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Hard Numbers: Did Bladerunner get the future right?

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65 billion: Every year the EU doles out $65 billion in agriculture subsidies. A lot of that money is being used by populist leaders, such as Hungary's Viktor Orban, to enrich cronies and build anti-EU power bases in the countryside. An extraordinary investigation by the Times that's worth a read.


37: In 1982, Ridley Scott released his landmark dystopian sci-fi film Blade Runner, which took place in…November 2019. The BBC took an eye-opening look at what the director got right and wrong about technology and society 37 years in the future.

21: Police in Bangladesh have arrested 21 members of a government-backed campus group in connection with the killing of a university student who had apparently criticized a government water-sharing deal with India. The case prompted massive protests last month.

0: For the first time since it began keeping monthly records, the United States in October resettled precisely zero refugees from abroad. This comes as the Trump administration is cutting the overall number of refugees permitted in the United States and tightening requirements for entry.

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Fewer migrants, but deadlier journeys to Europe
Will Fitzpatrick
The number of migrants and refugees reaching the continent by sea has dropped sharply this year as many European countries tighten their immigration rules. But despite fewer crossings, more migrants have died. Nearly 2,300 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, up from roughly 2,000 during the same period last year, as [...]
Followers of the Shi'ite Houthi group ride on a truck at a gathering near the Yemeni capital Sanaa August 20, 2014.

Followers of the Shi'ite Houthi group ride on a truck at a gathering near the Yemeni capital Sanaa August 20, 2014.

REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The Saudis ask China for help“Hi, China, it’s Saudi Arabia, could you tell Iran to ask the Houthis to chill out?” That, in so many words, is the current telephone game amid intensifying attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis on Saudi oil export routes. With the US seemingly unable to contain the regional consequences of its war on Iran, China is [...]
A woman walks past a billboard, displaying portraits of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Pyotr Tolstoy and promoting the United Russia party ahead of the upcoming parliamentary election, near the Moscow International Business Centre in Moscow, Russia.

A woman walks past a billboard, displaying portraits of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Pyotr Tolstoy and promoting the United Russia party ahead of the upcoming parliamentary election, near the Moscow International Business Centre in Moscow, Russia, September 15, 2026.

REUTERS/Ramil Sitdikov
Why does Vladimir Putin even bother with elections? It’s a fair question to ask as Russia goes to the polls this weekend for nationwide local and parliamentary votes in which the outcome is certain. The ruling United Russia party, closely associated with Putin himself, polls at nearly 40%. Its closest competitors, a small handful of occasionally [...]
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives with incoming Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh for Warsh's swearing-in ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 22, 2026.

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives with incoming Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh for Warsh's swearing-in ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 22, 2026.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
This week — Independent institutions: 2, Trump: 0The US president took two big domestic losses this week. First, the Supreme Court ruled against his demand for restrictions on mail-in voting in the upcoming midterms. The stinger? All three Trump-appointed justices sided with the decision. “These are not the people I interviewed,” he griped on [...]