Hard Numbers: American shoppers set new records

126: Marking the Year of Return – the 400th anniversary of the beginning of the US slave trade– Ghana granted citizenship to 126 African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans last week as part of an effort to encourage slaves' descendants to return. Three quarters of the West African slave "dungeons" that held slaves before their forced journey to the Americas were based in what is now Ghana.

18: The death toll from a capsized boat carrying Libyan migrants last week has risen to 18 after five more bodies were discovered Sunday in the waters off the Italian coast. More than 1,100 migrants have died or gone missing this year while trying to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean by boat.

9.4 billion: American consumers are projected to have spent $9.4 billion on "Cyber Monday" purchases, the highest on record and an 18.9 percent jump from a year ago, according to a retail tracking report. That's on top of the record $7.4 billion spent on "Black Friday" in the US. What were Friday's biggest selling items? Frozen 2 toys, FIFA 20 video games, and L.O.L Surprise Dolls.

400,000: Boats carry 90 percent of global trade, and a quarter of the world's 1.6m commercial seamen hail from just one country: the Philippines. The 400,000 Filipinos who ply the high seas send home about $6 billion in remittances every year. (This NYT profile of the seamen has some amazing photographs, plus you'll learn what bolitas are.)