You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
36 to 71
The Florida House voted down by a vote of 36 to 71 a procedural move to allow the body to even consider banning assault rifles and large capacity magazines. They did this in front of survivors of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. [ABC 10 News]
51 percent
(Sponsored by Mott & Bow) Every man knows that a good pair of jeans can go a long way. What many men don’t realize is that you don’t have to pay inflated prices for quality. Jeans like these cost 51 percent less than other jeans of the same exact quality, offering style and comfort without the markup.
3.3 percent
Walmart is fighting a pitched battle online with Amazon, but it’s incurring some serious damage to its bottom line in doing so. This past quarter saw Walmart’s operating margin slip to 3.3 percent, the lowest operating margin in its history. [Bloomberg]
10 percent
The supplement business in the United States is worth $30 billion, and the reality is that there’s zero evidence for most of the more than 90,000 vitamin and dietary supplements that they do much of anything. Still, 52 percent of Americans take a supplement of some kind, with 10 percent of Americans consuming four or more supplements. [Ars Technica]
41,129 shares
The Florida Retirement System Pension Plan, which serves the state’s teachers, has a significant investment in American Outdoor Brands Co. — the very same company that manufactured the AR-15 assault rifle used in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last week — to the tune of 41,129 shares, worth roughly half a million dollars. [Bloomberg]
208,000 euros
A wealthy German was fined 208,000 euros for attempting to pass off 47 euros worth of veal as cheap fruit at a self-check-out stand in a grocery store. This was the fourth such attempt by the man, who had previously been convicted of theft and tax evasion. He’s not exactly hurting given his monthly income of 24,000 euros, so the German court threw the book at him. [ABC News]
$30 million
San Francisco Public Works spends $60.1 million for street environmental services, and the director of the public works department estimates approximately $30 million of that goes toward cleaning up human feces and needles from sidewalks and homeless encampments. [NBC Bay Area]
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