You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.
1 degree Celsius
For the first time, global temperatures this year will be more than 1 degree Celsius higher than pre-Industrial Revolution levels. This is partly because of the El Niño effect, but it is nonetheless a sign of things to come, according to Britain’s Met Office, the national weather service of the U.K. [Reuters]
2 ice volcanoes
NASA announced evidence of two ice volcanoes near Pluto’s south pole, which really makes Earth look like it’s not even trying. Sure, we’ve got normal volcanoes, but volcanoes belching ice, ammonia and methane? That’s some Hoth-level geology, Pluto, and makes us look like chumps here on our own terra firma. [The Verge]
104 games
The Xbox One will support 104 games that were previously available on the Xbox 360, finally implementing promised backward capability for Microsoft’s newer console. [The Verge]
$26,000
A man was arrested Sunday after police say he tried to set fire to an 80-by-50-foot flag that flies near the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ stadium after the team lost to the New York Giants. The flag cost $26,000, some of which apparently went toward making the banner flame-resistant. That guy is, without doubt, the worst pirate I’ve ever seen. [ESPN]
48,000 positions
The trucking industry is hurting: The industry is about 800,000 strong, and it has 48,000 open positions. Only recently has truck drivers’ average pay begun to rise, which may help companies fill those spots, but in a business with massive turnover — between 90 and 100 percent — the lack of drivers is still a major concern. [The Huffington Post]
$718,000
M.C. Dean, a communications contractor, may face a $718,000 proposed fine from the Federal Communications Commission after the agency caught it blocking WiFi hotspots in the Baltimore Convention Center. [The Consumerist]
1 million euros
French police last week arrested Lamine Diack, the former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, who is accused of accepting more than 1 million euros in bribes from Russian athletics to cover up widespread doping by the nation’s competitors. The allegations are laid out in a new report from the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, detailing cheating from the Russian athletics federation. [The Guardian]
$25 million
The University of Virginia fraternity named in a retracted Rolling Stone story about a rape is suing the magazine, seeking $25 million. [Gawker]
100 million
Estimated number of people who could be driven into extreme poverty by 2030 because of the deleterious effects of global climate change, according to the World Bank. If you’re wondering why it seems like everyone is all of a sudden trying to drop the most fire climate change paper of 2015, the United Nations is hosting a climate summit in Paris this month. [The Associated Press]
$170.4 million
A Modigliani painting sold for $170.4 million at a Christie’s auction Monday, the second-highest price ever for auctioned art. [The New York Times]
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