HARD NUMBERS

300: A drunk man has become the first person charged with sexual aggression under a new French law against street harassment. The man in question slapped a woman's backside and made lewd remarks about her appearance on a bus outside Paris. He was fined €300 and sentenced to three months in prison for sexual aggression against the woman and an attack on the bus driver.

67: Ahead of the upcoming US midterm elections, a few congressional races are considered “toss ups,” races that are too close to call. But when you hear that one party needs to win almost all the toss ups to win a majority of seats, that’s not as unlikely as you might think. Historical research shows that a clear majority tend to break toward a single party. In fact, over the past 10 US national elections, one party has won at least 67 percent of all toss up races.

256: The area under coca cultivation in Colombia reached a record high last year of 422,550 acres, according to a new UN report. That’s a 256 percent increase since 2013. Health-related cutbacks on crop spraying, poorly implemented crop substitution plans, and the entrance of narco traffickers into regions surrendered by FARC guerillas have all contributed to the surge.

30: According to a new study, just 30 percent of Americans with some college education think globalization has “mostly helped” the United States. The number is 45 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree, and 57 percent of those with post-graduate degrees.

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French President Emmanuel Macron as he poses for a picture as he welcomes Crown Prince and Princess of the Kingdom of Jordan for a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on October 8, 2025.
Photo by Raphael Lafargue/ABACAPRESS.COM

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