestyle with new ones in tow,” Arnold said. [Runner’s World]
From ABC News:
SigDigs: July 25, 2019
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