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Hard Numbers
HARD NUMBERS: Attack in northern Nigeria, Toilet stolen from Churchill’s home, and more…
Men are seen on a farm in Makurdi, Benue, Nigeria November 29, 2018.
100: At least 100 people were killed in an attack on a village by armed cattle herders in the north of Nigeria. The region has long been plagued by overlapping ethnic and sectarian tensions, as well as land use conflicts between nomadic herders and settled farmers.
13: Niger’s armed forces killed 13 insurgents during raids of jihadist-controlled gold mines near its western border with Burkina Faso. The Liptako-Gourma region in the Sahel – which includes parts of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger – has become an epicenter of extremist violence in recent years, as Al Qaeda and ISIS linked groups compete for control.
7: Saudi Arabia has executed a blogger who was jailed for seven years on treason and terrorism charges. Press freedom groups say the charges against Turki Al-Jasser, who had accused the government of corruption via an anonymous X account, were trumped up.
15: The Catholic Church will soon have a gamer saint. Nicknamed “God’s influencer,” Carlos Acutis – who died from leukemia at 15 – will become the first millennial to be canonized this September. The Italian teenager was known for building websites documenting Eucharistic Miracles and his love of Halo, Super Mario and Pokémon.
6: Two men were arrested for stealing a $6.4 million golden toilet from an exhibition at Winston Churchill’s birthplace. The 18-carat toilet – designed by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan – was part of an contemporary art exhibition at Blenheim Palace.
A gas station in Düsseldorf, Germany, on June 10, 2025.
12%: Oil prices spiked 12% in early trading on Friday following Israel’s attacks on Iran, reflecting fears that a wider Middle East conflict could restrict access to crude exports. Later in the morning prices softened slightly, but were still up nearly 9%, to more than $75 per barrel.
4: Although school shootings are rare in Europe, four of the worst incidents this centuryhave occurred since 2023, raising concern about whether the phenomenon – until now largely a US problem – is spreading more rapidly.
3: Is the wait over? Millions of BTS fans hope so. The K-Pop supergroup has not performed together in three years due to its members’ mandatory South Korean military service. But now that they have been discharged (honorably!), rumors are flying that the group could take the stage again at a festival outside Seoul this weekend.
1.5%: Argentina’s monthly inflation fell to just 1.5% in May. That’s the lowest level in five years – and a stark fall from early 2024, when it exceeded 25%. President Javier Milei’s radical cost-cutting policies have helped put a lid on rising prices.
50%: China’s production of baijiu liquor, the country’s go-to tipple, has dropped more than 50% since 2016. Demand for alcohol overall in China is plummeting as a result of changing tastes, a slowing economy, and a new campaign to stamp out drinking among the Communist Party’s 100 million members.California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks as he announces the Golden State Literacy Plan and deployment of literacy coaches statewide, at the Clinton Elementary School in Compton, California, USA, on June 5, 2025.
8: California Governor Gavin Newsom posted an eight-minute video on social media Tuesday night in which he berated US President Donald Trump for sending federal troops into Los Angeles to support local police amid protests and riots against immigration enforcement. Newsom has been increasingly positioning himself as a national-level opponent of Trump.
450: The US Centers for Disease Control has reinstated 450 employees who were terminated in the recent rounds of DOGE-led layoffs, which cut 10,000 federal health workers. The reinstated employees work in a range of areas, including STD prevention, global health, environmental health, and lead poisoning prevention.
30 billion: Canada needs to invest at least $30 billion in its critical minerals industry by 2040 if it hopes to meet rising demand stoked by the green energy transition. Critical minerals such as lithium and copper are key components of electric vehicles, batteries, and solar panels. Industry leaders say permitting needs to be streamlined as well.
4: Formula 1 driver Max Verstappenwill attempt to win a record fourth consecutive Canadian Grand Prix when the race roars through the notoriously brake-heavy course on Montreal’s Île Notre-Dame this Sunday.Eastern Cape EMS Rescue team searches for missing Jumba Senior secondary school students at Efata bridge next to Mthatha Dam in Mthatha, South Africa on June 10, 2025
49: Flooding in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, the result of snow and heavy rain, has left at least 49 people dead, including several people on a school bus that was swept away by the waters.
15: South Korea has switched off the loudspeakers that blast propaganda across the border into North Korea – the noise can be heard 15 miles away at night. The move comes a week after Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, who favors de-escalation with the North,won the presidential election.
3%: The United Kingdom’s National Health Service was the big winner of the Government’s spending review on Wednesday, as Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reevesincreased the annual healthcare budget by 3% – amounting to another £29 billion ($39.2 billion) per year. Other departments, like the Foreign Office and the Environment Department, suffered cuts.
