Hard Numbers: Deadly shelling, drug kingpin's jail security, Lai sighting, Sweden soccer semi, twin takeover

​A woman outside the damaged house of her son, who was killed the day before by shelling in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine.
A woman outside the damaged house of her son, who was killed the day before by shelling in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine.
REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

7: Shelling in the southern Ukrainian province of Kherson Ukraine on Sunday killed seven people, including a 23-day-old baby girl. The attack followed denials by Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar that Ukrainian forces had engaged in Russian-occupied territory in the region.


4,000: The Ecuadorian government dispatched 4,000 military and police personnel to the Zonal 8 Detention Center in Guayas province, to “establish control over weapons, ammunition and explosives within the prison.” The jail is home to José Adolfo Macías Villamar, the drug trafficker who murdered presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio claimed had threatened him prior to his assassination. President Guillermo Lasso this weekend said Macías was relocated to La Roca maximum security prison in the same penitentiary complex.

23: Photos have surfaced of former Hong Kong newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, the first taken since 2021. They show Lai accompanied by two guards at the maximum security Stanley Prison in Hong Kong, where the pro-democracy activist is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day. Lai was sentenced to more than five years in prison for fraud in 2022, but he is awaiting trial on charges of endangering national security, which could lead to a life sentence.

4: Sweden’s women’s soccer team has advanced to the World Cup semi-final — its fourth big semi in four years. They reached the semi-finals of the 2019 World Cup, the 2020 Olympics, and Euro 2022, but they have yet to take home the crown. To make it to the finals this time, Sweden's women must beat Spain on Tuesday.

17: Must be something in the water. Primary schools in the Scottish town of Inverclyde, population 76,700, are preparing to welcome 17 sets of twins this fall. “Twinverclyde,” as the town has become known, has welcomed 147 sets of twins to its primary schools since 2013, an average of 13 sets a year.

More from GZERO Media

Palestinian children look at rubble following Israeli forces' withdrawal from the area, after Israel and Hamas agreed on the Gaza ceasefire, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 10, 2025.
REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Israel approved the Gaza ceasefire deal on Friday morning, bringing the ceasefire officially into effect. The Israeli military must withdraw its forces to an agreed perimeter inside Gaza within 24 hours, and Hamas has 72 hours to return the hostages.

- YouTube

French President Emmanuel Macron is scrambling to pull France out of a deepening political free fall that’s already toppled five prime ministers in two years. Tomorrow he’ll try again—and this time, says Eurasia Group’s Mujtaba Rahman, the fifth pick might finally stick.

In these photos, emergency units carry out rescue work after a Russian attack in Ternopil and Prikarpattia oblasts on December 13, 2024. A large-scale Russian missile attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure left half of the consumers in the Ternopil region without electricity, the Ternopil Regional State Administration reported.
U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 9, 2017.
REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

China has implemented broad new restrictions on exports of rare earth and other critical minerals vital for semiconductors, the auto industry, and military technology, of which it controls 70% of the global supply.