Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Global Stage: The AI Divide WATCH RECORDING
News

Hard Numbers: Lebanon’s bread crisis, US prices soar, Boris Johnson fined, Koreans start from zero

Lebanon’s bread crisis, US prices soar, Boris Johnson fined, Koreans start from zero

Workers carry boxes of bread loaves at a bakery in Beirut, Lebanon.

REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
15.3: The Lebanese government will give about $15.3 million in assistance to importers to help assuage a growing bread crisis. As elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, rising costs for grains and fertilizer as a result of the war in Ukraine are straining the country’s already-battered economy.

8.5: Prices for goods and services in the US have grown 8.5% over the past year, the largest annual increase since the early 1980s. Rising costs for food, housing, and fuel drove the increase, which is taxing households and shaping up to be a major problem for President Joe Biden and the Democrats as they head into midterm elections this fall.

50: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other top officials will be fined for breaking pandemic lockdown laws by holding parties at government buildings while ordinary Brits were prohibited even from visiting dying relatives in hospital. British authorities say more than 50 violations of the rules were confirmed.

1: Everyone in South Korea is about to get one year younger – on paper at least. To harmonize his country’s records with those in the rest of the world, president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol wants to do away with the current system in which South Koreans are aged “1” when they are born.

More For You

​Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's prime minister and Social Democrats party leader, in Copenhagen, Denmark, on March 25, 2026.

Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's prime minister and Social Democrats party leader, attends the party leaders' debate after parliamentary elections, in Copenhagen, Denmark, on March 25, 2026.

REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Danish Social Democrats suffer worst election result in a centuryAmid rising costs of living, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s center-left party won just 22% of the vote in yesterday’s nationwide election, marking the Social Democrats’ worst result since 1903. The left-wing Socialist Party and right-wing Danish People’s Party were the [...]
Signs of Russia’s spring offensive
Moscow also launched 23 cruise missiles and seven ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities, including the city of Lviv, which is near the Polish border and not usually targeted. The strikes also come as Russia intensifies its front-line attacks out East, leading analysts to conclude that Russia’s spring offensive has begun. The Kremlin’s goal: take [...]
Trump postpones military strikes on Iran's power plants
- YouTube
In this Quick Take, Ian Bremmer says President Trump’s decision to back away from a 48-hour ultimatum to reopen the Strait of Hormuz signals how risky further escalation with Iran could be. [...]
The amount of money that was wagered in the oil market on Monday just 15 minutes before US President Donald Trump boasted of “productive” talks with Iran.

The amount of money that was wagered in the oil market on Monday just 15 minutes before US President Donald Trump boasted of “productive” talks with Iran.

Natalie Johnson
Trump’s comments on social media yesterday morning sent fuel prices tumbling, as investors increased their hopes for a swift end to the Iran conflict. But right before the post, there was a flurry of activity between oil traders, per a Financial Times analysis of Bloomberg data. The well-timed trades have raised eyebrows among market strategists, [...]