13,000: A volcanic fissure approximately 13,000 feet long has burst open near the Icelandic village of Grindavik, spewing lava. Grindavik was evacuated weeks ago due to increased seismic activity (which usually precedes eruptions), but there is no telling when they will be permitted to return.
131: At least 131 people have been killed and nearly 1,000 injured after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck southwest of the city of Lanzhou in western China on Tuesday. The death toll may rise in the coming days, as rescue efforts are complicated by the remote, mountainous terrain in one of China’s least developed areas.
455: Berlin residents in 455 of the city’s 2,256 electoral districts will have to go to the polls to rerun elections that they already voted in over two years ago. Germany’s top court found that delays and procedural snafus on Election Day 2021 were severe enough to require a mulligan, but for the MPs whose jobs are on the line, the ruling isn’t the worst possible news: Because only select districts are revoting and not the entire city, they are likely to keep their seats.
4.93 million: Jordanian authorities seized approximately 4.93 million pills of Captagon – a form of amphetamine popular in the Middle East – and nearly 13,000 “palm-sized” sheets of hashish in a bust near the Syrian border. It’s the largest seizure yet in an ongoing crackdown from Amman on the smugglers using the remote desert frontier to sneak drugs out of Syria, where the majority of the world’s Captagon is produced.
