You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.
4 manatees
A Florida man touched two adult and two calf manatees, prompting witnesses to call the police. While attempting to ride a manatee, the man chanted, “Take me to jail!” and the police happily obliged, because it is definitely illegal to harass manatees. [KAIT 8]
36.5 percent
According to a new poll, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has the backing of 36.5 percent of active-duty military service members, putting him second behind Donald Trump, at 37.6 percent. Clinton is more well regarded among officers than among enlisted personnel. The Navy put Johnson in first place, while more than half of Marines are for Trump. [The Military Times]
75 percent
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll asked Americans whether they had a favorable opinion of a variety of people, organizations and entities including Barack Obama, both major political parties and the media. The highest favorable rating went to none other than Canada, which drew a positive reaction from 75 percent of respondents and a negative reaction from only 3 percent. Canada for President. [Mark Murray, via Luke Kawa]
95 percent
In 2012, 71 percent of contributions to major-party presidential candidates from donors who appear to be Jewish went to Barack Obama; 29 percent went to Mitt Romney. This time around, Jews have ditched Trump: 95 percent of money from donors who appear to be Jewish has gone to Hillary Clinton. [FiveThirtyEight]
3.5 million people
Puerto Rico lost power early Thursday, dropping 3.5 million people into the dark. [WSVN]
$2.6 billion
Several different brands of shoes recently introduced bulky, “ugly” footware that is panned by fashion publications. Still, the state of our busted shoe market is strong: Uggs and Crocs make $1.5 billion and $1.1 billion a year in revenue, respectively, so there must be some people buying them. [Bloomberg]
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