Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: Johnson's star falls, black Americans bear COVID brunt, Spain's tourism slump, Afghan ceasefire

Hard Numbers: Johnson's star falls, black Americans bear COVID brunt, Spain's tourism slump, Afghan ceasefire
Make us preferred on Google

20: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's national approval rating has plummeted 20 points in just four days following his decision to back a top aide who violated lockdown restrictions despite showing symptoms of COVID-19. Johnson's approval dropped to -1, the lowest on record since the coronavirus pandemic began.


2.4: COVID-19 underlines racially based US inequality. Its death rate is 2.4 times higher for black Americans than for whites, and 2.2 times higher than for Asians and Latinos.

92 billion: Spain, which draws about 15 percent of its total GDP from tourism, stands to lose as much as 92 billion euros in revenue this year as a result of travel bans. The government says it will move to lift travel restrictions by July 1 in order to limit the economic fallout, but whether people will choose to vacation there this summer is a different story.

900: The Afghan government released 900 Taliban prisoners as part of a ceasefire to mark the Eid al-Fitr holiday. This is just the second halt in fighting between the foes in two decades, boosting hopes for intra-Afghan peace going forward..


More For You

Italian winery sees red
At least seven masked men deactivated alarms and cameras at the Antinori winery before using the company’s forklifts to fill two trucks with crates of the winery’s reds. The thieves deliberately targeted higher-end bottles worth between €150 and €500 each, leading Antinori to suggest that they may have had insider knowledge of the winery. Antinori [...]
Tensions boil between Ethiopia and Eritrea, UK’s Labour Party notches win, Lula’s chances slim in Brazil

Members of the Ethiopian Federal Police (EFP) patrol after Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) army retreated from the regional capital near the Tigray Martyrs monument in Mekelle, Tigray Region, Ethiopia, October 8, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone.

Ethiopia claims “all-out invasion” by EritreaEthiopia has told the UN that troops from neighboring Eritrea penetrated at least 60 meters across the border as long-standing tensions between the two East African countries threaten to boil over again. At issue is access to the Red Sea, which Ethiopia lost when Eritrea became independent after 30 [...]
India’s voter-list purge sparks backlash
Lottie Tellyn
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is framing the move as cleaning India’s electoral register – which included around 970 million people before the changes – of dead or duplicate voters. But many people say the purge has disenfranchised them. Critics argue that voters who are less likely to support Modi’s BJP party, such as India’s 200 [...]
Alleged members of Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13, attend an open hearing in a mass trial, after 486 alleged gang members were charged with more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, according to prosecutors, at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador, April 23, 2026.

Alleged members of Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13, attend an open hearing in a mass trial, after 486 alleged gang members were charged with more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, according to prosecutors, at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador, April 23, 2026.

REUTERS/Jose Cabezas
Mass trials begin in El SalvadorOver the past four years, Salvadoran authorities have used a state of emergency to arrest more than 90,000 people on suspicion of gang activity, putting many of them in maximum security prisons. Now, en masse, they are having their days in court in trials that human rights activists say are riddled with violations [...]