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Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) speaks during a marathon address from the US Senate floor on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

US Senate TV via CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters

25+: The Democrats may not have the White House or a majority in Congress, but one thing they do have, still, is words. Lots and lots of words. Words for days, even, as Democratic Sen. Cory Booker showed by taking to the podium on Monday with a broadside against Donald Trump that lasted more than 25 hours. The veteran lawmaker from New Jersey, a former football player, had vowed to stay up there as long as he was “physically able.” Before yielding the floor on Tuesday night, Booker broke the record for the longest Senate floor speech, surpassing one set in 1957 by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, who filibustered against civil rights.

5: Benjamin Netanyahuleaves Wednesday on a five-day visit to Hungary. It’s the Israeli PM’s second trip abroad since the International Criminal Court last year issued an arrest warrant for him over alleged war crimes in Gaza. In February, he visited the US. Hungary is an ICC member, but the country’s proudly “illiberal” PM Viktor Orban says he won’t honor the court’s warrant. In recent years, the right-winger Netanyahu has cultivated controversial ties with populist nationalist parties in Europe, including some with histories of overt antisemitism.

6: In recent years, half a dozen Australian universities have closed the Chinese-funded Confucius Institutes on their campuses. The CIs educate students about Chinese language, history, and culture. The moves come amid broader tensions between Australia and China, and they reflect fears that Beijing has used the institutes to spread pro-Chinese propaganda and cultivate possible intelligence assets.

38: Argentina’s poverty rate plunged from 53% to 38% last year. Analysts credit “anarcho-capitalist” president Javier Milei, who drastically slashed government spending to put the mismanaged economy on a more stable footing. After an initial bout of pain, those measures brought inflation down from nearly 300% to 70%, easing poverty as people’s spending power increased.

Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025.

REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

15: Fifteen Palestinian medics who went missing last week were apparently killed by Israeli forces and buried in an impromptu mass grave along with their ambulances, according to the UN. Israel said its forces fired on the medical convoy after it began moving “suspiciously” and alleged that a specific Hamas operative was killed in the attack, but initial reports said his name was not listed among the dead. Gazans laid the medics to rest properly on Monday.

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Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa speaks during a Ministerial formation of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic, in Damascus, Syria, on March 29, 2025.

REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

23: Syria has a new transitional Cabinet. Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa swore in his new 23-member team on Saturday, replacing caretakers who had been in those roles since former President Bashar Assad was ousted in December. While the new Cabinet is largely filled with al-Sharaa allies, it is religiously and ethnically diverse, a sign that Syria is moving forward to rebuild in the post-Assad and post-civil war era.

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Rescue personnel walk near a building that collapsed after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar on Friday, March 28, 2025.

REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha


7.7: Two disastrous earthquakes, the first of 7.7 magnitude, struck Myanmar on Friday, destroying vital infrastructure across Southeast Asia. Videos of a collapsed bridge in Mandalay, Myanmar, and a fallen building in Bangkok, Thailand, have emerged. The number of casualties isn’t yet known, although several are feared trapped under a fallen skyscraper in the Thai capital. At least 144 people have been confirmed dead.

71,000: Israel’s right-wing government on Thursday passed a contentious law to allow politicians greater sway in judicial appointments, despite some 71,000 opposition amendments. The move is a part of the judicial overhaul that protesters have been fighting for over a year and comes amid Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

125: Since the US election, Fox News has gained 125 new high-profile advertisers as Rupert Murdoch’s cable network continues to draw soaring viewership during President Donald Trump’s second term. Businesses such as Amazon, GE Vernova, JPMorgan Chase, Netflix, and UBS have recently run ads on Fox News for the first time in over two years.

5.7 million: According to a new World Bank study, 5.7 million people are killed annually by air pollution. The global institution is calling on countries to take an integrated approach to halve the number of people breathing unhealthy air by 2040 and points to places like Mexico City, which has successfully curbed pollution, and Egypt and Turkey, which have put financing mechanisms in place to support emission reduction.

20,000: The Trump administration announced Thursday that it will cut 20,000 positions from the Department of Health and Human Services – 10,000 from job cuts and 10,000 from voluntary departures – as part of a major restructuring that its chief, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., says “will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.” RFK says the reorganization is intended to help the department prioritize the fight against chronic diseases, but critics fear it could hinder the critical agency, which includes Medicare and the Federal Drug Administration. And throughout the federal government, officials are planning for between 8% and 50% staff cuts, according to an internal White House document obtained by the Washington Post.

19: Two weeks after the Trump administration dropped its first bombs on Houthi rebels in Yemen — details of which were revealed over the now-infamous Signal chat — the United States is believed to have attacked again early Friday, firing at least 19 strikes. The extent of the damage is unclear, although the intensity of the bombardment has increased since the Biden administration first started pounding the Houthis.

Public Health nurse Lauri Bidinot demonstrates how to give a measles shot to a young girl at Southwestern Public Health in St. Thomas, Ontario, on Tuesday, March 4, 2025.

Geoff Robins/The Canadian Press via ZUMA Press
572: Cases of measles in Ontario have risen to 572, an increase of over 100 in the last week. Forty-two people are in hospital, including two in intensive care. The outbreak is concentrated in the southwestern part of the province, including the Waterloo region. In the United States, Kansas now has 23 reported cases, and the Texas outbreak continues to grow. There are now 17 states with outbreaks of the potentially fatal disease, the highest level of cases in a single year since 2019.
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South Korean flag.

Photo by Karl Hedin on Unsplash

170,000: A report released Wednesday by the independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Korea pointed blame at Seoul for human rights violations related to a decades-long adoption program. Lack of oversight, according to the report, led to the “mass exportation of children” — to the tune of at least 170,000 kids — by private firms that were driven by profit. South Korea has been the global leader in sending children abroad for adoption since the 1950s but has worked to tighten its adoption processes.

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U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 13, 2025.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
23 billion: India said on Tuesday that it’s open to cutting more than half of its tariffs against US imports – equivalent to $23 billion – in the first phase of a trade deal the two nations are negotiating. This is meant to head off the Trump administration’s April 2 deadline for reciprocal tariffs – which would hit 87% of India’s total exports to the US.
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