Hard Numbers: Mpox hits the 6ix, Canadian rail strike looms, sexual assaults in the US military go undercounted, J&J looks to close out talcum powder suit, the problem with city birds

93: Cases of mpox — the viral infection formerly known as monkeypox — have surged in the Toronto area, with at least 93 cases at the end of July, a fourfold increase over the same period last year. Toronto health authorities say the virus, which spreads via close bodily contact, has been especially prevalent among gay and bisexual men. The WHO on Wednesday declared a global health emergency after a new mpox strain surged in Africa. The symptoms tend to be mild, but the disease can be deadly, especially for children. A vaccine exists but is in short supply.

---

2: The two largest Canadian rail companies are threateningto lock out their employees as soon as Aug. 22 amid stalled labor talks with the Teamsters union. Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National Railway are at loggerheads with the union over a new contract, with the Teamsters demanding more rail safety guarantees. Last week a federal mediator was brought in to speed up the talks.

6.48 billion: American pharma giant Johnson & Johnson is preparing to show it has widespread support for a proposed $6.48 billion bankruptcy settlement with claimants who say its talcum powder products gave them cancer. Tens of thousands of claimants were given until late July to vote on the proposal, and a 75% threshold is required for approval. J&J is attempting to offload the liability onto a newly created subsidiary in a maneuver that has already been rejected twice by federal judges.

1/4: Nearly one quarter of active-duty women in the US military experienced sexual assault between 2001 and 2021, according to a new study by Brown University’s Costs of War Project. Black women and LGBTQ service members were disproportionately likely to be victims, said the report, which also estimated that the number of sexual assault cases in the military in 2021 and 2023 was likely twice as high as Pentagon estimates, reaching more than 70,000 in each of those years.

3: You may remember the children’s story about “country mouse and city mouse,” but now there’s “country bird and city bird” — and in this tale, the urban fowl are particularly foul. A new global study says city-dwelling birds — ducks, crows, gulls, and geese, in particular — are three times more likely than their country cousins to host antibiotic-resistant strains of disease. “Anti-microbial resistance,” as it’s known, is a major concern for epidemiologists, especially given the increased transmission of disease from animals to humans.