Hard Numbers: Ring of “América Mexicana,” Canada to the fire rescue, Students’ stingy stipends, Ghost crimes soar

​Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum shows a 1661 world map showing the Americas and the Gulf of Mexico in response to US President-elect Donald Trump's comments about renaming the body of water, during a press conference at National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, on Jan. 8, 2025.
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum shows a 1661 world map showing the Americas and the Gulf of Mexico in response to US President-elect Donald Trump's comments about renaming the body of water, during a press conference at National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, on Jan. 8, 2025.
Presidencia de Mexico/Handout via Reuters

418: What was the United States called before it was the United States? “Mexican America,” according to a 418-year-old map shown by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at a press conference on Wednesday. “It sounds nice,” she said, “no?” The display was meant as a clapback to US President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal a day earlier to rename the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America.”

2: Two Canadian planes are helping California to battle the massive wildfires currently raging near Los Angeles. The two Canadair CL-415s are specialized bombers that can fill their bellies with fresh or salt water to dump on fires. Canada has been sending firefighter aircraft to California seasonally for three decades.

9,500: If you want to do a PhD in biology or physics in Canada, you’d best be financially secure before you start. The average stipend for Canadian graduate students studying those subjects leaves them CA$9,500 (US$11,900) below the poverty line, according to a new study in the journal Nature. To keep pace with the cost of living, stipends would have to increase by 150%.

1,600: The United States is becoming a “ghost” town, at least when it comes to firearms. The number of privately made, untraceable “ghost guns” found at crime scenes each year surged from about 1,600 in 2017 to more than 27,000 in 2023, an increase of some 1,600%. Later this year, the US Supreme Court will rule on the legality of a Biden administration effort to crack down on these weapons.

More from GZERO Media

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend a press conference, on the day they attend a virtual meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and European leaders on the upcoming Trump-Putin summit on Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany, August 13, 2025.
REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen

During a planned group call later today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and some of his fellow European leaders will press US President Donald Trump to consult Kyiv more deeply.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Indian ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran attend a ceremony to hand over credentials at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on April 20, 2016.

REUTERS/Kirill Kudryavtsev/Pool

Amid US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats, GZERO spoke to former Indian Ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran to better understand why India’s relationship with Russia is so crucial to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This summer, Microsoft released the 2025 Responsible AI Transparency Report, demonstrating Microsoft’s sustained commitment to earning trust at a pace that matches AI innovation. The report outlines new developments in how we build and deploy AI systems responsibly, how we support our customers, and how we learn, evolve, and grow. It highlights our strengthened incident response processes, enhanced risk assessments and mitigations, and proactive regulatory alignment. It also covers new tools and practices we offer our customers to support their AI risk governance efforts, as well as how we work with stakeholders around the world to work towards governance approaches that build trust. You can read the report here.