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6 service members
On Monday, a U.S. district court judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration’s plan to ban transgender service members from serving in the armed forces. There are already significant numbers of trans Americans serving, and six active-duty service members sued in August to block the policy. [The Washington Post]
14 percent
Approval rating for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey according to a new Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll. If that poll is accurate, it would nudge Christie further into the record books: he’s currently the third most unpopular governor for whom polls can be found. [Harry Enten, Suffolk University, FiveThirtyEight]
33 percent
The Gallup tracking survey released Monday had the president’s approval rating at 33 percent, a new low. [FiveThirtyEight]
80 percent
Facebook’s new attempt to have third-party fact checking groups vet the content the company spreads on news feeds hasn’t been going well, according to a new report from Bloomberg. When two fact checking groups flag an item as false it tags the link as “disputed,” which cuts the number of people who see the hoax or misinformation by about 80 percent. However, this has only happened for around 2,000 links, a small fraction of the hundreds of potentially false stories screeners see every day. Factor in that the process typically takes over three days, and you’re not exactly mitigating the spread of false information. [Bloomberg]
$10 million
Federal prosecutors are asking for a $10 million bail to be set for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and $5 million for Rick Gates. Both men pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Monday. Manafort is a wealthy man with allegedly millions of dollars in offshore accounts, according to information detailed in the indictment. [FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post]
126 million people
That’s Facebook’s estimate for the number of people who may have seen content spread by a Kremlin-linked troll farm between June 2015 and August 2017. The content was intended to spread divisive political messaging on topics including LGBT rights, race issues and gun rights. [CNN Money]
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