You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
2 bankruptcies
RadioShack is reportedly preparing to seek bankruptcy protection. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it happened last year as well. This would be RadioShack’s second bankruptcy filing in two years. Perhaps — and I’m just spitballing here — there just isn’t a big enough market of people that prefer to obtain their electronics equipment from a shack. [The Wall Street Journal]
8.5 percent
The tariff for importing blankets into the U.S. is 8.5 percent. It’s 14.9 percent for “pullover apparel.” Where does this leave the notorious Snuggie, the blanket you wear like a shameful little poncho? That’s up to the U.S. Court of International Trade to decide. The government wants to tax the Snuggie like clothing. Allstar Marketing Group, which makes the Snuggie, isn’t having it. [The Washington Post]
39 minutes and 35 seconds
A Martian day is 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than an Earth day. That extra bit there means any poor sap we send to the Red Planet will live in a constant state of jet lag the entire time. Let’s see you botany your way out of that one, Damon. [FiveThirtyEight]
1.5 million potential voters
Number of Turks living in Germany who are eligible to vote in Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey wants those expats to vote in favor of a new Constitution that would give him more power, and Germany’s leadership — which is dealing with a number of geopolitical issues regarding Turkey — would vastly prefer he did not get those powers. As The Times put it: “Mr. Erdogan’s opponents in Germany, both Turkish and German, say the president wants to use the freedoms of Western democracy to further consolidate his anti-democratic powers at home.” [The New York Times]
6 million tons
A Singapore-based company is buying up an immense amount of sugar on the U.S. futures exchange — 6 million tons since 2015 to the tune of $2.3 billion. What, precisely, Wilmar International intends to do with all that sucrose is not exactly clear, and it’s stirring debate among traders around the world. [The Wall Street Journal]
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