1.4 billion: President Trump continues to threaten to close the US border with Mexico to resolve what he says is a national emergency created by illegal immigration into the US. More than $500 billion in goods — some $1.4 billion a day — crossed that border in 2018, according to the US Commerce Department.
77,000: Since a failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has detained 77,000 people and suspended or fired more than 150,000 civil servants and members of the military. But this week's local election results, in which Erdogan's party lost control of Istanbul, Ankara, and other major cities, shows that even the harshest of crackdowns can't ensure lasting political dominance.
40: In North Korea, 11 million people, about 40 percent of the population, are undernourished. Chronic malnutrition has stunted the growth of an estimated 20 percent of the country's children. The UN has called on the US to help with food aid despite the lack of progress toward denuclearization of North Korea.
45: Last December, Japan's parliament passed a bill that creates a mandatory 10-day holiday from April 27 to May 6 to mark the imperial transition from Emperor Akihito to his eldest son, Naruhito. A recent poll revealed that 45 percent of respondents in Japan "felt unhappy" about the long vacation, with just 35 percent saying they "felt happy," presumably because costs for travel during this period have spiked, and closed schools leave children at home with parents.
