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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.A pair of wolf cubs explore their surroundings in Dallas, Texas, on April 7, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Trump explores drones over Mexico, House Dems go big, Dominican roof collapse leads to tragedy, Electricity generation crosses green threshold, South African citrus goes bad, Dire wolves are back (sort of)
5: Five years ago, President Donald Trump suggested firing missiles into Mexico as a way to curtail drug cartels, according to former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s memoir. While that never happened, the commander-in-chief is exploring something similar, but this time with drones. Plans are still in their early stages, but American forces have already started reconnaissance flights – with Mexico’s approval – in a bid to acquire more information about the cartels.
35: Last week’s special elections in Florida appear to have House Democrats all giddy, as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of the House Democratic Caucus, released a list of 35 Republican-held seats that it plans to target in next year’s midterms. Some are realistic, others less so: Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) is on the list, despite winning reelection last year by 26 points.
98: At least 98 people have died and scores more were injured in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, after the roof of the Jet Set nightclub collapsed early Tuesday. The authorities reported that rescuers made 134 trips to the hospital, sometimes carrying two to three patients at a time due to the overwhelming number of casualties. One video captured the extent of the damage.
40: Environmental think-tank Ember found that electricity generated from low-carbon sources – solar, wind, hydropower, nuclear – exceeded 40% in 2024, the first time it has crossed this threshold since the 1940s. The fast rise of solar underscored this milestone, but the report also had some sobering news for environmentalists: Carbon dioxide emissions reached an all-time high last year.
35,000: The Trump administration’s expansive new tariffs are a sour fruit to swallow for South Africa’s citrus industry, as the new 31% duty on imports from the Rainbow Nation could spoil some 35,000 jobs, according to the Citrus Growers' Association of Southern Africa. Pretoria exports $100 million worth of citrus to the United States each year.
>10,000: Over 10,000 years since dire wolves went extinct, Biotech firm Colossal claims to have effectively brought them back from the dead. Using preserved DNA, Colossal scientists rewrote the code of a common gray wolf and used domestic dogs to birth three dire-like wolves, called Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. The species became a feature of public consciousness after they starred in the hit show “Game of Thrones.” Experts are skeptical about how closely these three pups resemble the dire wolf; one paleogeneticist suggested that these lupine creatures are grey wolves with dire wolf-like characteristics.
African National Congress (ANC) members of parliament react after South African lawmakers passed the budget's fiscal framework in Cape Town, South Africa, April 2, 2025.
Budget clash puts South African government on brink of collapse
The second largest party in South Africa’s coalition, the business-friendly Democratic Alliance, launched a legal challenge on Thursday to block a 0.5% VAT increase in the country’s new budget, raising concerns that the fragile government could collapse.
The background: Absent the support of their coalition partner, the ruling African National Congress on Wednesday relied instead on support from smaller parties to narrowly pass a budget framework.
The ANC and the center-right DA, historical rivals, agreed to work together after last year’s elections, when the ANC failed to win a majority for the first time since it entered government in 1994, after the fall of apartheid.
Your call, DA. The lawsuit is unlikely to derail the budget, so the party must decide if it wants to stay in government despite its misgivings. Without the DA, the ANC would hold exactly half of the legislature’s 400 seats. Investors view the DA as a key source of market-friendly policy discipline.
It’s a dilemma. Experts say that if the DA bolts, it will lose the chance to shape key legislation, such as the controversial Expropriation Act, a land reform bill, but staying would mean facing political humiliation after they voted against the budget.
John Green pulled a friend's body from a building in Plantersville, Ala., on Sunday, March 16, 2025, after a a deadly overnight tornado hit the area.
Hard Numbers: US storms kill dozens, South Africa's ambassador shown the door, Astronauts to return, Club fire leaves scores dead, Trump takes aim at journalists, Mexicans remember the missing
40: Windstorms and tornadoes wreaked havoc across the Plains and the southern US this weekend, starting Friday with dust storms and multiple-vehicle pileups. Saturday brought a string of tornadoes across the South, and millions remained on alert for extreme weather late Sunday along the East Coast. At least 40 people were killed, and several areas remain without power.
72: US Sec. of State Marco Rubio declared South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, persona non grata on Friday, claiming that he is a “race-baiting politician” who hates America and President Donald Trump. Rasool had described the MAGA movement as “a response, not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white, and that the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon.” The US gave Rasool 72 hours to vacate the country.
2: The two NASA astronauts, Sunita “Suni” Williams and Butch Wilmore, who blasted off for the International Space Station last June, were supposed to spend just eight days in space. But NASA determined their Boeing Starliner spacecraft wasn’t safe for the return trip, so they stayed put. Now, nine months later, they are finally set to return home — perhaps as early as this Wednesday — after NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission successfully docked with the ISS after taking off from Florida on Friday.
59: Families in the eastern town of Kocani, North Macedonia, are in mourning after a nightclub fire killed 59 revelers early Sunday. Another 155 people were injured, with 18 still in critical condition. The fire, thought to have been sparked by pyrotechnics that set the ceiling alight, spread quickly, filling the club with thick smoke. Arrest warrants have been issued against four people.
3: In a weekend email, President Donald Trump’s administration ordered journalists at Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to leave their offices and surrender their press badges and equipment. Why? The White House stated that taxpayers should not be “on the hook for radical propaganda” and has claimed that VOA “too often speaks for America's adversaries — not its citizens” and “amplified Beijing’s propaganda.” All three outlets are renowned for their international coverage.