4: All of us dream of winning the lottery just once, but one man in Alberta, Canada, has now done it four times! David Serkin pocketed $730,000 from his latest jackpot – his third in the last year. He also happens to be a cancer survivor. He Serkin-ly has the luck of the draw!Hard Numbers: Polish PM’s gamble pays off, UK sanctions Israeli government ministers, Taiwan indicts Chinese “spies”, and more
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reacts after a vote of confidence for his center-left coalition government, in Warsaw, Poland, June 11, 2025.
33: Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk survived a no-confidence measure on Wednesday by a margin of 33 votes in the 460 seat legislature. Tusk had called the vote himself in a bid to reinforce his mandate after an ally of his lost the presidential election to a rightwing challenger late last month.
4: Taiwanese prosecutors indicted four former members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party over allegations of spying for China. One of the alleged suspects worked as an assistant to former Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, who is now the secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council.
0.1%: The US’ annual inflation index rose by 0.1 points from 2.3% last month—an early indication that Trump’s tariffs are having only a modest impact on consumer prices so far.
5: Five western countries – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK – imposed sanctions on two of Israel’s far-right ministers on Tuesday, accusing Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich of “inciting extremist violence” in the West Bank and denying essential aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar pledged a response to the “outrageous” move.
40%: US National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharyadefended his agency during a Senate hearing on Tuesday after the Trump administration proposed a 40% budget cut to it. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) slammed the proposed cuts, which would lower the NIH’s total budget to $27.5 billion for the next fiscal year.
1,200: Russia and Ukraine began a major prisoner swap earlier this week, with each side expected to hand over at least 1,200 prisoners. However, prospects for a ceasefire remain distant: Kyiv and Moscow have exchanged ferocious aerial assaults in recent days.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, on the day he is sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Service in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 13, 2025.
17: In an unprecedented move, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the vaccine advisory committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday. While Kennedy defended the “clean sweep” as necessary to restore public trust, experts warn that changes to the panel could threaten public confidence in government health agencies.
$180 million: Chinese tech giant Tencent recently struck a deal with SM Entertainment, one of the leading K-pop production houses, to purchase almost a 10% stake for $180 million. The latest move signals a potential musical thaw in China-South Korea relations: Beijing has imposed an unofficial ban on K-pop ever since Seoul agreed to host US missile defenses in 2016.
2%: Citing the need to reduce reliance on the United States, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carneypledged to raise defense expenditures to 2% of the nation’s GDP by the end of the year. The accelerated spending will bring the country in line with NATO benchmarks five years ahead of Carney’s previous target of 2030.
499: Russia launched 499 drone and missile attacks on Kyiv last night, in one of the largest aerial assaults of the three-year-war. The latest attack coincides with a fresh Russian push into eastern Ukraine, and it follows Kyiv’s own large-scale drone attacks on Russian strategic bombers last week.
3%: Less than 3% of the world’s oceans are effectively protected from destructive activities like industrial fishing and deep-sea mining. But with the UN Oceans conference now underway in France, delegates are on track to ratify the High Seas Treaty, a landmark agreement that will allow countries to establish protected areas in biodiverse international waters.
Inter Miami Forward Lionel Messi controls the ball during the first half of an MLS match against the Philadelphia Union at Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania, on May 24, 2025.
The FIFA Club World Cup kicks off on Saturday, with the United States acting as hosts for a competition of the top local teams on the globe, like Real Madrid and River Plate. The expanded tournament will act as a dress rehearsal for next year’s World Cup, the country-on-country tourney that will take place across North America. However, political issues, as well as concerns about audience numbers, are putting a cloud over the competition.
32: There will be 32 football clubs from six continents competing in the Club World Cup, including 12 teams from Europe and six from South America. Inter Miami, a team that counts Lionel Messi in its ranks, earned a free slot as host.
25: The Club World Cup has been running on-and-off for 25 years, dating back to the first competition in 2000. However, this is the first time the tournament will be of such a large magnitude – it usually just comprises seven teams and lasts 10 days. The last seven Club World Cups were hosted in the Middle East and North Africa.
$1 billion: The streaming platform DAZN – owned by former oligarch Sir Len Blavatnik – paid $1 billion for the rights to broadcast the tournament. In an effort to maximize the audience, the platform will air the games for free. $1 billion is, incidentally, also the amount of prize money that will be split among the participants, double the kitty from the last World Cup.
0: US President Donald Trump’s new travel ban, which covers 12 countries, won’t affect any of the players, after the White House made an exemption for athletes and coaches. Admittedly, very few of the players are from one of the countries on the banned list – Mehdi Taremi, Inter Milan’s Iranian striker, is the highest-profile player from a banned nation. Yet Trump’s order defies FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s declaration, made during a White House meeting in May, that “the world is welcome in America.” There’s no exception for the soccer fans from these 12 countries.