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Hard Numbers
Indian army soldiers are seen atop a vehicle on a highway leading to Ladakh, at Gagangeer in Kashmir's Ganderbal district September 2, 2020.
3,500: India and China have reportedly reached a common understanding on patrols of their long-disputed border in the Himalayas. The two nuclear-armed Asian behemoths have clashed repeatedly over the 3,500-kilometer-long frontier since fighting a full-scale war in 1962. In 2020, two dozen troops, mostly from the Indian side, died in a skirmish there.
23,000: Some 23,000 delegates are gathered in the Colombian city of Cali this week for COP16, the 16th installment of the United Nations biodiversity summit. Although the attendance will be the largest ever, participants are concerned about the lack of progress on goals meant to halve the global destruction of natural habitats by the decade’s end. So far, only 31 of 195 nations have even filed biodiversity conservation plans.
58: Despite a gradual decline over the past two decades, some 58% of all global foreign currency reserves are still held in dollars, giving the US – and its sanctions regime – immense power over global financial transactions. At this week’s BRICS summit, Russia, which is under more US sanctions than any other country, is pitching a plan to boost the use of national digital currencies to get around the dollar’s dominance.
2: For at least the second time this year, a UK court has allowed a dissident from a Gulf monarchy to sue their home government for using spyware against them. Yahya Assiri, an opposition figure from Saudi Arabia, is suing the Kingdom for allegedly targeting his devices with the Pegasus surveillance software between 2018 and 2020. Earlier this year, an English court struck down Bahrain’s objections to a case brought by two dissidents who claimed the country had hacked their devices.
12: US baseball fans are about to go back to the future, as the Los Angeles Dodgers take on the New York Yankees in the World Series, Major League Baseball’s annual championship. The famously ferocious Dodgers vs. Yankees rivalry, which dates to the days when both teams were in New York, is the most common matchup in the 121-year history of the World Series. This will be the 12th time the two teams have seen each other there, but it hasn’t happened since 1981.
Hard Numbers: Musk doles out millions, Turkey talks Typhoon jets, Kenya delays high-level impeachment, Boeing makes progress with strikers
FILE PHOTO: Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, who supports Republican presidential nominee former U.S. President Donald Trump, gestures as he speaks about voting during an America PAC Town Hall in Folsom, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 17, 2024.
1 million: Elon Musk said Sunday that his political action committee supporting the Trump campaign, America PAC, will give $1 million to one registered voter in Pennsylvania every day until the election in a lottery among petition signers. The petition merely affirms support for the First and Second Amendments but also allows the PAC to gather voter data. Musk has donated $75 million to the PAC so far.
40: Despite strained ties, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan thanked German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his efforts to push through a sale of 40 Eurofighter Typhoon jets when the two met on Saturday. He also expressed eagerness to increase trade with Berlin, which has the largest population of ethnic Turks in Europe, who make up an important expat voting bloc for Erdogan.
7: Kenya’s High Court on Friday suspended a resolution to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua for at least seven days, meaning he will remain in office until at least Oct. 24. Parliament had already approved Gachagua’s replacement, Kithure Kindiki, but the court said it needs time to decide whether the impeachment was lawful.
33,000: Troubled aircraft manufacturer Boeing reached a tentative deal that will send some 33,000 striking workers back to the assembly line after a five-week strike. The deal must be ratified by rank-and-file union members, who will vote Wednesday. They are looking at a 35% pay increase over four years but will not get their much-desired pension plan back after losing it in 2014.FILE PHOTO: Afghan women walk after the recent earthquake in the district of Zinda Jan, in Herat, Afghanistan October 10, 2023.
2 million: The United Nations has called for an investigation into reports that Iran’s security forces opened fire last weekend on roughly 200 Afghan migrants who had entered the country illegally, killing an unknown number of them. Iran has threatened to deport as many as 2 million undocumented Afghan migrants who live in the country as refugees from decades of war and famine in their home country.
25: There’s no free lunch, they say – but if there were, you certainly shouldn’t use the money to buy acne treatment pads, wine glasses, or laundry detergent. Meta has fired around two dozen employees in its Los Angeles office after they were caught using the company’s $25 meal allowances to purchase household items.
5: Venezuela has arrested five foreigners, including three Americans, on charges of terrorism. Since winning a heavily disputed election this summer, President Nicolas Maduro has cracked down on the opposition, accusing it of collaborating with foreign intelligence operatives. The recent arrests bring to 12 the number of foreigners detained in Venezuela.
10: The US and NATO allies on Thursday marked 10 years since the start of their campaign to defeat Islamic State, often referred to as “ISIS.” On the plus side, the terror organization was rooted out of its modern “caliphate” strongholds in Syria and Iraq. On the minus side, it has shown a growing presence and capability in the Sahel, where some local governments are pushing out Western forces, and Central Asia, where Islamic State is at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan and has managed to carry out attacks in Russia.
Elon Musk waves to the crowd before former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Oct. 5, 2024.
75 million: Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, gave $75 million to America PAC — a pro-Trump super PAC that he established back in May — across July and September, a campaign finance filing showed on Tuesday. This makes Musk, who endorsed former President Donald Trump in July and has since appeared on the campaign trail with him, a Republican mega-donor.
425 million: President Joe Biden announced a new $425 million military aid package for Ukraine on Wednesday and spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The package includes “additional air defense capability, air-to-ground munitions, armored vehicles, and critical munitions to meet Ukraine’s urgent needs,” the White House said, adding that Zelensky spoke with the president about his victory plan and “tasked their teams to engage in further consultations on next steps.”
