6,000: Poland has doubled the number of troops guarding its border with Belarus to almost 6,000 because of a surge in migrants trying to cross over (there were 612 attempts on Monday alone). Warsaw accuses Minsk of sending non-EU migrants into Poland as payback for EU sanctions against Belarus.
10 million: The Taliban will allow the World Health Organization to vaccinate 10 million Afghan children under the age of 5 against polio. In the past, Taliban fighters have killed polio vaccine workers in Pakistan, claiming that such immunization campaigns were a CIA plot to sterilize Muslims.
260: The Chinese government may intervene in the country's coal market to stem the rising price of the commodity, which has jumped more than 260 percent since the beginning of the year. Low coal supplies are partly to blame for China's energy crunch, one of the main reasons Chinese GDP growth slowed down in the third quarter of 2021.
10,000: The city of Christchurch in New Zealand has laid off the only wizard in the world believed to be on a government payroll, who'd been making $10,000 a year to perform rain dances and other "wizard-like services" — mainly for tourists — since 1998. But the wizard, who has called himself "a provocateur" won't be missed by many after joking often about gender-based violence.Everyone wants to talk about artificial intelligence. But according to Kamal Kishore, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, the bigger challenge may be something far less glamorous: collecting better data.
Artificial intelligence is becoming an increasingly powerful tool for disaster preparedness and emergency response.
Speaking at the 2026 AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith explains how AI combines predictive modeling, satellite imagery, and public data to help governments identify vulnerable communities before disasters strike and respond more quickly when they do.
Graham Platner is out of Maine's Senate race. That may improve Democrats' chance of defeating Republican Susan Collins—but it doesn't guarantee it. In the latest episode of the GZERO Debrief, Eurasia Group US Practice Head Clayton Allen says Democrats may be better off than they were a week ago, but Republicans remain the favorites to hold the Senate seat.
In his latest Quick Take, Ian Bremmer reacts to the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham and reflects on a complicated political legacy.