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1 million
“The Biden administration said Tuesday that it is releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from a Northeast reserve established after Superstorm Sandy in a bid to lower prices at the pump this summer,” the AP reports.
36%
A Reuters/Ipsos poll found President Biden’s public approval rating at just 36% — its lowest level in almost two years and tying the lowest reading of his presidency in a warning sign for his reelection effort.
$60/hour
NBC News: Professional line-standers are a growing part of the gig economy. But the criminal trial of a former president accused of illegally covering up hush money payments to a porn star has translated into a windfall for people who get paid to wait — and who, as the trial goes on, have increasingly been hired by members of the general public with no stake in the trial other than curiosity.
$327.6 million
Trump Media and Technology Group, the company affiliated with Donald Trump that operates Truth Social, reported $770,500 in revenue for the first quarter of 2024 and a net loss of $327.6 million, Variety reports.
$1,000 — $15,000
Amount U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sold of stock in Anheuser-Busch Inbev in August 2023, just as a vicious right-wing boycott campaign of the company was reaching full swing, according to financial disclosure reports first spotted by the Substack page Law Dork. The boycott was in reaction to a social media partnership between trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light, one of AB-Inbev’s best-selling brands. The boycott campaign likely led to more than $1 billion in lost sales and wiped up to $27 billion off the company’s market cap.
7.6%
Gallup: “LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S. continues to grow, with 7.6% of U.S. adults now identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual. … The current figure is up from 5.6% four years ago and 3.5% in 2012, Gallup’s first year of measuring sexual orientation and transgender identity.”
57%
“Nearly 7 million of the country’s 11.8 million Black women of reproductive age live in states with abortion restrictions or plans to implement them,” NBC News reports. “According to the report, 57% of Black women ages 15 to 49 (which the organizations consider reproductive age) live in states with bans or threats to abortion access, which have increased in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.”
3.6%
New York Times: The Consumer Price Index climbed 3.4 percent in April, down from 3.5 percent in March, the Labor Department said Wednesday. The “core” index — which strips out volatile food and fuel prices in order to give a sense of the underlying trend — rose 3.6 percent last month, down from 3.8 percent a month earlier. It was the lowest annual increase in core inflation since early 2021.
12,756
“The United Nations reduced estimates for the number of women and children killed during Israel’s war in Gaza by nearly half, inviting new scrutiny for figures that come from the militant group Hamas,” USA Today reports.“Of the 34,735 people who have died in Gaza since the war began, according to data published May 6 by the UN, more than 9,500 were women and more than 14,500 were children. … But in updated data published two days later on May 8, the UN significantly reduced the figures to 4,959 women and 7,797 children among the 34,844 people reportedly killed in Gaza.”
$2,000
New York Times: “The lines to get into court today were crazy long, and tensions were running high in the public line. People started queuing Monday night, hoping to get one of the coveted spots in the courtroom. One woman outside said she paid $750 for a line sitter… Trouble started early though, when a few people butted into line, sparking some tense exchanges. Then a man at the front of the line sold his spot to two people, purportedly for $2,000, causing further consternation.” Said one woman: “It’s better than a Broadway show.”
