Hard Numbers: The British People’s Choice?

3.79 million: About 3.79 million babies were born in the US in 2018, taking the annual birth rate to its lowest point in three decades. Births in the US have fallen in 10 of the past 11 years.

40: North Korea is now coping with its worst drought in nearly 40 years, according to state media. Drought creates food shortages and the potential for unrest, which might help explain why Kim Jong-un has returned to missile launches to win new economic concessions.

2 billion: In nominal terms, trade between the United States and Soviet Union in the late 1980s totaled $2 billion a year. Current trade between the United States and China is $2 billion a day.

0.26: When Theresa May is forced to resign as UK prime minister in coming weeks, the 120,000 members of the Conservative Party will choose a new party leader, and that person will automatically become Britain's prime minister. In this way, just 0.26 percent of the UK electorate will choose their country's next head of government.

More from GZERO Media

A cargo ship is loading and unloading foreign trade containers at Qingdao Port in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China on May 7, 2025.
Photo by CFOTO/Sipa USA

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Geneva on Saturday in a bid to ease escalating trade tensions that have led to punishing tariffs of up to 145%. Ahead of the meetings, Trump said that he expects tariffs to come down.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks on the phone to US President Donald Trump at a car factory in the West Midlands, United Kingdom, on May 8, 2025.
Alberto Pezzali/Pool via REUTERS

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer achieved what his Conservative predecessors couldn’t.

The newly elected Pope Leo XIV (r), US-American Robert Prevost, appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican after the conclave.

On Thursday, Robert Francis Prevost was elected the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church, taking the name Pope Leo XIV and becoming the first American pontiff — defying widespread assumptions that a US candidate was a long shot.

US House Speaker Mike Johnson talks with reporters in the US Capitol on May 8, 2025.

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA

US House Speaker Mike Johnson is walking a tightrope on Medicaid — and wobbling.

US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on May 6, 2025.
REUTERS/Leah Millis

The first official meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump was friendlier than you might expect given the recent tensions in the relationship.