Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Hard Numbers

Hard Numbers: Trump’s big lead,  Russian nationalists and pig heads, a bet on steel and fusion, Taiwan’s new sub, Barbie’s underground Russian adventure

Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump looks on while his supporters cheer on the day he addresses auto workers as he skips the second GOP debate, in Clinton Township, Michigan, U.S., September 27, 2023.

Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump looks on while his supporters cheer on the day he addresses auto workers as he skips the second GOP debate, in Clinton Township, Michigan, U.S., September 27, 2023.

REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
Make us preferred on Google

16: Recent polling averages show that Donald Trump leads the combined rest of the GOP presidential field by 16 percentage points.


3: Three prominent Russian military analysts, including one who recently wrote an article calling for the killing of Ukrainian civilians, have discovered severed pig heads outside their homes in recent weeks.

35 million: In an unprecedented step, Nucor, the largest US steelmaker, is working with a nuclear fusion startup on construction of a 500-megawatt fusion power plant that would be placed at one of Nucor’s steel mills by 2030. The company’s $35 million investment is an early bet that steel will eventually be made without carbon emissions.

10: To help deter a potential future Chinese invasion, Taiwan has unveiled its first domestically made submarine. Over time, the island nation’s government wants to build a fleet of 10 submarines and equip them with missiles.

0: In today’s edition, we really wanted to highlight the excitement generated in Russia by underground screenings of the movie Barbie. Unfortunately, we found zero good numbers we could use from the press coverage, some of which you can see here, here, and here.

More For You

America’s long arm of counterterrorism
Natalie Johnson
In the 25 years since 9/11, the US has pursued counterterrorism operations in dozens of countries around the world. Brown University’s Cost of War Project tracked operations in nearly 80 countries between 2021 and 2023, or roughly 40% of countries worldwide. In most countries where the US conducted operations, it trained or assisted local security [...]
Africa, unshrunk
Will Fitzpatrick
Gall-Peters, Mollweide, Eckert IV – take your pick. There are plenty of world maps that show Africa in closer proportion to its true size, and today the UN General Assembly will vote on a resolution encouraging governments, schools, and international organizations to use them. Led by Togo and backed by the African Union, the push targets the [...]
America’s expanding proletariat
Will Fitzpatrick
There is no official definition of “working class” – an economist might point to a certain income bracket or education level, while a Marxist might say it includes anyone who has to sell their labor to survive. But in the US now, the label seems to extend well beyond the traditional industrial proletariat – according to the poll, nearly half of [...]
China’s solar eclipse of the US
Will Fitzpatrick
China now produces more power via solar than coal for the first time ever, with rays of the sun accounting for more than 30% of the country’s total installed power generation, according to Chinese state TV. China, which remains the world’s leading overall greenhouse gas emitter, has leaned heavily into renewable energy installation and generation [...]