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India is expected to surpass China in population next year

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India is expected to surpass China in population next year

India is expected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2023, according to a new report from the United Nations looking at population trends, according to axios.com

India, despite democratic backsliding in recent years, is the world’s largest democracy and viewed by the West as a key counterweight to China’s influence in the region, per Axios’ Zachary Basu.

U.S. administrations have prioritized strengthening economic and strategic ties with India as U.S.-China competition has accelerated and become a defining dynamic of the 21st century.

The world’s population will reach 8 billion by Nov. 15, and 9.7 billion in 2050, but the global population is growing at its slowest pace since 1950 due to decreasing fertility rates in many countries. Increasing rates of emigration are also slowing growth in certain parts of the globe.

The populations of 61 countries are expected to drop by 1% due to low levels of fertility. Around two-thirds of the global population lives where fertility is below 2.1 births per woman, which is around the level required for zero growth for a population with low mortality rates.

Migration will be the sole driver of population growth in high-income countries while birth rates will be the primary driver in low and middle-income countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic also had an impact on overall population growth, bringing global life expectancy from 72.9 in 2019 to 71 in 2021 (but improvements in medication and health could bring life expectancy to 77.2 years in 2050), according to the report.

The 8 billion milestone is a “reminder of our shared responsibility to care for our planet and a moment to reflect on where we still fall short of our commitments to one another,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement coinciding with the report’s release.

“In the world we strive to build, 8 billion people means 8 billion opportunities to live dignified and fulfilled lives.”

There will be massive shifts in where and how countries’ populations grow or decline, the report found.

Most of the population growth projected up to 2050 will be concentrated in eight countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.

Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia and Ukraine will see the largest relative reductions in population size over the same time period, with losses of 20% or more.

Crowds attended the final farewell to late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

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Crowds attended the final farewell to late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Family and close friends attended the funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Tuesday, with crowds gathering on the streets of the capital to pay their last respects, four days after the shock of his assassination reverberated across the world.

The private funeral was hosted at the centuries-old Zojoji Temple by Abe’s widow, Akie Abe. Well-wishers queued outside, bringing flowers, notes and green tea — symbols of help in the afterlife — to pay their respects to Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.

Naomi Aoki, a supporter of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, on Tuesday waited outside the Parliament building, hoping for a chance to say farewell.

“For me, he was the most respected politician in Japan. I want to say the last farewell and I was off work today. He has made a great impact on my life,” Aoki said.

“I don’t think his death will be for nothing. People all over the world will feel the impact of what he achieved in his life.”

Following the service, a hearse carrying the former leader’s body traveled from the temple to the Kirigaya Funeral Hall for cremation, passing significant buildings including the Prime Minister’s office and the Parliament building.

Large crowds lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the hearse. Many waved and raised their arms in the air as the vehicle drove past, while others bowed their heads in respect.

Akie Abe traveled in the front seat of the hearse, bowing to the crowd as they paid their respects. She carried an ancestral tablet, a symbol of transition to the afterlife.

Millions around the world have reacted with shock and anguish at how Abe was gunned down in broad daylight during a campaign speech in the central city of Nara on Friday.

According to CNN, police are investigating the shooting. The suspect, 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, was arrested at the scene but has not been formally charged.

The brutal nature of Abe’s death has left millions reeling across Japan, a country with one of the lowest gun violence rates in the world.

Abe was “the nation brand face of Japan,” Nancy Snow, a former Abe Fellow and Fulbright Scholar in Japan, told CNN.

“When I found out about his mortal injury and subsequent demise, my heart sank,” she said. “For someone in international relations, even though I can be critical of some of his policies, you have to appreciate so much of what he did to put Japan back up on the world stage.”

Major changes are taking shape in Atlanta for the 2026 FIFA World Cup

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Major changes are taking shape in Atlanta for the 2026 FIFA World Cup

 Major changes are already taking shape in downtown Atlanta in preparation for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, reported by WSB-TV.

Atlanta will be part of the World Cup central region along with other major cities, but we may be the only ones with a new downtown to show off.

