10,000: Drohnen verboten! A new bill will
give Germany’s police officers permission to shoot down illegal drones. The move comes after a swoop of unknown unmanned aircraft led to the shutdown of Munich airport last week, stranding 10,000 travellers. Europe more broadly has been struggling to formulate a good answer to a recent wave of similar drone flights across the continent. Some top officials have blamed Russia.
5: Ecuadoran police arrested five people on charges of attempted assassination after a crowd of hundreds swarmed president Daniel Noboa’s car on Tuesday, pelting it with rocks and allegedly firing weapons. All five were members of the national indigenous rights federation, which said the attack on Noboa’s car was provoked by police who assaulted protestors demonstrating against the government’s recent decision to cut diesel subsidies.
4,000: The price of gold has surpassed $4,000 per ounce for the first time ever, as investors clamored for more of the precious metal, a favorite financial safe haven, amid deepening uncertainty about the fate of the US government shutdown, the impact of trade wars on the global economy, and questions about interest rate policy at major central banks.
200 million: Which country is home to the largest and most advanced gig economy? Fully 200 million people in China depend on flexible employment, and more than 80 million of them have jobs tied to platforms that supply ride-hail drivers, food-delivery couriers or, increasingly, gig-workers for the manufacturing sector. By contrast, in neighboring India only 10m people are in the app-based gig economy.
Spiritual Counselfrom Saul Zabar, Brooklyn-born founder of the famed New York City grocer Zabar’s, who died on Tuesday at 97. Zabar’s started out more than 70 years ago as a family owned shop on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, selling smoked fish, fresh bread, specialty cheeses, and other delicacies. It became a Gotham institution and a worldwide mail order giant. Farewell to a home town guy who became one of the world’s greatest “lox-smiths.”
