You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
360 assaults or threats
A new report from the Government Accountability Office says federal employees overseeing U.S. public lands are experiencing more clashes with anti-government groups, including at least 360 assaults or threats over a five-year period. Investigators found incidents including threatening phone calls, gunshots fired over the heads of employees and a stabbing of a Bureau of Land Management worker outside of a federal building. The public lands include forests, parks, wildlife refuges and other open spaces covering more than 670 million acres mostly in a dozen Western states. [The Associated Press]
$260 million
Two Ohio counties have settled lawsuits against some of the country’s top drug distributors related to the opioid crisis. The $260 million deal includes $20 million in cash and a donation of $25 million in addiction treatment medications from Israeli drug manufacturer Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. CAH and AmerisourceBergen Corp. will give $215 million to counties that include the metropolitan areas of Cleveland and Akron. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed in almost every state over the country’s opioid epidemic, but the deal struck early Monday did not include a fifth defendant, Walgreens Boots Alliance, whose trial has been postponed. [The Wall Street Journal]
84.8 percent of Democrats
Support continues to rise for impeachment of President Trump among Democrats and independents in polling analyzed by FiveThirtyEight. As of Monday, our impeachment polling tracker registered that 84.8 percent of Democrats and 46.4 percent of independents were in support of impeachment. Only 12.1 percent of Republicans were in support, but that’s up from 9.7 percent on Sept. 19, when news about the Ukraine scandal snowballed. FiveThirtyEight evaluates each poll based on the firm’s historical accuracy, its methodology, its recency and its sample size. [FiveThirtyEight]
11 deaths
Three days of violence in Chile have led to more than 1,500 arrests, dozens of reports of looting, a death toll of 11 people and a presidential declaration of a state of emergency. The crisis was sparked early last week by a youth protest against a 3 percent increase in subway fares, which escalated into a fare-dodging movement aimed at pressuring the government and the arson of at least a dozen stations by demonstrators on Friday. The damage was estimated at $300 million. [The Guardian]
8,000 snake rescues
If you think your job is bad, Pinyo Pukpinyo’s position in Bangkok’s Fire and Rescue Department has involved more than 20 painful snake bites. Sgt. Pukpinyo is the department’s chief snake wrangler, a job he started 16 years ago after removing a 14.5-foot python from a house. Since then, he estimates that he has “rescued” approximately 8,000 snakes; his department can receive 150 to 200 calls a day during Thailand’s rainy season. [National Public Radio]