Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: US Census bungle, US election workers afraid, Sweden ups defense spending, Oz beefs up army

Hard Numbers: US Census bungle, US election workers afraid, Sweden ups defense spending, Oz beefs up army

Sign encouraging participation in the US Census in Somerville, Massachusetts.

REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Make us preferred on Google

18.8 million: The 2020 US Census reportedly miscounted a whopping 18.8 million people. The miscount underrepresented people of color while overcounting whites. This raises questions about the Census numbers’ validity as a basis for reallocating congressional and state Electoral College votes.


20: That’s the percentage of US election workers who plan to leave their jobs before the 2024 presidential election. Many cited increased levels of harassment and intimidation.

2: Sweden will raise its defense spending to 2% of GDP — it’s currently spending 1.3% — as soon as possible in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. “Sweden’s defense capability must be greatly strengthened,” said PM Magdalena Andersson.

80,000: Australia will up its standing army by one-third to almost 80,000 troops over the next two decades. The Aussies are a crucial US ally and members of the AUKUS and the Quad initiatives to counter China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific.

More For You

Alternative for Germany (AfD) top candidate Ulrich Siegmund speaks on stage as he campaigns ahead of the upcoming Saxony-Anhalt state elections, in Magdeburg, Germany.

Alternative for Germany (AfD) top candidate Ulrich Siegmund speaks on stage as he campaigns ahead of the upcoming Saxony-Anhalt state elections, in Magdeburg, Germany, September 4, 2026.

REUTERS/Annegret Hilse
Far-right AfD set to win German state election on SundayThe party, which opposes immigration and favors closer ties with Russia, has a double-digit polling lead in Saxony-Anhalt, a former East German region where many people have felt economically and socially left behind since reunification in 1989. That poses a big dilemma for German Chancellor [...]
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 [...]
Thousands of people gather at the Palacio de Cibeles, seat of the Madrid City Council, in Madrid, Spain during demonstrations held outside city halls in autonomous communities across Spain in protest of the mass entry of migrants at the Ceuta border.

Thousands of people gather at the Palacio de Cibeles, seat of the Madrid City Council, in Madrid, Spain, on September 2, 2024, during demonstrations held outside city halls in autonomous communities across Spain in protest of the mass entry of migrants at the Ceuta border.

Aaron Heredia/NurPhoto
Immigration protests rock Spain Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Spain on Wednesday in protest against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s welcoming immigration policy and his handling of the immigration crisis in the North African Spanish enclave of Ceuta. In July, more than 70,000 people crossed into Ceuta from Morocco in 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 [...]