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Significant Digits For Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016

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


3 batarangs

Number of batarangs — the signature boomerang used by Batman, who is probably not a real person — confiscated last week from a flier’s carry-on baggage by the Transportation Security Administration at San Francisco International Airport. Surprisingly, this kind of thing happens a lot, at least according to the TSA’s Instagram feed. (This is the same helpful agency that taught all of us that they know when you try to smuggle weed through security in peanut butter jars.) [The Hollywood Reporter]


9 percent

Percentage of the U.S. that voted for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the presidential primaries. “Haha, great job, people,” is something you can say without alienating the vast majority of Americans. [The New York Times]


51 percent

Gallup found that 36 percent of Americans said they were more likely to vote for Trump based on what they saw at the Republican National Convention; 51 percent said they were less likely. Among the 16 conventions for which Gallup has asked this question (since 1984), the 2016 GOP convention is the only one to get more negative reviews than positive reviews. [Gallup]


90 percent

An Associated Press study of Rio de Janeiro’s waterways — you know, the ones that a bunch of Olympic and Paralympic events will be held in — found “infectious adenovirus readings” at nearly 90 percent of test sites. [The Independent]


1.8 million violations

Washington’s attorney general filed a $100 million lawsuit against Comcast, claiming the company violated the Washington Consumer Protection Act at least 1.8 million times by, among other things, selling basically worthless “protection plans.” [KOMO News]


$700 million

Value of cargo shorts sold in the U.S. every year, according to the market research firm NPD Group. Although, the firm says sales of cargo shorts fell for the first time in a decade over the past year. [The Wall Street Journal]


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Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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