You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.
1.6 percent
Days after voters decided the U.K. will leave the European Unions, ratings agencies have reacted to the move. S&P changed the U.K.’s credit rating to AA, down from AAA, and Fitch moved its rating down to AA from AA+. Fitch adjusted its forecast for 2016 GDP growth from 1.9 percent to 1.6 percent. [CNBC]
4 hours 31 minutes
Average amount of time the average American adult spent watching live television per day in the first quarter of 2016 according to Nielsen. That jumps to 5 hours, 4 minutes if you add in DVR viewing. [Recode]
5-3
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that Texas laws requiring abortion clinics to meet the standards of “ambulatory surgical centers” and that their doctors have admitting privileges at a hospital constituted an undue burden. From 1970 through 2014, abortion and contraceptive related decisions overall tended to come out in favor of the conservative-leaning party. [FiveThirtyEight]
11 centimeters
A study suggests that some districts in the city of Beijing are sinking by as much as 11 centimeters per year as a result of groundwater depletion. [CNN]
$25,000
Mike Huckabee’s campaign needed to pay $25,000 the rights-holders of the Survivor song “Eye of the Tiger” after the former candidate for the presidency played it at a rally for Kim Davis last year without permission. [CNN]
$14.7 billion
Volkswagen reached a deal to pay owners of their polluting diesel vehicles, according to reports. $10 billion will go towards buying back or fixing 475,000 vehicles at their trade-in value from before the diesel scandal broke, plus an extra $5,100 to $10,000 as compensation for the owners. A further $2 billion will go toward research on technology to reduce emissions with another $2.7 billion goes to “environmental mitigation.” [The Associated Press]
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