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Traders work as screens broadcast a news conference by US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell following the Fed rate announcement, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, USA, on May 7, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Federal Reserve holds interest rates steady, US Navy jets skid into the sea, The one-percent impact on the climate, Feathery “mass cannibalism” in South Africa
4.5: The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday left its key interest rate unchanged for the third time in a row, keeping it at 4.25%-4.5%, where it’s been since December. President Donald Trump has publicly pressured Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower rates. “The economy itself is still in solid shape,” Powell told reporters Wednesday, but he said a “great deal of uncertainty” remains about the impact of Trump’s global tariffs and wider trade wars.
2: Speaking of uncertainty, why are US warplanes falling into the sea? According to reports, two F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets have slid off the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman carrier into the Red Sea over the past week alone. The first plunged into the water when the warship made a hard turn to evade fire from Houthi rebels. The second may have experienced a landing problem. Each jet costs a cool $60 million – cue Commander Stinger, “you don’t own that plane, the taxpayers do!”
10: The richest 10% of the global population are responsible for two-thirds of the global temperature rise since 1990, according to new research published by Nature Climate Change. The study also claims that compared to the average person, the world’s richest 1% contributed 26 times more to extreme heat globally and 17 times as much to droughts in the Amazon. Private jets are not, as it happens, great for the environment.
350,000: Animal welfare officers in South Africa euthanized more than 350,000 chickens after a state-owned poultry company ran out of funds to feed them. Officials couldn't estimate how many other chickens had died before this intervention due to “mass cannibalism” at the farm (yes, chickens eating each other). Still, on the plus side, the NSCPA’s action saved more than 500,000 chickens who may now be… eaten by people anyway.Google's new chatbot, Bard.
Hard Numbers: Meet Bard, grim new climate report, Colombia’s Toro ban, Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ law, IMF approves Sri Lankan relief
1.5: A new UN report says the world has less than a decade to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (the 2015 Paris Agreement’s target). Industrialized countries must halve greenhouse gasses by 2030 and halt carbon dioxide emissions by the 2050s to avoid cataclysmic flooding, droughts, heat waves, and species extinction.
8: Bullfighting remains legal in eight countries worldwide, but that may soon change. The majority of Colombians want to end the practice, which has been a tradition since colonial times. Colombia’s Senate recently voted to ban bullfighting, but the legislation now faces a tough challenge in the lower house, where an earlier proposed ban was shot down last year.
10: Uganda’s parliament passed a harsh new anti-LGBTQ bill on Tuesday that could lead to 10-year prison sentences for those who engage in “same-sex activity” or identify as LGBTQ. If President Yoweri Museveni signs the bill – he has suggested he supports it – Uganda will become the first African nation to criminalize simply identifying as LGBTQ.
2.9 billion: Sri Lanka has secured a $2.9 billion rescue package from the IMF to aid in its economic recovery. After defaulting on its sovereign debt last year, the island nation faced its worst economic disaster since independence. The package will likely boost international investment, but strict austerity measures will hurt Sri Lankan households already struggling with sky-high inflation.
Chinese woman shares home with 1,300 dogs
CHONGQING • Twenty years ago, Ms Wen Junhong saved an abandoned dog from the streets of Chongqing in south-western China. She now shares her home with more than 1,300 dogs, and they keep on coming.
Myanmar monk offers temple sanctuary for threatened snakes
A 69-year-old monk has created a refuge for snakes at the Seikta Thukha TetOo monastery in Yangon.
Cambodia ready to welcome 'world's loneliest elephant'
"Cambodia is ready to welcome Kaavan," deputy environment minister Neth Pheaktra told AFP.
Saving Bandung's zoo from a grim fate
On a recent weekday at the Bandung Zoological Garden, a lone male muntjac - or barking deer - was snug inside a feed trough, a sheet of corrugated steel providing shade from the midday sun.
Saving Bandung's zoo from a grim fate
On a recent weekday at the Bandung Zoological Garden, a lone male muntjac - or barking deer - was snug inside a feed trough, a sheet of corrugated steel providing shade from the midday sun.
164 dogs found crammed into tiny house in Japan
TOKYO • Japanese health officials have found 164 emaciated dogs crammed into a tiny house in one of the country's worst cases of animal hoarding, an animal rights activist said yesterday.