You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
17 (known) investigations
It’s hard to keep track of them all, but Wired has put together a guide: There are 17 known investigations related to President Trump. That includes seven by the special counsel Robert Mueller, four by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, one by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, two by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and three by New York City, New York State or other state attorneys general. [Wired]
2 sizes
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187 million interactions
According to a Senate Intelligence Committee report, Instagram “was a significant front” in Russian election meddling, eclipsing even Facebook itself. Between 2015 and 2018, there were 187 million interactions with Instagram content from the Internet Research Agency, the Russian trolling operation, compared with 77 million interactions on Facebook and 73 million on Twitter. [Bloomberg]
71 percent of bill collectors
Google Image searches for professions return results that can misrepresent, in some cases grossly, the actual gender breakdown of people who work those jobs in the real world. For example, 71 percent of real-world bill collectors are women, whereas only 20 percent of the images in a search for “bill collectors” are of women. A similar gap holds for bartenders, probation officers and chief executives. Women are overrepresented in searches for singers and models. [Pew Research Center]
$2.7 billion in fines
Malaysia filed criminal charges against the bank Goldman Sachs yesterday, accusing the company of “making false and misleading statements.” Malaysia is seeking more than $2.7 billion in fines. The charges are related to an investment fund called 1MDB, funds from which bank executives are suspected of using for personal shopping sprees that included diamonds and Picassos. [The New York Times]
46 airstrikes
The U.S. military carried out six airstrikes in Somalia earlier this month, which killed 62 people, it said. They were an effort to thwart a “major extremist attack,” according to Somali intelligence. The U.S. has carried out at least 46 airstrikes there this year, a number that has increased dramatically since President Trump took office. [Associated Press]
16 teams
The draw for the 16 teams left in soccer’s Champions League was held yesterday. Among other round-of-16 fixtures, Manchester United will play Paris Saint-Germain, Tottenham Hotspur will play Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool will play Bayern Munich. According to FiveThirtyEight’s projections, Manchester City is the favorite to win it all at 19 percent, followed by Barcelona at 14 percent and PSG at 11 percent. [FiveThirtyEight]
Love digits? Find even more in FiveThirtyEight’s new book of math and logic puzzles, “The Riddler.” It’s in stores now! I hope you dig it.
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