You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
$8.5 million clothing deal
Naomi Osaka, who won a controversial, penalty-ridden U.S. Open tennis final against Serena Williams, is signing a clothing deal with Adidas worth some $8.5 million. It’s reportedly the biggest such deal in women’s tennis. [The Times]
$895 billion deficit
Thanks in large part to the Republican tax cuts passed in 2017, the U.S. deficit has grown $222 billion over the past year to $895 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The deficit is on a course for $1 trillion by the end of the 2019 fiscal year. [Axios]
154,000 interviews
Feeling worried? Stressed? Angry? In pain? Well, I don’t really know what to tell you other than that you’re not alone — and there’s data to prove it. A worldwide Gallup survey of 154,000 people revealed more negative experiences in 2017 than there had been in more than a decade. Worry and stress, for example, were up 2 percentage points from the year before. Sounds about right, tbh. [The New York Times]
68 percent of claims
The Washington Post fact-checked a pair of President Trump’s recent rallies in Montana. At a July rally, 76 percent of the president’s statements were “false, misleading or unsupported by the evidence.” At another rally last week, that figure was 68 percent. (That averages to 72 percent.) Among the minority of Trump’s claims that were accurate: “In the election, we won [Montana] by a lot. That was not close.” [The Washington Post]
$9.8 million
According to MSNBC and documents released by Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the Department of Homeland Security requested to transfer nearly $10 million out of the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and into that of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to fund the latter’s immigrant detention and deportation programs. Merkley believes the transfer happened this summer. “Just in time for hurricane season,” said Rachel Maddow. [MSNBC]
34 districts
There are just 50-odd days until Election Day. And here’s one way to think about the race for the House, as laid out by my colleague Nathaniel Rakich: Most districts, no surprise, either voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 and Trump in 2016, or Barack Obama in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. But 34 districts bucked this trend. Twenty-one of these are Obama-Trump districts — the average race in this category is a toss-up. Thirteen are Romney-Clinton districts — none of these is represented by a Democrat, and the average race in this category is rated “lean Democratic.” [FiveThirtyEight]
Love digits? Find even more in FiveThirtyEight’s new book of math and logic puzzles, “The Riddler.” It’s out on Oct. 9 — I hope you dig it.
If you see a significant digit in the wild, please send it to @ollie.