When world soccer arrives, some 1,300 people will be living in new apartments, and soccer fans will be able to enjoy food and drinks in new hotels and bars currently under construction outside Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

In four years, half of what is currently known as The Gulch will be developed into restaurants, bars and apartments.

Brian McGowan, president and CEO of Centennial Yards, said in 2026, thousands of people will be living downtown, and World Cup fans will have plenty to do when the project transforms into a tourist destination.

“We’ll have a world-class entertainment district in the heart-and-soul core of the property,” McGowan said. “This is bigger than a Super Bowl. Thirty days of events, and there will be people from all over the world.”

Hotels, apartments and an entertainment district are expected to be finished next decade — some in time for when the World Cup comes to Atlanta.

“By the end of the year, we’ll break ground on three new buildings,” McGowan said.

McGowan told Channel 2′s Dave Huddleston that the project will make downtown a destination for tourists and locals.

“The Gulch, we all know, is … in the heart of the city, of downtown,” McGowan said. “This is going to be a place you’re going to want to take your family and friends when you want to show them Atlanta.”

A new brewery opens soon, a new coffee shop opens this fall, and some new apartments are already being rented. With a 2026 deadline, McGowan said the World Cup coming to Atlanta kicks everything up a notch.

“It provides a deadline, not only for us, but the Georgia World Congress Center, MARTA and everybody else,” McGowan said, adding that he wants to “make sure we’re ready to show ourselves to the world.”

More than 48 soccer teams will play in Mexico, the United States and Canada.

14 states offers stimulus checks as inflation continues to rise

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14 states offers stimulus checks as inflation continues to rise

 14 states are offering stimulus payments as an answer to high gas prices and soaring inflation. But some economists warn that stimulus payments in 2020 are what led to current rising costs.

$5 trillion was released into the economy during the height of the pandemic. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco says stimulus payments added 3% to the U.S. inflation rate by the end of 2021.

23 million California residents will receive inflation relief as high as $1,050. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill authorizing a one-time $250 tax rebate for single taxpayers and $500 for joint taxpayers. Other states such as Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois and Indiana have all filed suit in issuing tax rebates or stimulus checks. But where is the money coming from?

“I think many of the state governments pulled in the reins in 2020 in the face of COVID. And in 2021 there was a considerable rebound in many of the economies and that’s resulted in the income tax revenues from corporations as well as individuals being higher than was projected in 2021 in many cases,” said John Quelch, dean of the Miami Herbert Business School at the University of Miami. “They are, in some respects, spending the surplus that they didn’t anticipate coming in from last year’s tax revenues.”

Quelch says these new smaller payments could drive inflation even higher if “they’re spent immediately by the recipients.”

The Biden administration has previously been in favor of direct stimulus checks, but Quelch says a fourth federal stimulus package for all Americans is “very unlikely.”

“If the Biden administration has not even been able to get agreement on the federal gas tax reduction, it’s very unlikely that any stimulus of this type would be executable at the federal level,” said Quelch.

Uvalde school’s classrooms lacked a basic security feature

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Uvalde school’s classrooms lacked a basic security feature

The moment she heard the first pops of gunfire, the teacher knew what she had to do: She needed to make sure that her classroom door was locked. 

But at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that seemingly simple task would require her to take a life-threatening risk.

As most of her students crawled under their desks to take cover, she made eye contact with one child she had always given the same job during their lockdown drills, the teacher recalled in an interview. Without speaking, the student followed her to the classroom door. 

“Do you remember what we do?” the teacher asked the boy, trying to keep her voice calm.

The boy, with tears in his eyes, nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Then the teacher pulled the door open. Took a deep breath. And stepped into the hall, praying that the shooter wouldn’t see her.

The Robb Elementary teacher and her colleagues had been instructed to keep their classroom doors closed and locked at all times, using keys that they were required to carry with them, she said. But that system created frequent opportunities for mistakes: Each time she and her class returned from lunch or from the bathroom, she said, she had to use her key to unlock the door handle — and hope that she remembered to relock it again before going back inside.