40,000: In news that is both gross and captivating, mysterious white blobs are washing up on beaches in Newfoundland. So far, marine scientists seem stumped, and authorities are investigating the blobs’ origins and whether they’re safe to touch. A Facebook group of roughly 40,000 people, Beachcombers of Newfoundland and Labrador, helped bring attention to these blobs of unknown origin.
880 million: The Archdiocese of Los Angeles — the largest Catholic dioceses in the US — is paying $880 million in a childhood sexual abuse settlement involving over 1,300 claims, including some that go back to the 1940s. “I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart,” Archbishop José H. Gomez wrote in a letter. “My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing.”Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni pays tribute to the 309 victims of the earthquake that struck, in L'Aquila, Italy, on 5 April 2009.
200 million: Kamala Harris went into conservative territory to appear on Fox News on Wednesday night. In a pre-taped, 30-minute interview with network host Bret Baier, the vice president was grilled on immigration and her history of supporting taxes used to fund gender-affirming care for federal prisoners and detained immigrants. The interview was contentious, with the two repeatedly talking over one another. Fox News, which reaches nearly 200 million people each month, was just the latest stop on Harris’ media blitz – and was likely an attempt to reach independents and moderate Republicans.
1.25: Surrogacy has been banned in Italy for 20 years, but Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’sconservative government has just gone a step further and criminalized seeking surrogacy abroad. Conservative lawmakers argued that they passed the law because they believe surrogacy is exploitative of women. Critics argued it would deprive gay or infertile couples of a way to have children and noted that the legislation targets a relatively small number of families in a country that already has a low birth rate.
100: A massive fuel tanker explosion in northern Nigeria killed 100 people and left 50 injured on Wednesday. The tanker exploded after veering to avoid colliding with a truck in the town of Maja. Fuel tanker explosions are common in Africa’s most populous nation, where roads can be poorly maintained. Complicating matters, residents often rush toward the tanker to siphon off fuel following accidents amid the country’s worst economic crisis in a generation.
10: Hong Kong has slashed its booze tax, one of the highest in the world, as the Chinese territory seeks to boost nightlife and revive its struggling economy. Until now, spirits with an alcoholic content of more than 30%, including brandy, whisky, and gin, had been subject to a 100% duty in Hong Kong. But the financial hub has been hit hard by China’s slowing economy and the fall in tourist numbers, leading the Beijing-backed government to slash the duty rate to 10%.
21: Former US President Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 this month, voted by mail on the first day of Georgia’s early voting on Tuesday. Although he did not reveal who he voted for, he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August that, even more than making it to his 100th birthday, he was “only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris.” At 19, Carter likely cast his first vote in the 1944 presidential election, as a part of the first cohort of voters made eligible to vote by Georgia lowering its voting age to 18, making this his 21st presidential election.
Turkish citizens disembark naval ship TCG Bayraktar carrying people evacuated from Lebanon upon their arrival at a port in Turkey's Mediterranean coastal province of Mersin, Turkey, October 10, 2024.
25: Over 25% of Lebanon is facing Israeli evacuation orders, which were expanded to include 20 villages on Tuesday. The sprawling evacuation orders come as Israel expands its bombing campaign in the south and east of Lebanon, and in the suburbs of Beirut. Over the past three weeks, 1.2 million people have already fled from their homes, with more than 400,000 children in Lebanon displaced, according to the UN children’s agency.
36 billion: After Hurricane Milton tore through central Florida last week, risk modelers predicted that it would lead to about $36 billion in insurance payouts, well above the $6 billion of claims they estimate Hurricane Helene caused last month. The cost of increasingly damaging storms has experts fearing that more insurance firms will exit the region, further driving up premiums.
163 million: It is looking certain that the EU will be unable to claw back any of the $163 million it paid to Tunisia in a controversial migration deal. Brussels paid Tunis to crack down on migrants leaving its shores bound for Europe, but the money is being increasingly linked to human rights violations – including allegations that sums went to security forces who raped migrant women.
305,900: On Tuesday, the first day of early voting in Georgia, the southern US state saw record turnout, with 305,900 votes. That’s more than twice the number of first-day early voters in 2020, when the state’s previous record was set with 136,000 votes cast on the first day.
Hard Numbers: Viruses everywhere, TikTok content moderation cuts, Nevada’s “at-risk” student saga, TSMC on the rise
The H1N1 flu virus (red) is pictured in this handout photograph taken on July 9, 2009 and released on July 13, 2009. The new H1N1 influenza virus bears a disturbing resemblance to the virus strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, with a greater ability to infect the lungs than common seasonal flu viruses, researchers reported Monday.
70,500: Researchers used artificial intelligence to identify 70,500 new viruses using metagenomics, in which scientists sequence entire environments based on individual samples. This research, led by University of Toronto researchers, uses a machine learning tool developed by Meta to find new viruses and predict their protein structures.
700: TikTok reportedly cut 700 jobs, including many in Malaysia, and will transition much of its content moderation work to artificial intelligence. This change only affects .6% of the social media company’s 110,000-person global workforce. Social media companies have long used a mix of human and automated systems to monitor user-generated content posted on their platforms.
200,000: Last year, the state of Nevada used an AI system to help it better identify what students in the state are “at risk” for falling behind academically and socially. But the AI, run by an outside contractor, developed a much higher bar for that determination, incorporating factors far beyond income levels, formerly the most important metric, and the number of “at-risk” students plummeted by about 200,000, leading the state to cut funding to many districts in need.
40: Stock analysts expect Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to report a 40% profit increase when the chip fabrication giant reports its third-quarter earnings on Oct. 17. TSMC’s stock has already surged 77% this year due to surging demand from chip designers hungry to sell their products to AI companies.