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Hard numbers: AMLO wins small in recall, Jakarta students protest, Ukrainians dodge the draft, we learn to do nothing

AMLO wins small in recall, Jakarta students protest, Ukrainians dodge the draft, we learn to do nothing

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Ismael Rosas/ Eyepix Group

90: Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) got the support of 90% of voters in Sunday’s recall referendum. The catch? Turnout was just 18% of eligible voters, less than half of the threshold for the referendum to be legally binding. AMLO’s term ends in 2024, and he cannot run again.


6: Six police officers in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta were wounded in their attempt to control a protest by hundreds of students angry over rising food prices and rumors that two-term president Joko Widodo may be hatching a plan to exceed constitutional term limits.

15,000: While the vast majority of Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 have complied with general mobilization laws that prohibit them from leaving the country, some draft dodgers have paid up to $15,000 to be smuggled across the border to safety in the EU, according to the New York Times.

0: A Harvard PhD candidate has found that, among non-industrial societies studied in the 1970s and 1980s, the most common activity during the day was doing absolutely nothing. As in, zero. Not farming, not chatting, not sleeping, not cooking, not weaving. Just, nothing. So turn off your notifications and give it a shot.

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5: US President Donald Trump added five new countries – Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria – to the list of nations banned from traveling to the US. The US will also reject people with travel documents issued by the Palestinian Authority. Fifteen other countries also face partial travel restrictions under the expanded order. [...]