Significant Digits for Thursday, July 2, 2015

Jul 02, 2015

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.

2-1

The semifinal game between England and Japan ended in heartbreak for Britons, with an own-goal in stoppage time ending the Lionesses’ run. [ESPN FC]

5.3 percent

“Magic Mike XXL” is out in theaters, and you should see it both because Channing Tatum has abs that can probably open jars, and because “Magic Mike” was actually a pretty accurate look into a crucial sector of the American economy. The strip club industry derives 5.3 percent of its revenue from women. [FiveThirtyEight]

44 years

Sonia Manzano has played Maria on Sesame Street for 44 years, but that tenure is coming to an end. She announced that she’s going to retire from the beloved children’s television program after this season. [The AV Club]

54 years

The U.S. is going to have an embassy in Cuba again, and vice versa, after 54 years of no diplomatic ties. [USA Today]

67 percent

It’s the United States versus Japan in the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup this Sunday. According to our model, the United States is favored to win the match and the tournament with a 67 percent chance of victory. Still, don’t get too cocky: Japan should still win this game one out of three times. If you want a primer on the team, definitely check out Allison McCann talking to current members of the squad from earlier in the tournament. [FiveThirtyEight]

250 students

Sweet Briar University, a private all-women’s college in Virginia, was saved from closing after a dedicated alumni campaign. Still, the premature closing announcement meant that only 250 students will be returning to campus this fall, down from 561 students last year. [Bloomberg]

600 feet

Comet 67P, where the European Space Agency sent the Rosetta probe and harpooned a lander, is littered with massive sinkholes 600 feet deep. I’m pretty sure this renders the “drillers have to become astronauts to dig 800 feet into an asteroid” plot of “Armageddon” effectively moot. Finally, science standing up to a Michael Bay movie. [The Los Angeles Times]

$45 million

The campaign of Hillary Clinton raised about $45 million since its launch, which is a stack of dough the size of an incumbent president’s. At press time, Iowa local TV news station owners were presumably checking if a shiny new Doppler radar is eligible for Amazon Prime. [ABC News]

$935 million

One side effect of all those comic book movies we keep seeing is that comic book sales are bananas again. Last year they hit mid-1990s sales levels, after adjusting for inflation. About $835 million came from physical sales of comic books and graphic novels and another $100 million from digital sales. [Comichron]

$1.9 billion

Puerto Rico paid the $1.9 billion debt service payment it owed Wednesday, averting a deeper fiscal crisis in the U.S. territory that owes $73 billion total. [CNBC]

Saturday is Independence Day in the U.S. and tomorrow is a company holiday, so we’re off and you’re without a newsletter. Have a good holiday weekend everybody, be cool around the fireworks and don’t do anything too stupid. See you on Monday.

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