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Significant Digits For Tuesday, May 30, 2017

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


1 to 2 minutes

A new study published in the Journal of Industrial Economics found that U.S. airline mergers have not had a major impact on flights’ on-time performance. [Futurity]


13.7 gigawatts

India has cancelled 13.7 gigawatts worth of new coal projects in the past month due to the plummeting price of solar energy. The energy market in India is volatile — just a few years ago, coal was en vogue. [India Times]


49 percent

Percentage of people who have refinanced their home in the first quarter of the year and cashed-out in the process. That’s the highest rate in the post-recession economy, up from 12 percent in mid-2012. In the run-up to the recession, that figure was often over 80 percent. [The Wall Street Journal]


281st place

Web traffic measurement is more art than science, but it’s clear that alt-right site Breitbart has taken a pretty big hit since President Trump was elected. Breitbart was riding high ahead of the inauguration — the 29th-most trafficked site on the web according to web-monitor Alexa — but it’s now down to 281st place. [Vanity Fair]


1,100

Number of lobbyists working in some capacity for the pharmaceutical business. The pharma and health products industry has upped its lobbying spending by 14 percent in the first quarter compared to last year, in part because both parties seem keen to rein in drug price rises. [The New York Times]


$18.1 million

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” pulled in $77 million over the four-day holiday weekend, easily beating out “Baywatch” ($18.1 million) to win the weekend. [Variety]


If you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.

Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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