Skip to main content
ABC News
Significant Digits for Tuesday, March 12, 2019

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news. For even more facts, figures and discussion, check out our live FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast in New York City on March 20.


18 airlines

At least 18 airlines have stopped flying their Boeing 737 Max 8 planes since the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight this weekend. Sunday’s crash that killed 157 people was the second accident in five months involving the Max 8, the latest iteration of Boeing’s best-selling jet. In October, the same model of plane crashed in Indonesia and killed 189 people. As of Monday, at least 18 other airline carriers were still flying the Max 8. [The New York Times]


+31.6

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is leading the race for home-state support ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Her net approval rating in Minnesota among all voters is +31.6, much higher than the purple state’s Democratic lean of +2.1, showing she’s good at appealing to non-Democrats. [FiveThirtyEight]


39 days

Time to book those hotel rooms! We’re going to Milwaukee! After much delay, the Democratic National Committee announced Monday that the 2020 Democratic National Convention will take place between July 13 and 16 in Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton was the first Democratic presidential nominee to lose the state since 1984. The Republican National Convention, meanwhile, will take place in Charlotte, North Carolina, 39 days after the DNC — a much longer gap than in 2016, and a welcome respite we’ll all probably need right about then. [ABC News]


42 days

On Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders briefed the press for the first time in 42 days. It had been the longest gap without an official White House press briefing under the Trump administration. Sanders avoided multiple questions from reporters and would not say whether the president thought Democrats hated Jewish people, a comment that Trump had reportedly said over the weekend in Mar-a-Lago at a Republican fundraiser. [CNBC, Politico]


86 years-old

Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will turn 86 on Friday. Hundreds of her fans are expected to take to the Supreme Court steps around happy hour and plank. (Yes, plank. No, it’s not a drinking game.) [Washingtonian]


$4.7 trillion

President Trump sent Congress a $4.7 trillion budget proposal Monday for the 2020 fiscal year. The plan includes $750 billion in added defense spending and $8.6 billion for building a border wall with Mexico. The plan also includes major cuts to Medicaid and Medicare spending. [The Washington Post]



From ABC News:


News headlines today: Mar. 12, 2019



Love digits? Find even more in FiveThirtyEight’s book of math and logic puzzles, “The Riddler.”

If you see a significant digit in the wild, please send it to @ollie, who is on vacation, just to taunt him.


Meena Ganesan was a senior editor at FiveThirtyEight.

Comments