Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Hard Numbers

Hard Numbers: Iran cracks down on women, bestsellers sue AI, Venezuelan migrants get right to work, India suspends Canadian visas, Turkey jacks up rates

An Iranian woman walks past a huge mural of Iran's flag, in the Enghelab (Revolution) avenue in downtown Tehran, September 12, 2023.

An Iranian woman walks past a huge mural of Iran's flag, in the Enghelab (Revolution) avenue in downtown Tehran, September 12, 2023.

Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Reuters

10: Under a new law passed Wednesday, Iranian women could be jailed for up to ten years if they refuse to wear hijab. The crackdown comes just days after the one year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in state custody after the morality police arrested her for not wearing hijab properly.


17: A group of 17 prominent authors are suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, accusing the company of “systematic theft on a mass scale.” The suit says ChatGPT has violated their copyright protections because it draws upon their texts to build its language models and responses. The complaint also alleges that ChatGPT can be used to plagiarize them, and includes examples for each writer — including a Game of Thrones prequel called “Dawn of Direwolves”. (Can I read it? - Matt)

472,000: As President Joe Biden left the Big Apple late Wednesday, his administration announced that Venezuelans already in the country could legally live and work in the US for the next 18 months. The decision will affect 472,000 Venezuelans nationwide and roughly half of New York City’s migrants, letting them support themselves and easing the strain on New York’s social safety net. (For more on the situation in New York, see our explainer).

80,000: India announced it would suspend visas for Canadians amid the ongoing row over the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Last year about 80,000 Canadians visited India. Should Canada reciprocate, it could threaten the visa status of over 320,000 Indian students in Canadian universities.

30: The central bank in Turkey raised interest rates by an aggressive 5 percentage points to 30%, as official inflation rates topped 58%. It’s part of a major reversal of the Erdogan administration’s policy after winning re-election back in May: the previous economic team insisted on cutting rates even as prices soared.

(Department of Corrections: While we’re talking interest rates, in yesterday’s edition we mistakenly said the Fed’s rate pause was their first in 18 months. In fact, they decided on a pause in June, 2023 as well. We regret the error and hope it doesn’t affect your rate of interest in the Daily)

More For You

​He Weidong, Zhang Youxia, and Li Shangfu swear oaths as they are selected as China's Central Military Commission members during the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on March 11, 2023.

He Weidong, Zhang Youxia, and Li Shangfu swear oaths as they are selected as China's Central Military Commission members during the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on March 11, 2023.

The Yomiuri Shimbun
100: The estimated number of senior officials who’ve been sidelined or have disappeared from China’s military since 2022, according to a study released on Tuesday. According to analysts, those swept up in President Xi Jinping’s purge of his armed forces make up roughly half of the top military leadership. [...]
​Members of the Mexican army stand guard at a roundabout on a main avenue in Guadalajara, Mexico, on February 23, 2026.

Members of the Mexican army stand guard at a roundabout on a main avenue, following a military operation in which Mexican officials said cartel boss Nemesio Oseguera, "El Mencho," was killed in Jalisco state, in Guadalajara, Mexico, on February 23, 2026.

REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
62: The number of people killed – including 25 Mexican National Guard members and 34 suspected gang members – in the nationwide chaos that erupted following a military operation that killed one of Mexico’s most powerful cartel leaders, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, on Sunday. President Claudia Sheinbaum deployed 2,000 troops to Jalisco state, [...]
Indra Brown of Australia during the women's skiing halfpipe final at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games on Feb. 22, 2026.

Indra Brown of Australia during the women's skiing halfpipe final at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at Livigno Snow Park, Livigno, Italy, on Feb. 22, 2026.

Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
⅔: The share of Italians who reportedly watched the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, which ended yesterday. More Italians consumed these Winter Games than the previous three combined. Audience numbers also jumped outside the host nation, with broadcasters in Europe, the UK, the US, and even Brazil reporting huge growth. The ice hockey rivalry [...]
​A French navy boat intercepts and redirects a suspected Russian oil tanker in the Gulf of Fos-sur-Mer, near Martigues, France, on January 25, 2026.

A French navy boat surrounds the GRINCH oil tanker, intercepted by France in the Alboran Sea on suspicion of operating under a false flag and belonging to Russia's shadow fleet that enables Russia to export oil despite sanctions, and diverted to the port of Marseille-Fos, in the Gulf of Fos-sur-Mer, near Martigues, France, on January 25, 2026.

REUTERS/Manon Cruz
$90 billion: The amount of revenue that Russia has reportedly made from smuggled crude oil exports, after 48 companies worked together to help disguise the origin of the oil and circumvent sanctions that have been imposed since the full-scale war on Ukraine began. The total is likely much more. Details of the scheme were revealed due to an IT [...]