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Hard Numbers: No recall in California, Biden’s Ethiopian pen pals, El Chapo’s house lottery, China hits gambling

Hard Numbers: No recall in California, El Chapo’s house lottery, Biden’s Ethiopian pen pals, China hits gambling

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks after the polls close on the recall election, at the California Democratic Party headquarters in Sacramento, California, U.S., September 14, 2021.

REUTERS/Fred Greaves

28: Governor Gavin Newsom easily survived a recall election in California, where voters backing him now lead those who want him out by a margin of 28 percentage points with two-thirds of ballots counted. Although polls were tight-ish a few weeks ago, in the end a higher-than-expected turnout was enough for Newsom to keep his job in America's most populous state.


5 million: Young supporters of Ethiopia's ruling Prosperity Party want to "flood the White House" with five million letters about the conflict in Tigray. They hope to convince Joe Biden to back embattled PM Abiy Ahmed's military campaign against militants in the restive region, where a civil war has been raging since November.

183,000: After receiving no bids in an auction, Mexico's Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People is giving away a house that used to belong to Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, from which the famed drug kingpin escaped arrest in 2014 by fleeing through a tunnel. The Mexican government says the modest two-bedroom house is worth $183,000.

18.4 billion: Macau's top casinos lost a combined $18.4 billion of their stock value in just a few hours on Wednesday, after China announced new regulations — including the appointment of government reps to directly oversee each business — to renew licenses in the world's top gaming hub. Beijing has long worried about gambling addiction and casinos being used to stash away illicit funds from the mainland.

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What We’re Watching: The kings of soccer make a trade deal, Venezuela’s Machado to meet Trump, Moscow sends message to Europe

Protesting farmers hold anti - Mercosur banners while chanting slogans during the protest. Thousands of farmers protested against the signing of the agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur.

Attila Husejnow / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
Europe and South America finally agree to long-sought trade dealIt took more than 25 years, but the European Union and Mercosur, the South American common market, provisionally agreed to a free trade deal, eliminating tariffs on over 90% of each other’s exports. If it passes, it would create the largest free trade zone in the world and mark the [...]
​Sudanese brothers, refugees from el-Fasher, wash clothes at sunset outside the Tine transit camp in eastern Chad, on November 22, 2025.

Sudanese brothers, refugees from el-Fasher, wash clothes at sunset outside the Tine transit camp, amid the conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, in eastern Chad, on November 22, 2025.

REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
1,000: A civil war that has produced one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises reached a grim milestone today. One thousand days into the conflict in Sudan, over 150,000 people have been killed and 9 million uprooted across the country by the fighting.. 584,000: The US economy added just 584,000 jobs in all of 2025, according to the Bureau of [...]
​Protesters gather as vehicles burn in Tehran, Iran, in this screen grab from a social media video released on January 9, 2026.

Protesters gather as vehicles burn, amid evolving anti-government unrest, in Tehran, Iran, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video released on January 9, 2026.

Social Media/via REUTERS
Twelve days ago, a protest over Iran’s deteriorating economy began at a market in Tehran, in what were then estimated to be the largest demonstrations in the country since 2022.Since then, they have spread dramatically. People in over 100 cities and towns across the country have taken to the streets to vent their anger over a plunging Iranian rial [...]
​Passengers enter a shared taxi in Dnipro, Ukraine, on January 8, 2026.

Passengers enter a shared taxi in Dnipro, Ukraine, on January 8, 2026. Following a massive Russian drone attack on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine’s southern regions, most consumers in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, including the regional capitals, were left without power.

Mykola Miakshykov/Ukrinform
1 million: Russian drone strikes crippled energy infrastructure in southeast Ukraine overnight, leaving over one million people in Dnipropetrovsk without heat or water in the dead of winter. Electricity supplies were also disrupted for thousands more people in neighboring Zaporizhzhia. [...]