124,000: Mexicans gathered in several cities on Saturday to remember and seek justice for the country’s 124,059 missing people, most of whom disappeared during a military-led campaign against drug cartels in the 2000s, leading to an escalation of violence. Vigils were held in the western state of Jalisco, where a mass grave has been discovered, and in Mexico City, Tijuana, Veracruz, San Luis Potosi, Guadalajara, Puebla, Veracruz, Cancun, and Colima.South African president Cyril Ramaphosa takes the national salute below a statue of former president Nelson Mandela at the Cape Town City Hall, ahead of his State Of The Nation (SONA) address in Cape Town, South Africa February 6, 2025.
Coalition bust-up over VAT in South Africa?
South Africa’s ruling coalition, made up primarily of the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance, is showing signs of a possible crack in its government of national unity.
The two parties have been rivals in the past but agreed to work together following elections last May. They have exceeded expectations for how long the coalition could last, but challenges remain, and the DA has proven the weaker partner, with its policy proposals often ignored.
A fight flared between the parties on Wednesday over the ANC’s budgetary proposal to boost the value-added tax, or VAT, by 2%. If it passed, it would take VAT up to 17% on a broad variety of goods, services, and transactions, with exceptions for necessities like basic foodstuffs. The VAT increase was supposed to help fund improvements in security services, infrastructure, health care, and education programs.
But Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delayed the budget presentation on Wednesday as a result of the squabble, making this year the first time the government won’t present its budget to parliament in February. Coalition leaders must now discuss adjustments before the rescheduled presentation on March 12 — and before the country’s fiscal year starts on April 1. But the delay does mark a win for the DA, showing it can hold its own against the more dominant ANC, even if it doesn’t yet have a viable alternative budget proposal.
While this may be a strong showing for the DA, Eurasia Group’s Amaka Anku says that none of the parties actually want the VAT.
“The ANC is really committed to projecting a sense of unity in the coalition and national government, of national unity, and not making this about ANC and the DA,” she says. Still, a tax increase in some form is likely to come since there’s no clear alternative for raising revenue.
President Donald Trump speaks at the White House in Washington, on Feb. 5, 2025.
Trump freezes aid to South Africa, offers to resettle “refugees”
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday halting all “non-essential” assistance to South Africa. He also ordered American agencies to assist white South Africans fleeing racial discrimination and resettle them as refugees in the US.
What is the basis for these orders? Trump cited Pretoria’s new expropriation policies as well as its anti-Israel stance at the International Court of Justice.
In January, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act, a law authorizing expropriation with “just and equitable compensation” in most cases but “nil compensation” under special circumstances. The law seeks to reversehistorical land inequality, namely that white Afrikaners, representing 7% of the population, still own 50% of the country’s farmland.
In December 2023, South Africa launched a legal challenge against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing it of genocide in Gaza.
How has the world responded to Trump’s orders? Ramaphosa blasted them as “propaganda,” saying “We will not be bullied.”As for white South Africans, they appear to be staying put. Trade union chief Dirk Hermann, representing some two million Afrikaners, said “We are committed to build a future here. We are not going anywhere.”Close up of South African flag.
South African leader defends land reform to Elon Musk
Why was the law changed? Even though apartheid ended 30 years ago, and white South Africans are only 7.3% of the population, as of 2017 they still possessed 72% of privately owned farmland. Critics warn, however, that a new expropriation law risks replicating the experience of neighboring Zimbabwe, where seizures of white-owned land in the name of racial equity devastated agricultural productivity and discouraged foreign investment.
This week, Republican US Sen. Ted Cruz said he will use his position as chairman of the Africa subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee to “investigate these and other concerning decisions” by South Africa. Cruz also criticized Pretoria’s directive last month to Taiwan that it relocate its Taipei Liaison Office from the capital before the end of March, posting to X that “the South African government seems to be going out of their way to alienate the United States and our allies.” China is South Africa’s largest trading partner and encouraged the country to sever relations with Taiwan in 1997.South African President Cyril Ramaphosa looks on during the 55th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2025.
GZERO Explains: Why is Trump fighting South Africa over its land policy?
President Donald Trump has said that he will cut all US funding to South Africa, accusing the government there of confiscating land and “treating certain classes of people very badly,” an allegation South African President Cyril Ramaphosa denies.
What is Trump talking about? Last month, South Africa passed the Expropriation Act, which aims to address severe racial imbalances in land ownership. Thirty years after the fall of Apartheid, three quarters of private farmland is held by whites, who comprise less than 10% of the population. The new act repeals an Apartheid era law that was used to expropriate Black farmers.
What does the bill say? It facilitates the government purchase of unused or abandoned land, provided that “just and equitable” compensation is given. But it also, in the “public interest”, allows land to be expropriated without compensation if the property is abandoned and the landowner can’t be reached, or if it is being used for criminal activity.
What’s the controversy? Critics say this latter provision violates the South African constitution’s protections for private property. AfriForum, a South African lobbying group that acts on behalf of white Afrikaans speakers, recently briefed Trump on the bill. Elon Musk, who hails from South Africa, has also said the bill threatens South Africa’s white minority.
What happens if Trump pulls funding from South Africa? From a geopolitical perspective, “not much,” says Eurasia Group Africa Practice Head Amaka Anku, “the funding in question is about $440 million to South Africa’s HIV program, which is not significant enough to make South Africa retaliate.”
Still, that funding accounts for nearly a fifth of South Africa’s total HIV program funding. In a country with the largest HIV-positive population in the world, the human consequences could be significant.