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Hard Numbers: Missing Palestinian medics found in mass grave, Renowned Japanese species dies off, Romania’s far right keeps rolling, Trump’s latest approval ratings come in

​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.

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.


900,000: The days of the archetypal Japanese “salaryman” — spending his entire career with one company, toiling away by day and drinking away by night with the graybeards whom he will one day replace — are numbered. Last year, more than 900,000 Japanese people changed their full-time jobs, up 60% from a decade ago. Experts say Japan’s rapidly aging population has given younger workers fresh power to choose new paths.

35: With a little more than a month before the Romanian presidential election, polls show right-wing opposition leader George Simion as the frontrunner with 35% support. Last year, Romania canceled the results of the presidential election won by ultra-right-winger Calin Georgescu, alleging Russian meddling, and disqualified him from running again. Simion appears to have inherited his support.

49: A new poll shows 49% of Americans approve of Donald Trump’s handling of immigration, the highest mark of any issue. Meanwhile, 46% like how he has handled government spending, and roughly 4 in 10 Americans like his approach to trade and the economy.

4.6%: Fears over new US tariffs led to the S&P 500 falling 4.6% during the first three months of 2025, bringing a close to the worst quarter for the index since 2022. It’s quite the slowdown from the end of 2024, when the S&P completed a second straight year posting greater than 20% gains. The Stoxx Europe 600 index has had no such issues, running nearly 10 percentage points ahead of its American rival in the first quarter of this year.

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Hard Numbers: Kenya restarts railroad project without China, South Africans return from Ukraine war, the rapper who wants to run Nepal, Russians say things are going well
$4 billion: The amount Kenya wants to raise in order to complete a partially built railway line that was abandoned in 2019. The project, which will link Nairobi with South Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya, came to a halt after initial funding from China dried up. This time around, Kenya wants to finance the project itself, through new import tariffs, [...]
​People approach the entrance of the Provincial Clinical-Surgical Hospital "Arnaldo Milian Castro" in Santa Clara, Cuba, on February 25, 2026.

People approach the entrance of the Provincial Clinical-Surgical Hospital "Arnaldo Milian Castro," where, according to local information, injured people were being treated after an armed incident involving a Florida-registered speedboat and a Cuban patrol, at a time of heightened tensions with the United States, in Santa Clara, Cuba, on February 25, 2026.

REUTERS/Norlys Perez
10: The number of Cubans who took a Florida-registered speedboat to Cuba’s coast on Wednesday before engaging in a gunfight with border troops from the communist-run island. Four of them died in the shootout. All 10 reportedly resided in the United States. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the incident was not part of a US government operation. [...]
​He Weidong, Zhang Youxia, and Li Shangfu swear oaths as they are selected as China's Central Military Commission members during the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on March 11, 2023.

He Weidong, Zhang Youxia, and Li Shangfu swear oaths as they are selected as China's Central Military Commission members during the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on March 11, 2023.

The Yomiuri Shimbun
100: The estimated number of senior officials who’ve been sidelined or have disappeared from China’s military since 2022, according to a study released on Tuesday. According to analysts, those swept up in President Xi Jinping’s purge of his armed forces make up roughly half of the top military leadership. [...]
​Members of the Mexican army stand guard at a roundabout on a main avenue in Guadalajara, Mexico, on February 23, 2026.

Members of the Mexican army stand guard at a roundabout on a main avenue, following a military operation in which Mexican officials said cartel boss Nemesio Oseguera, "El Mencho," was killed in Jalisco state, in Guadalajara, Mexico, on February 23, 2026.

REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
62: The number of people killed – including 25 Mexican National Guard members and 34 suspected gang members – in the nationwide chaos that erupted following a military operation that killed one of Mexico’s most powerful cartel leaders, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, on Sunday. President Claudia Sheinbaum deployed 2,000 troops to Jalisco state, [...]