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Reservists receive training during the annual Han Kuang military exercises in Taoyuan, Taiwan July 9, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Beijing calls Taiwan’s “bluff”, Copper prices soar, Russia breaks drone attack record (again), wildfire threatens France’s second city
22,000: Taiwan has mobilised 22,000 reservists to carry out its largest-ever military drills this week, with surface-to-air missiles and US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems as part of the maneuvers. When asked about the drills on Tuesday, the foreign ministry in Beijing – which considers self-governing Taiwan a part of China – called the exercises “nothing but a bluff.”
50%: US copper prices surged after President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to impose 50% tariffs on the metal. Copper is essential for home construction, car manufacturing, energy infrastructure, and data centers.
728: Russia launched a record 728 drones at Ukraine overnight, marking the third time in the last two weeks that Moscow has outdone itself. Last night’s attack came after Trump resumed shipments of critical air-defense weapons to Ukraine and declared he was tired of Putin’s “bullsh*t” on Tuesday.
400: A massive wildfire has reached the outskirts of Marseille, France’s second-largest city, prompting the evacuation of at least 400 people and injuring nine firefighters. At its peak, the fire spread at 1.2 kilometers per minute, driven by strong winds, dense vegetation, and steep terrain. Over 1,000 firefighters have been deployed to battle the blaze, which continues to threaten the area.
A hurricane
In the AI of the hurricane
Artificial intelligence models are getting better at predicting the paths of hurricanes.
Earlier this year, a model called GraphCast from Google’s DeepMind AI lab was able to accurately predict the path of Hurricane Beryl, forecasting that it’d take a turn away from Mexico and hit Texas. That prediction was correct — and came a week earlier than conventional meteorological models. Meanwhile, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ own AI model correctly predicted that Hurricane Francine would hit Louisiana before traditional models. These models can process large amounts of historical data to make their forecasts, while other models such as Nvidia’s FourCastNet work by modeling the entire Earth.
Still, while AI weather models appear good at tracking the direction of hurricanes, they struggle with determining other factors such as the intensity of the storms. So, at least in the near term, these models will work alongside human modelers rather than replace them.
Graphic Truth: Hurricanes US and Canada
The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is shaping up to be exceptionally active, with forecasts predicting 17-25 named storms, including 8-13 hurricanes and 4-7 major hurricanes. This surge in activity is driven by unusually warm Atlantic waters and El Niño conditions.
Hurricanes are becoming increasingly expensive for the US, with recent storms like Ian in 2022 and Ida in 2021 causing over $113 billion and $75 billion in damages, respectively. This trend is exacerbated by climate change, which intensifies storms and raises sea levels, amplifying coastal flooding.
Graphic Truth: Canada braces for wildfire season
As the weather warms, the US and Canada are bracing for the potential of another record-breaking wildfire season. Canada’s 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive on record, with more than 6,000 fires tearing through tens of millions of acres and blanketing the US East Coast and Midwest in smoke.
Meanwhile, the US saw the smallest number of acres burned in more than two decades last year, thanks to high levels of precipitation and snowfall, which kept the West mostly out of trouble. But it also experienced its deadliest wildfire in over a century in Maui, Hawaii.
Canada's federal officials are warning that this season could be even worse. Warm fall and winter conditions, combined with droughts and next to no snowfall from December to February in essential areas like southern British Columbia and the Prairies impact soil moisture levels, raising the risk of fires.Up up and away: Will skiers see more or less snow at Whistler this year?
Hard Numbers: El Niño messes with snow, US shutdown looms again, Toronto developers pause condos, climate report calls out Canada
8: It’s that time again … for shutdown roulette! The US Congress has just 8 days to pass a fresh stopgap measure to fund the federal government beyond Nov. 17, when the current money runs out. Mike Johnson, the newly elected speaker of the GOP-controlled House, said Wednesday that he would decide by the end of this week what he will seek to do. Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted last month by far-right GOP members who objected to the spending compromises that he’d reached with President Joe Biden.
14,000: Even as Toronto suffers the broader Canadian housing crisis, developers in the city have delayed launching almost 14,000 units as high-interest rates continue to depress demand among pre-construction buyers. At the same time, the national government pledged this week to build close to 30,000 new units on federal lands by the end of the decade.
110: A new UN report says that major energy-producing countries are on track to produce 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than they are supposed to if the world intends to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages. Canada is a big part of the problem: It shows the fourth-largest production increase in the world during that time period. The US came in second behind only Brazil among the climate policy scofflaws.Beijing records coldest morning in more than five decades
BEIJING • The mercury dipped to minus 19.6 deg C at a meteorological station in the south of Beijing as a strong cold wave swept the city, marking the coldest morning in the Chinese capital since 1966.
Heavy snow disrupts traffic in S. Korea
With heavy snowfall jamming the roads in Seoul, Singaporean Dominic Phua spent nearly an hour walking home after work.
Heavy snow disrupts traffic in Seoul
SEOUL - With heavy snowfall jamming the roads in Seoul, Singaporean Dominic Phua spent nearly an hour walking home after work.