You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
3 wills
Earlier this week, three different wills found in the home of Aretha Franklin, who died in August, were filed in a Michigan court. One, portions of which are nearly illegible, was found under couch cushions and two were found in a locked cabinet. Franklin’s attorney is asking the court to determine whether the wills are valid. [NPR]
7-minute standing ovation
The crowd at the Cannes Film Festival for the world premiere of Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” gave the film a seven-minute standing ovation. I mean, I’m as big a Tarantino fan as the next guy, but that just sounds exhausting and frankly annoying. Tarantino won the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest prize, 25 years ago for “Pulp Fiction.” [Deadline]
414 million pieces of plastic
Scientists recently surveyed the remote Cocos Islands in Australia for plastic pollution. They found 414 million pieces of plastic debris. That’s a lot, not to mention that most of it was buried beneath the surface. This means that estimates of worldwide plastic pollution, often based on surveys not peering beneath the surface, could be drastic underestimates. [NBC News]
$929 million
Last week, the Trump administration revoked $929 million in federal funding from California that was meant to pay for that state’s high-speed rail project. Yesterday, California sued the administration over the cancellation, with Gov. Gavin Newsom describing the revocations as “political retribution for California’s resistance to Trump’s immigration policies.” [Associated Press]
No. 32
For the first time since O.J. Simpson last wore it for the team in 1977, the Buffalo Bills have assigned a player the jersey No. 32. It now belongs to running back Senorise Perry. “I thought it was retired, but then I was told it was available. Boom, I took it,” Perry told The Athletic. [ESPN]
More than 2,200 games
For the first time in more than 2,200 games over the past century, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox will play each other on artificial turf. They will do so at Olympic Stadium in London on June 29 and 30 atop something called FieldTurf Vertex. Ah, the national pastime. [Associated Press]
Love digits? Find even more in FiveThirtyEight’s book of math and logic puzzles, “The Riddler.”
If you see a significant digit in the wild, please send it to @ollie.