Hard Numbers: Trump’s big birthday present, Sudan’s cash experiment, Iran's war on contraception, communal living in Russia

14 million: The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee on Sunday rang up their biggest single fundraising day ever, hauling in $14million – on the President's birthday.

9: As part of the debt-ridden Sudanese government's plan to reduce the need for costly government subsidies for food and fuel, officials are piloting a new program that will simply give cash payments of about $9 a month directly to its neediest citizens. The move comes as countries around the world look to reduce subsidies.

500,000: Nearly three decades after the collapse of the USSR, more than 500,000 people in St Petersburg, about a tenth of the city's population, still live in dilapidated "communal" apartments dating from the Soviet period. In these "komunalky,"up to 40 people share a single bathroom and kitchen, heightening the risk and fear of COVID-19 transmission.

1: Iran's government is limiting access to contraceptives and vasectomies at state run hospitals, in a bid to boost the country's population growth rate, which has fallen below 1 percent.

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Democratic Republic of the Congo's Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner and Rwanda's Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe on June 27, 2025.
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