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Hard Numbers: Kremlin hits Google with zeroes, Chileans demand tighter borders, Americans suffer election anxiety, Flash flooding wreaks havoc in Spain, Mount Fuji is missing something
20 decillion: The Kremlin hit Google with a fine of $20 decillion on behalf of Russian broadcasters banned by the company’s subsidiary, YouTube. Russia says the $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 — more than a million trillion times larger than the size of the entire global economy but still nearly 70 zeroes smaller than a “googol” – is symbolic. There aren’t enough zeroes in the world to convey how minimal the chances are of Google paying the Kremlin a single cent.
96: How popular is the idea of tighter immigration restrictions in Chile? Some 96% of the country now favors reducing the influx of foreigners, according to a new poll. Chile, a relatively prosperous country that has long had a relatively lax border policy, saw its foreign-born population surge by 25% between 2018 and 2022, driven largely by the mass exodus from Venezuela. A backlash against migrants, partly shaped by the 2021 presidential election, has continued to grow.
70: Roughly 70% of Americans are feeling anxious or frustrated about the election, according to a new AP/NORC poll. If you are one of the afflicted, find someone among the 36% who report feeling “excited” about the upcoming vote. Who are these people?
158: At least 158 people have been killed by devastating flash floods in Spain's Valencia region, as rescuers continue to search for survivors. The fatal flooding, the worst such disaster for the country in a century, wreaked havoc — sweeping away entire homes and leaving cars piled in the streets.
130: Japan’s Mount Fuji is missing something right now: snow. The peak’s iconic snowcap usually begins forming in October, and never in 130 years of records has it gone without one this late in the month. The summer of 2024 was tied with 2023 for Japan’s hottest ever.A group of people thought to be migrants arrive in Dungeness, Kent, after being rescued in the Channel by the RNLI following following a small boat incident.
Hard Numbers: UK vote may scrap Rwanda plan, Orban visits Ukraine, India mulls marital rape, Bannon reports for prison, Beryl turns deadly, Fuji for a price
320 million: If, as widely expected, the Labour Party wins Thursday’s national elections in the UK and scraps the outgoing government’s controversial plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda, the British government will have spent more than £320 million that can’t be recovered. Labour has pledged instead to spend state funds to build a new Border Security Command that dismantles the people-smuggling gangs that help asylum-seekers cross the English Channel in small boats.
1: Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister and Europe’s most pro-Russian leader, made an unexpected visit to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. This marks Orbán’s first trip to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. The visit coincides with Hungary assuming the rotating EU presidency, which happened despite concerns from other European politicians over Hungary’s frequent clashes with Brussels. Discussions are expected to focus on peace possibilities and bilateral relations between Hungary and Ukraine.
36: India’s supreme court has promised to rule later this month on whether India’s much-anticipated new penal code will make it acrime for a man to rape his wife. For now, India is one of the world’s 36 countries that have not criminalized marital rape.
4: Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon reported to prison on Monday. He’ll now serve afour-month sentence for contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Bannon, who has called himself a “political prisoner,” remains influential with pro-Trump conservatives.
5: Hurricane Beryl, a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 165 mph, caused widespread destruction across the southeast Caribbean on Monday, killing at least two people. Beryl is the first Atlantic hurricane of the season.
12: Early Monday, Japan’s park rangers began a crackdown on the surge of visitors hoping to walk up the iconic Mount Fuji. Climbers will now have to pay 2,000 yen (about $12) to hit the trails, and the number of hikers will be limited to 4,000 a day to limit the overcrowding and litter that have drawn more complaints in recent years.