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The numbers for October 8, 2014

Tony Wagner Oct 8, 2014

Five U.S. airports will begin screening passengers arriving from West Africa for Ebola starting this weekend. Kennedy International will be the first, the New York Times reported, followed by O’Hare, Washington Dulles, Hartsfield-Jackson and Newark Liberty international airports.

The announcement comes right after the death of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. since the outbreak began, on Wednesday morning.

In other news, the Fed minutes are expected later today, along with the usual combing for clues about interest rate hikes. In the meantime, here are the other numbers we’re watching Wednesday:

25 minutes

That’s how long one employee says he waited, unpaid, to be screened for stolen merchandise following a 12-hour shift at an Amazon fulfillment center. Jesse Busk sued the staffing agency that placed him in the job, Bloomberg reported, and several other suits against Amazon followed. The allegations will be heard by the Supreme Court Wednesday.

5

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Facebook all compromised with the Justice Department in January over disclosing details of government requests to the public. Those firms are now able to give some more general information about data requests that were previously confidential. Twitter argues the remaining restrictions infringe on its First Amendment rights, the Washington Post reported, and the tech company is suing the government.

$27 billion

Netflix’s estimated market cap, making its recent deals for a “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” sequel and four Adam Sandler movies seem downright affordable to a streaming service that already spends $3 billion on content annually. Those numbers come from a Variety analysis of Netflix’s recent push to the big screen, which posits big theater chains might be forced to get on board with the streaming model… or go the way of Blockbuster.

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