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Hard Numbers: Deadly shelling, drug kingpin's jail security, Lai sighting, Sweden soccer semi, twin takeover

August 13, 2023
Tasha Kheiriddin
​A woman outside the damaged house of her son, who was killed the day before by shelling in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine.
A woman outside the damaged house of her son, who was killed the day before by shelling in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine.
REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

7: Shelling in the southern Ukrainian province of Kherson Ukraine on Sunday killed seven people, including a 23-day-old baby girl. The attack followed denials by Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar that Ukrainian forces had engaged in Russian-occupied territory in the region.


4,000: The Ecuadorian government dispatched 4,000 military and police personnel to the Zonal 8 Detention Center in Guayas province, to “establish control over weapons, ammunition and explosives within the prison.” The jail is home to José Adolfo Macías Villamar, the drug trafficker who murdered presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio claimed had threatened him prior to his assassination. President Guillermo Lasso this weekend said Macías was relocated to La Roca maximum security prison in the same penitentiary complex.

23: Photos have surfaced of former Hong Kong newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, the first taken since 2021. They show Lai accompanied by two guards at the maximum security Stanley Prison in Hong Kong, where the pro-democracy activist is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day. Lai was sentenced to more than five years in prison for fraud in 2022, but he is awaiting trial on charges of endangering national security, which could lead to a life sentence.

4: Sweden’s women’s soccer team has advanced to the World Cup semi-final — its fourth big semi in four years. They reached the semi-finals of the 2019 World Cup, the 2020 Olympics, and Euro 2022, but they have yet to take home the crown. To make it to the finals this time, Sweden's women must beat Spain on Tuesday.

17: Must be something in the water. Primary schools in the Scottish town of Inverclyde, population 76,700, are preparing to welcome 17 sets of twins this fall. “Twinverclyde,” as the town has become known, has welcomed 147 sets of twins to its primary schools since 2013, an average of 13 sets a year.

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