You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
2 clones
In a paper released on Wednesday, Chinese scientists announced the first cloned primates, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. They’re female macaques about seven and eight weeks old. [Associated Press]
8 percent
Percentage of young adults who identify as white evangelical Protestants, the lowest percentage of any age bracket. [FiveThirtyEight]
175 years
Former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who pleaded guilty to the widespread molestation of women and girls in his care, has been sentenced to 175 years in prison. [The New York Daily News]
900 percent interest rates
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, now led by the anti-CFPB ex-congressman Mick Mulvaney, has put a hold on regulations restricting high-interest rate loans from payday lenders. The agency also dropped a lawsuit against internet lenders charging 900 percent interest rates. [NPR]
916,184 tickets sold
Britney Spears is ending her “Piece of Me” show in Las Vegas and taking it on the road. But Spears fundamentally changed how Vegas residencies worked. Over four years and 248 shows, Spears sold 916,184 tickets for a total gross of $137,695,392, inspiring other destination shows from artists like Lady Gaga. [Billboard]
40,000 jobs
Tourism to the U.S. is down across the board, a dip that began after President Trump’s inauguration and may be tied to his anti-immigration language and policies. All told, the latest data from the National Travel and Tourism Office shows a 3.3 percent drop in travel spending and a 4 percent decline in inbound travel since the president took office. That translates to an economic dent of $4.6 billion in lost spending and 40,000 jobs. Perhaps a slightly more welcoming tone may have been the one to take for a country that — until this report — ranked as the second most popular travel destination on earth. [NBC News]
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