Hard Numbers: Costly emoji, South African firefighters, snowbird visa extension, dawn of Anthropocene

A farm worker harvests flax in Russia.
A farm worker harvests flax in Russia.
REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov

82,000: 🤞this never happens to you… a Saskatchewan court ordered a Canadian farmer to pay CA$82,000 in damages in a dispute over the meaning of the 👍 emoji. A buyer had sent the farmer a photo of a proposed contract, to which he responded “👍”. Although the farmer argued in court that this simply meant he had received the document, the buyer thought it meant he’d accepted its terms. The court agreed. 👍 or 👎?

428: South Africa has so far sent 428 firefighters to Canada this year to help put out the country’s raging wildfires. The yellow-and-blue clad brigades, which do tours of 35 days at a time, are famous for singing rhythmic songs as they work and train.

8: Good news for snowbirds! A bipartisan bill in the US Congress would extend the length of time that some Canadians are permitted to stay in the US without a visa from 6 months to 8. The measure applies to Canadians over the age of 50 who own property in the US — people you see LOTS of in Florida between, say, December and May.

73: This week, a group of scientists picked Crawford Lake in Milton, Ontario, as the location of the dawn of the Anthropocene, or Age of Humans. The lake's sediments show a huge spike in man-made environmental disruption beginning 73 years ago. That’s when human activities — from testing nukes and guzzling fossil, to destroying forests and expanding global trade — began to have a clear impact on the planet's geology. Is seven decades long enough to know?

More from GZERO Media

- YouTube

Following a terrorist attack in Kashmir last spring, India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, exchanged military strikes in an alarming escalation. Former Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Khar joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to discuss Pakistan’s perspective in the simmering conflict.

- YouTube

A military confrontation between India and Pakistan in May nearly pushed the two nuclear-armed countries to the brink of war. On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down the complicated history of the India-Pakistan conflict, one of the most contentious and bitter rivalries in the world.

A combination picture shows Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting with Arkhangelsk Region Governor Alexander Tsybulsky in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk region, Russia July 24, 2025.
REUTERS/Leah Millis

In negotiations, the most desperate party rarely gets the best terms. As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska today to discuss ending the Ukraine War, their diverging timelines may shape what deals emerge – if any.