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.In this episode of ask ian, Ian Bremmer explains why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky enters his latest White House meeting with President Trump in a stronger position than he did just a few months ago.
Competitive pay. 401(k) contributions upon employment and 6% company match once eligible. Up to 16 weeks of combined paid maternity and parental leave. These benefits and more inspire generations – Daidrian’s 18-year Walmart journey motivated her son Jonothan to launch his own career as a Walmart associate. Learn more.
US consumers have spent nearly $74 billion more on gasoline and diesel since the war in Iran began in February
Last week, Microsoft joined more than 100 companies to publish an open letter on the importance of open-weight AI models in expanding access to AI and giving organizations greater control over the technology they use. The paper draws parallels to the open-source software movement, positioning open-weight models as an important foundation for a broad and competitive AI ecosystem while emphasizing the need for responsible safeguards. Read the letter here.