Hard Numbers: El Salvador’s killer cops, Jho Low in Macau, Nigerian gas panic-buying, Nvidia cashes in on AI

An inmate in a prison in San Salvador under a state of emergency.
An inmate in a prison in San Salvador under a state of emergency.
ULAN/Pool / Latin America News Agency via Reuters Connect

153: That's how many people have died in police custody in El Salvador since March 2022, when strongman President Nayib Bukele declared a state of emergency to fight gangs. None were convicted of the crimes they were arrested for, and nearly half suffered violent deaths, including from torture.

4.5 billion: Malaysia suspects that Jho Low, the mastermind of the 1MDB fraud scandal that brought down PM Najib Razak in 2018, is now hiding in Macau, China's answer to Las Vegas. Low, perhaps the world's most wanted white-collar fugitive, is accused of embezzling $4.5 billion from Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, which he used to party like a rockstar with supermodels and produce the Hollywood film "The Wolf of Wall Street."

39.8 million: Nigeria's newly minted President Bola Tinubu says he'll deliver on his promise to scrap fuel subsidies, which cost the government some $39.8 million per day last year. But not giving a date has led to price gouging and long lines at gas stations as Nigerian drivers try to stock up before costs rise.

1 trillion: On Tuesday, US-based Nvidia became the first chipmaker to reach over $1 trillion in market value. Nvidia's advanced semiconductors power artificial intelligence apps like OpenAI's ChatGPT, whose creator says might lead to human extinction!

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