Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: Much ado about Ma, EU-Russia holdouts, Ukrainians in Mexico, Oz raises interest rates

Hard Numbers: Much ado about Ma, EU-Russia holdouts, Ukrainians in Mexico, Oz raises interest rates
Gabriella Turrisi
Make us preferred on Google

9.4: Shares of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba plunged by as much as 9.4% on Tuesday after state broadcaster CCTV abruptly announced that someone named "Ma" had been detained. CCTV later clarified that it was not Jack Ma, Alibaba's billionaire founder caught in the crosshairs of Xi Jinping's tech crackdown.


2: The EU looks ready to ban Russian oil imports as a bloc over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But so far there are two holdouts: Hungary — whose PM Viktor Orbán is Vladimir Putin’s best EU buddy — and Slovakia, which claims its sole refiner can’t immediately switch to non-Russian crude.

500: Some 500 Ukrainian refugees are waiting in a makeshift camp in Mexico City for US immigration authorities to process their papers. President Joe Biden says they're welcome but has not exempted them from Title 42, a pandemic-era rule to curb immigration that requires US asylum-seekers to apply from a third country.

0.35: Australia's central bank upped interest rates by 0.35% Tuesday, the first hike in over a decade. It's a long-overdue move to combat rising inflation, expected to be a major campaign issue ahead of the parliamentary election on May 21.

More For You

People hold a sign that reads "No" during a rally of the "No to EU" campaign ahead of a referendum on whether Iceland should resume accession negotiations with the European Union, in Reykjavik, Iceland.

People hold a sign that reads "No" during a rally of the "No to EU" campaign ahead of a referendum on whether Iceland should resume accession negotiations with the European Union, in Reykjavik, Iceland, August 27, 2026.

REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Iceland votes on restarting EU accession talks Polls remain tight as Iceland holds a referendum tomorrow on whether to restart EU accession talks. Membership has long been a divisive topic on the island, which gained independence from Denmark in 1944 and remains fiercely protective of its sovereignty. During previous talks, the bloc’s fisheries [...]
Denmark pays for its past
Will Fitzpatrick
The new law will offer those affected a one-time payment of 300,000 Danish kroner, or around $47,000, following a landmark report last year by officials in Denmark and Greenland. Greenlandic women and girls as young as 12 were implanted with IUDs, often without their consent or knowledge, sometimes leaving them infertile. The Danish government at [...]
A damaged section of a highway in Nuwakot, central Nepal

A damaged section of a highway in Nuwakot, central Nepal, is seen on August 27, 2026, following an outburst of a glacial lake in Tibet.

Sanjit Pariyar/NurPhoto
Catastrophic flooding in Nepal tests its young, new leaderA massive wall of mud and rock crashed into a river along Nepal’s Himalayan border with Tibet on Wednesday, triggering catastrophic flooding that swept away bridges, destroyed buildings, and swamped roads. Over 300 people were killed, and over 1,000 remain missing – including hundreds of [...]
A big settlement for Big Tech
Will Fitzpatrick
The Facebook and Instagram owner settled with 47 states, the District of Columbia, and US territories on Wednesday, agreeing to pay financial penalties and make changes to its products over claims that its platforms endangered children. Meta agreed to limit how long teenagers can spend on its apps, allow teens to turn off “autoplay" on videos, and [...]