Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: Shanghai lockdown, US billionaire tax, Amazonian NFTs, Houthi truce

Hard Numbers: Shanghai lockdown, US billionaire tax, Amazonian NFTs, Houthi truce

Medical staff in PPE walk in front of barriers of a Shanghai area under lockdown.

REUTERS/Aly Song
Make us preferred on Google

2,631: Shanghai will go into lockdown after reporting a record 2,631 new asymptomatic COVID infections on Sunday. China’s largest city had been trying to avoid this extreme measure, but authorities ultimately caved to Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy.


100 million: On Monday, the Biden administration will propose a 20% minimum income tax on US households worth at least $100 million in order to cut the deficit. This includes taxing unrealized capital gains, which Democrats failed to pass in Congress last year.

150: A Brazilian company that owns some 150 square miles of the Amazon is funding conservation efforts by auctioning off sponsorship of rainforest lots as non-fungible tokens. NFT holders will not own the land itself but rather get access to information about how it is being preserved.

7: On Saturday, Houthi rebels declared a three-day truce with the Saudi-led coalition to mark the seventh anniversary of Yemen’s civil war. The olive branch came a day after the Houthis attacked a Saudi oil plant near the Formula One race track in Jeddah, to which Riyadh responded with airstrikes on rebel-held cities in Yemen.

More For You

A banner reading "Buy Canadian", in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on goods from Canada, is held aloft by a pair of hockey sticks in front of a house

A banner reading "Buy Canadian", in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on goods from Canada, is held aloft by a pair of hockey sticks in front of a house in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada March 5, 2025.

REUTERS/Ed White
US and Canada hold last-minute talks to avoid new tariffs Washington and Ottawa are down to the wire with talks to reach an agreement by 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, when President Donald Trump has threatened to impose 50% tariffs on over $20 billion of Canadian goods. The proposed tariffs would hit Canadian exports to the US — everything from hockey [...]
The DRC’s deadliest Ebola outbreak ever
Natalie Johnson
On Monday, public health officials said the virus had killed 2,325 people, exceeding the death toll of every previous Ebola outbreak in the country. For weeks, the outbreak has also spread faster than any earlier outbreak. And the full toll may be even higher: WHO officials recently said the outbreak had begun months before authorities declared it [...]
A staff member holds a dummy as staff and customers take shelter at a storage room, during an air raid exercise at a PX Mart supermarket as part of the civil defence drills in Taipei, Taiwan

A staff member holds a dummy as staff and customers take shelter at a storage room, during an air raid exercise at a PX Mart supermarket as part of the civil defence drills in Taipei, Taiwan. July 10, 2025.

REUTERS/Annabelle Chih
Over the weekend, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked his country’s Independence Day by announcing the creation of a “massive” volunteer civil defense force. Calling India’s existing civil defense capacity “outdated,” Modi said the country of 1.4 billion people must protect the new targets of modern warfare, including refineries, the [...]
A princess among men
Will Fitzpatrick
No, the change wasn’t a publicity stunt for the newly announced Princess Diaries 3. On Saturday, Liechtenstein’s hereditary prince announced that the tiny country of around 40,000 people would end male-only succession and adopt firstborn inheritance, opening the door for the first woman to lead the monarchy since the House of Liechtenstein was [...]