Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Hard Numbers

Hard Numbers: Israel assassinates Hezbollah commander, DOGE gets DOGE’d, Ethiopian volcano erupts, Not much to show for COP30

​People walk past a damaged building during the funeral of Hezbollah's top military official, Haytham Ali Tabtabai, and of other people who were killed by an Israeli airstrike on Sunday, despite a U.S.-brokered truce a year ago, in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon November 24, 2025.

People walk past a damaged building during the funeral of Hezbollah's top military official, Haytham Ali Tabtabai, and of other people who were killed by an Israeli airstrike on Sunday, despite a U.S.-brokered truce a year ago, in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon November 24, 2025.

REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
5: The Israeli military assassinated a senior Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Sunday. The attack killed at least five people overall. Lebanon’s president lambasted the strike. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the commander was trying to help Hezbollah regroup.

8: DOGE has been DOGE’d, with a White House official declaring that the Department of Government Efficiency – which, under Tesla owner Elon Musk, tried to slash government spending – no longer exists. The department still had eight months left before the end of its charter.

12,000: A long-dormant Ethiopian volcano, Hayli Gubbi, erupted for the first time in nearly 12,000 years, sending ash 9 miles high and drifting across the Red Sea. No casualties were reported, but ash is strangling the local vegetation and threatening local herders’ livelihoods.

1.5: As COP30 comes to a close, the conference concludes with an agreement projecting that the world will likely exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming in the next five years, with few promises made to stop it. The agreement did not mention fossil fuel curtailment, and instead focused on climate change adaptation, in a sign that countries are prioritizing energy security over climate commitments.

More For You

Indra Brown of Australia during the women's skiing halfpipe final at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games on Feb. 22, 2026.

Indra Brown of Australia during the women's skiing halfpipe final at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at Livigno Snow Park, Livigno, Italy, on Feb. 22, 2026.

Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
⅔: The share of Italians who reportedly watched the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, which ended yesterday. More Italians consumed these Winter Games than the previous three combined. Audience numbers also jumped outside the host nation, with broadcasters in Europe, the UK, the US, and even Brazil reporting huge growth. The ice hockey rivalry [...]
​A French navy boat intercepts and redirects a suspected Russian oil tanker in the Gulf of Fos-sur-Mer, near Martigues, France, on January 25, 2026.

A French navy boat surrounds the GRINCH oil tanker, intercepted by France in the Alboran Sea on suspicion of operating under a false flag and belonging to Russia's shadow fleet that enables Russia to export oil despite sanctions, and diverted to the port of Marseille-Fos, in the Gulf of Fos-sur-Mer, near Martigues, France, on January 25, 2026.

REUTERS/Manon Cruz
$90 billion: The amount of revenue that Russia has reportedly made from smuggled crude oil exports, after 48 companies worked together to help disguise the origin of the oil and circumvent sanctions that have been imposed since the full-scale war on Ukraine began. The total is likely much more. Details of the scheme were revealed due to an IT [...]
​Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema reacts during the announcement of provisional results of the 2025 Gabonese presidential election by the Ministry of the Interior, at the headquaters of the Rassemblement des Batisseurs (RdB), in Libreville, Gabon, April 13, 2025.

Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema reacts during the announcement of provisional results of the 2025 Gabonese presidential election by the Ministry of the Interior, at the headquaters of the Rassemblement des Batisseurs (RdB), in Libreville, Gabon, April 13, 2025.

REUTERS/Luc Gnago
2.5 million: The population of Gabon who can no longer get onto certain social media platforms, like YouTube and TikTok, after the government suspended access on Tuesday. The government said that the platforms were spreading “hateful and abusive” content online, but it comes as the oil-producing African state faces growing protests over high costs [...]
​A man throws trash on a street in downtown Havana, Cuba, February 16, 2026.

A man throws trash on a street in downtown Havana, Cuba, February 16, 2026.

REUTERS/Norlys Perez
41.5%: The proportion of Havana’s garbage trucks that were operational this month, according to state-run media, as Cuba’s fuel crisis prompts a garbage crisis. Rotten food, cardboard boxes, and plastic bottles have been piling up on the streets. Just 44 of 106 garbage trucks were functioning. [...]