You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
12 months, 17 nations
This fall, scientists and others will embark on an ambitious 12-month, 17-nation, $134 million mission to document climate change in the Arctic — “the fastest-warming part of the globe.” The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), as it’s called, is scheduled to begin in September, based out of a giant German icebreaker ship on which 60 people will be living and working at any given time. [The Washington Post]
18 hours
Radiohead announced that it had recently been “hacked,” and that the intruder had stolen Thom Yorke’s private “minidisk archive” of recording sessions and performances from around the time of the band’s masterpiece, “OK Computer,” threatening to release it and demanding $150,000. Instead, Radiohead released all 18 hours of recordings itself, which can be freely streamed or purchased for 18 pounds with proceeds going to a climate activist group. [Pitchfork]
All but 1 state legislature
For the first time in more than 100 years, the legislatures of every state save one (Minnesota) are dominated by a single party. The result, not surprisingly, has been fevered statutory sprints to either the left or the right, depending on the party, leaving the other side in rather desperate straits. In Democratic-controlled Oregon, for example, Republicans boycotted. In Republican-controlled Tennessee, Democrats staged a walkout. “This year was always poised to be contentious in statehouses,” the Times writes, as some 1,700 new lawmakers won seats in the fall. [The New York Times]
5 moderators
NBC News has announced five moderators for the first Democratic presidential debates, later this month in Miami. The formidably sized group — to match the formidably sized field — is Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow and José Diaz-Balart. What’s the collective noun for a group of moderators? [NBC News]
$127 million
Lionel Messi, noted Argentinian soccer player, is, at $127 million in the past year, the world’s highest paid athlete according to the new Forbes list. He’s just the second soccer player to top the list since 1990, after his rival Cristiano Ronaldo, who lands second this year with a paltry $109 million. [Forbes]
1,706 clips
Joe Biden continues to be in a league apart from his fellow Democratic presidential candidates when it comes to coverage on cable news. He was mentioned in 1,706 clips last week on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, according to the TV News Archive, up from 1,610 the week before, and well ahead of second-place Elizabeth Warren’s 414 and third-place Bernie Sanders’s 341. [FiveThirtyEight]
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