Hard Numbers: Most US abortion amendments pass, Butter bandits strike again, Trump’s victory spooks Canadian exporters, Trump gambles pay off

​Campaign signs posted outside the early voting site at The Center of Deltona in favor of and opposed to Amendment 4 on the Florida ballot. The amendment failed in the Sunshine State.
Campaign signs posted outside the early voting site at The Center of Deltona in favor of and opposed to Amendment 4 on the Florida ballot. The amendment failed in the Sunshine State.
USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
7: Amendments to protect abortion rights passed in seven US states on Tuesday, and failed in three. The seven that enshrined the rights in their constitutions included three that went for Trump (Arizona, Missouri, and Montana) and two that went for Harris (Colorado and Maryland). Abortion protections were struck down in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota, all red bastions.

1,200: Smooth like butter, these criminals were. Police in Ontario are looking for two men who made off with $1,200 worth of the stuff from a grocery store in Brantford. As it happens, more than half a dozen butter capers have occurred over the past year, leading authorities to suspect that the conspiracy could be more widely spread than they initially suspected.

1.77:Donald Trump’s victory gave a boost to most stock markets around the world, as investors expect more market-friendly policy from the world’s largest economy. But one big exception was the stocks of Canadian natural resources producers that saw their market caps dip by 1.77% over the course of the day, owing to fears that the tariffs that Trump has promised could hurt the country’s exports.

450 million: A lot of people gambled on a Trump win this year, many of them literally. Online gambling sites now have about $450 million worth of payouts for people who placed actual wagers on his ability to come back to the White House. A single investor in Paris, known as the “Polymarket whale” placed at least $40 million on Trump, and now stands to take a payout double that amount.

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German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz speaks to the media after he reached an agreement with the Greens on a massive increase in state borrowing just days ahead of a parliamentary vote next week, in Berlin, Germany, on March 14, 2025.
REUTERS/Axel Schmidt

Germany’s election-winning center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, led by Friedrich Merz, and the Social Democrats have reached a preliminary agreement with the Green Party on a deal to exclude defense spending from the country’s constitutional debt break and establish a dedicated $545 billion fund for infrastructure investments.

A Russian army soldier walks along a ruined street of Malaya Loknya settlement, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, on March 13, 2025.

Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

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Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of the media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University on June 1, 2024.

REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

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The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus.
(Photo by Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto)

An Israeli airstrike destroyed a residential building on the outskirts of Damascus on Thursday in the latest Israeli incursion into post-Assad Syria.

Lars Klingbeil (l), Chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, and Friedrich Merz, CDU Chairman and Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, talk at the end of the 213th plenary session of the 20th legislative period in the German Bundestag.

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EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a Republican, speaks as the U.S. vice president visits East Palestine, Ohio, U.S., February 3, 2025.
Rebecca Droke/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

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