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Hard Numbers: Bird flu spreads, Modi joins Truth Social, Trans-Niger Pipeline explodes, JFK files released, Majority of Americans oppose tariffs, Who thinks Trump is a dictator?

March 18, 2025
Tasha Kheiriddin
A bird flu warning sign and quarantine zone in Switzerland.
A bird flu warning sign and quarantine zone in Switzerland.
IMAGO/Bihlmayerfotografie via Reuters Connect

166 million: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is concerned over the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus to mammal species, including zoo animals, pets, and cattle, which is causing havoc in agriculture and increasing the likelihood it could jump to humans. The spread among birds has already caused the culling of at least 166 million chickens in the United States, sending egg prices soaring.

28,400: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modijoined Truth Social, the social media platform owned by US President Donald Trump. In his inaugural post on Monday, Modi shared a photo with Trump taken in 2019 in Houston, Texas, and as of Tuesday afternoon had 28,400 followers.

450,000: An explosion occurred Monday night on the Trans-Niger Pipeline in Rivers State's Bodo community, threatening over 450,000 barrels of daily crude oil production and causing a fire to rage through local mangrove groves. Two individuals have been arrested in connection with the incident, and an investigation is underway. The pipeline has been the subject of terror attacks before, but no such link has yet been established.

80,000: Conspiracy theorists, start your engines. President Donald Trump announced the release Tuesday of approximately 80,000 pages of unredacted documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. While White House Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields claimed that Americans “are truly going to be shocked,” historians do not expect significant new revelations.

38: The latest exclusive GZERO-Echelon poll shows that 54% of American voters oppose US President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, while 38% support them. Republicans favor them by a 47-point margin, but Independents and Democrats oppose them by margins of 30 and 76, respectively.

36: The same poll asked respondents which of a list of world leaders they would consider to be a dictator. North Korean President Kim Jong Un topped the list at 77%, followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin at 75%, and then by US President Donald Trump, at 36%.

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