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1 gallon
In drought-stricken California, the amount of water needed to make one almond. [Mother Jones]
5 percent
$16 per hour
Aetna increased its minimum hourly wage to $16, raising the income of its lowest-paid workers by a third in an attempt to attract and maintain talent. [Wall Street Journal]
49 percent
Films that won the Golden Globe for best drama won the Academy Award for best picture 49 percent of the time. [FiveThirtyEight]
53 prisoners
Cuba, at the behest of the United States, has released 53 prisoners, including members of prominent protest groups. [Reuters]
65 counties
Based on four measured categories — jobs, home prices, economic output and unemployment rate — only 65 of 3,069 U.S. counties have met or exceeded pre-recession economic levels. None of the recovered counties has more than 500,000 residents. [Wall Street Journal]
238 days
998,000 players
500 million
Number of Cadbury creme eggs made every year, two-thirds of which are consumed in England. The company — owned by Mondelez International — has shifted to a new recipe, which as far as I can tell is the U.K. equivalent to the Coca-Cola company burning a flag. [CNN]
8,463,194,794 chickens
As always, if you see a significant digit in the wild, tweet it to me @WaltHickey.