Support the fact-based journalism you rely on with a donation to Marketplace today. Give Now!

The numbers for October 15, 2014

Tony Wagner Oct 15, 2014

Another health care worker from Dallas was diagnosed with Ebola Wednesday morning, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are trying to find passengers on a flight she took Monday. The unidentified patient flew from Cleveland to Dallas with about 130 others just before she reported symptoms. The CDC is asking those passengers to call 1-800-CDC-INFO.

Vox has an explainer with five ways you can catch Ebola on a plane, and the many more ways you can’t. In short: it’s pretty difficult. Here are some other stories we’re reading — and numbers we’re watching — Wednesday:

130 million

That’s how many people subscribe to HBO worldwide. The network — once resistant to cord-cutting and blasé about password sharing — will uncouple its streaming service, HBOGo, from cable packages next year. Time Warner stock rallied at the news.

5,000

The number of chemical weapons secretly discovered in Iraq in the years after the 2003 U.S. invasion, according to an extensive New York Times investigation. The abandoned weapons — and injuries sustained by the soldiers that found them — were reportedly kept hidden until now, even within the military.

$20,000

That’s how much Facebook is offering female employees to cover the costs of freezing their eggs, TechCrunch reported. Apple will begin offering the ostensible perk next year. The tech industry has a well-documented gender gap the move is seemingly addressing, but critics say egg freezing is just another way — along with free food, shuttles, laundry, massages and so on — for tech companies to keep employees content and working without distractions.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.