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Significant Digits For Thursday, May 3, 2018

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.

$1

The two Philadelphia men who were arrested for sitting in a Starbucks while being black have reached a deal with the city where each will receive a symbolic $1 and officials will set up a $200,000 program for young entrepreneurs. [The Associated Press]


$2.81 per gallon

Average price of gasoline in the United States, up 15 cents per gallon. New tension with Iran is stoking price hikes for gas that AAA expects to cost $3 per gallon within the month. [CNN Money]


17 years

It’s been 17 years since the initial filing of a class-action lawsuit, but the 2,500 freelance writers who made it through the legal process stand to receive some of a $9 million legal settlement from The New York Times, Dow Jones, Knight Ridder, and Lexis-Nexis owner Reed Elsevier. The suit was filed in 2001 after writers were not paid by publishers when their work was licensed to digital indexers. [The New York Times]


28 percent

Actress and activist Cynthia Nixon is closing in on the large lead Gov. Andrew Cuomo has in a Democratic primary for the New York State governors race. A Quinnipiac poll found if the primary were held today, 28 percent of registered Democrats would back the challenger, while Cuomo had the support of 50 percent of Democrats. Nixon’s support is strongest among young people and liberals, the latter of whom would pick her over Cuomo 49 percent to 31 percent. [Quinnipiac University]


50 percent

Half of Americans wear jeans the a majority of the week, and my god we’ve found the thing that brings this country together: 50 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of Republicans wear jeans at least four days of the week. [Morning Consult]


$9.83 billion

Bloomberg LP is privately held, but an outside consultant estimated $9.83 billion in revenue for the company in 2017. The bulk of that is derived from a robust financial data service sold through the Bloomberg Terminal, but sales on that have slowed since the recession. The same firm estimated Bloomberg’s media businesses finished 2017 with $304 million in revenue, down slightly from 2012, one motivation for a forthcoming paywall on par with the rest of the financial media. [The Wall Street Journal]


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If you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.

Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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