23: American athletes groups are protesting after 23 Chinese swimmers escaped international competition sanctions despite testing positive for a banned heart medication in 2021. The World Anti-Doping Agency has appointed an investigator but says it has no way to appeal the Chinese authorities’ ruling that the specimens were, in fact, mishandled. US athletes say the WADA investigator is compromised and have called for a “truly independent” probe. The 2024 Summer Games begin in late July.
11: The G7 group of wealthy democracies has given itself 11 years to all but stop using coal in their energy systems. A carveout will still exist where emissions are captured. The G7 – which includes Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US – accounts for about a fifth of global emissions, but it does not include China and India, the world’s top two coal polluters.
1 million: Who among us has not, at one time or another, misplaced one million bullets, thousands of grenades, and even a few missiles? No one? Fine, then none of you are from the Colombian military, whose latest inventory shows that all of this kit has gone missing. President Gustavo Petro has blamed corruption for the missing munitions and has ordered a massive crackdown on graft in the armed forces. Expect that to go spicily, as Petro — a former guerilla – has few admirers in an army that fought Marxist rebels for decades.
40 million: Mother Nature is many things to many people — but to Spotify, she is now, officially, an artist. Since mid-April, the music streamer has created playlists of songs that feature nature sounds (rain, thunder, bird chirps, etc), and has been setting royalties for “Nature” that go into an environmental conservation fund started by electronic music icon Brian Eno. The project is projected to raise more than $40 million in the next four years. Nature already has more than 2.6 million monthly listeners, and you can be one of them here.
It's been a busy year for SCOTUS, and some major Court rulings are still looming. Yale legal scholar Emily Bazelon previews the cases that could reshape presidential power.
South Korea's President Lee Jae-myung's Democratic Party is poised to win 11 of 16 municipal races, a reversal from four years ago when the now-disgraced PPP dominated. But Lee’s surging popularity has foreign policy ramifications.
As America approaches its 250th anniversary, Bank of America is investing in the legacy of leadership — committing $5M to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and conserving 110 presidential portraits at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, so the history of leaders who defined our nation is preserved for generations to come. Learn more here.
Chris, an Army veteran, started his Walmart journey over 25 years ago as an hourly associate. Today, he manages a Distribution Center and serves as a mentor, helping others navigate their own paths to success. At Walmart, associates have the opportunity to take advantage of the pathways, perks, and pay that come with the job — with or without a college degree. In fact, more than 75% of Walmart management started as hourly associates. Learn more about how over 130,000 associates were promoted into roles of greater responsibility and higher pay in FY25.