Hard Numbers: US rare-earth push, grow your own food in Sri Lanka, don’t protest in Cuba, Whisky Wars

120 million: An Australian company signed a $120 million deal with the Pentagon to refine rare-earth metals in Texas. The US wants to stop playing catch-up to China, which dominates the global trade of these metals crucial for modern technology.

297: Cuba sentenced 297 people for up to 25 years behind bars for participating in a rare anti-government protest last summer. The Castro brothers may be gone, but the regime is still hell-bent on quashing internal dissent.

4: Cash-strapped Sri Lanka asked public-sector workers to follow a 4-day workweek, taking Fridays off to ... grow food in their backyards. The government has long run out of foreign currency to pay for basic imports amid the country's worst-ever economic and political crisis.

50: Canada and Denmark have settled a 50-year sovereignty dispute over an uninhabited Arctic island, the closest we've ever been to a “war” between two NATO members. They had been amicably tussling like only ultra-polite Canadians and Danes can — by planting bottles of Canadian whisky and Danish schnapps along with their national flag all over the rock.