Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Hard Numbers

Tiananmen Square anniversary, Prison break in Pakistan, & More

​Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 2025.

Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 2025, the 36th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

Kyodo via Reuters Connect
Make us preferred on Google

36: Today marks the 36th anniversary of China’s deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters occupying Tiananmen Square on June 4th, 1989. The death toll from the day remains disputed, though certain groups have put it in the thousands. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio commemorated the crackdown yesterday, incurring the wrath of Beijing’s Foreign Ministry.


200: More than 200 inmates escaped a Pakistani prison in Karachi, a city of more than 20 million people, on Tuesday after a series of earthquakes damaged the facility. Early reports say police have re-arrested 80 of the inmates, meaning 120 or so remained at large.

4: “I want to see the tax cuts made permanent, but I also want to see the $5 trillion in new debt removed from the bill. At least 4 of us in the Senate feel this way.” That’s the comment US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) made on X on Tuesday about President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” If four Republican senators vote no on the bill, it will fail.

2: On Tuesday, two Chinese nationals were accused of smuggling a fungus into the United States that officials say is a potentially “dangerous biological pathogen.” The US Attorney’s Office in the eastern district of Michigan cites scientific reports that call this fungus a “potential agroterrorism weapon” that can destroy wheat, barley, maize and rice crops — and can sicken those who eat contaminated products.

More For You

Unemployment on the up
Lottie Tellyn
Republicans won’t be happy with the final jobs report before the midterms. Job market growth was weaker than expected, adding fewer than half of the jobs economists had predicted. It was particularly bad for Black Americans, for whom the unemployment rate rose a whole percentage point to 7% – nearly double that of white Americans. Overall [...]
Small countries, super domains
It’s not the first time that a smaller nation has taken advantage of its internet domain. Anguilla, a tiny British territory in the Caribbean, saw registrations of its .ai domain explode in 2023 and now brings in more than $39 million a year from it – nearly a quarter of its total revenue. Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation with the coveted .tv [...]
US forces leave Iraq
Will Fitzpatrick
This is actually the second time the US has left Iraq. The first was in 2011, when Washington ended the occupation which began with the 2003 invasion. But US forces returned in 2014 to lead a multinational fight against ISIS, the jihadist militant group born amid the chaos and sectarian strife triggered by the original US invasion. Today’s exit [...]
Budget bougie
Natalie Johnson
That’s not exactly cheap for a tiny tin of fish eggs, but compared to traditional caviar prices – which can range from about $350 to $3,000 for a similar portion – that’s an unprecedented bargain. Prices for the delicacy are falling across the board these days, for two reasons. First, direct-to-consumer sellers are disrupting the traditional [...]