3.5: Marc Fogel, a 63-year-old American teacher imprisoned in Russia since 2021, has been released following negotiations by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Fogel, who taught at the Anglo-American School of Moscow, served 3.5 years of a 14-year sentence for bringing medical marijuana into the country. The release is being framed as a gesture of goodwill from Russia amid discussions about the Ukraine war.
70: In December 2024, 266 out of 389 US metro areas – nearly 70% – reported higher unemployment rates compared to the year before, according to Labor Department data. The largest increases occurred in southern cities like Dalton, GA, where unemployment was up 3.5%, and Asheville, NC, which was up 2.6%, as well as cities across Michigan, likely because of the 2% decrease in manufacturing jobs statewide.
86: A nationwide power outage in Sri Lanka last weekend was triggered by a monkey entering a power station near the capital Colombo. The incident left millions without electricity as temperatures hit the high 80s amid extreme humidity. While the event sparked humor online, it highlighted serious concerns about Sri Lanka’s fragile power infrastructure … and its ever-expanding monkey population.
50: A recent survey reveals that Donald Trump is more popular than Gustavo Petro in Colombia, with three-quarters of the population disapproving of Petro compared to 50% approving of the US president. The Bloomberg survey looked at Colombian attitudes following Petro’s much-publicized but brief rejection of deportation flights last month – a decision that 74% of the population disapproved of. The incident sparked widespread economic concerns, with 88% of Colombians fearing Trump would retaliate with tariffs.Singapore was one of globalization’s biggest beneficiaries. Ian Bremmer looks at whether the city-state can survive in a world where the economic order that drove Singapore's rapid rise starts to unravel.
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Xi Jinping has spent three years gutting his own military leadership. Five of the seven members of the Central Military Commission – China's supreme military authority – have been purged since 2023, all of whom were handpicked by Xi himself back in 2022.