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

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.