Once she was inside, the teacher said, there was no way to confirm whether the exterior handle was locked.

To remove any doubt, she came up with a system for the lockdown drills. Anytime an alarm sounded, she would step into the hall and pull the classroom door shut, then test the exterior handle to make sure it was locked and latching correctly. The student she had deputized to follow her to the door would then let her back inside.

But this time it wasn’t a drill, and she was terrified. 

After exiting her class, the teacher quickly pulled the door shut and wiggled the exterior handle, confirming it was locked. As she waited for her student to let her back inside, she recalled hearing more gunshots — and footsteps. 

“I was in the hallway with him,” she said of the gunman.

Then, her student pulled the door open, just as they’d practiced. She darted back into the classroom, pushed the door closed and they joined the other students hiding on the floor. 

Moments later, the gunman entered a classroom across the hall — just steps away from where she’d been standing — and opened fire.

Moving toward gunfire was the only way she could be certain that her students were safe, the teacher said. That’s because Robb Elementary is among thousands of schools across the country lacking a basic safety feature that experts have recommended for decades: classroom doors that lock from the inside.

Despite billions of dollars that have been poured into hardening schools nationally, 1 in 4 U.S. public schools lack classroom doors that can be locked from the inside, according to a survey conducted two years ago by the National Center on Education Statistics, a federal research office.

The safety feature is missing in much of Texas: 36% of the state’s schools said they did not have interior-locking doors in the majority of their classrooms, according to a 2018 survey commissioned by Gov. Greg Abbott. Outdated locks are especially common in older school buildings that haven’t been renovated, industry representatives said.

Built in the 1960s, Robb Elementary had classroom doors that could only be locked and unlocked from the outside, according to state authorities and the teacher. She spoke to NBC News on the condition that she not be named, because she is not ready to talk publicly about her experiences on May 24, when a gunman opened fire inside a pair of conjoined classrooms, killing 19 children and two teachers.

Doors that can be quickly and easily locked can mean the difference between life and death when a shooter is on school grounds. That’s why post-shooting safety commissions, teachers, fire safety groups and both gun rights and gun control groups have all advocated for interior-locking doors since the Columbine shooting in 1999, in which two students killed 12 classmates and one teacher. 

No state requires all schools to install interior locks, though some recommend it, and a wave of school security grants often follows shootings. But even when they have new funds available, schools have struggled to decide what to prioritize.

“School districts and administrators get overwhelmed with numbers of options and solutions,” said Cedric Calhoun, chief executive officer of DHI, an industry group for door security professionals. “A lot of times they can overlook the simplicity of a door lock.”

Jill Biden criticized after saying Latinos as unique as ‘breakfast tacos’

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Jill Biden criticized after saying Latinos as unique as ‘breakfast tacos’

A Hispanic journalist group rebuked first lady Jill Biden after she said Latinos were as unique as “breakfast tacos” during a speech in San Antonio on Monday, reported by NYPOST.

Biden was praising civil rights icon Raul Yzaguirre during the annual conference of UnidosUS when she made the bizarre compliment.

Yzaguirre led the advocacy organization, which used to be known as the National Council of La Raza, for three decades.

“Raul helped build this organization with the understanding that the diversity of this community — as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio — is your strength,” Biden said.

When addressing the Bronx bodegas, though, she mispronounced the convenience stores and said “bogedas.”

San Antonio has a population of about 1.5 million people that is 65% Hispanic or Latino, according to US Census data.

Conservatives also criticized Biden and wondered what liberal outrage would ensue if a Republican made those comments.

“No wonder Hispanics are fleeing the Democratic Party!” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) tweeted.

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists panned the remarks, stating, “We are not tacos.”

“Using breakfast tacos to try to demonstrate the uniqueness of Latinos in San Antonio demonstrates a lack of cultural knowledge and sensitivity to the diversity of Latinos in the region,” the association wrote.

“NAHJ encourages Dr. Biden and her speech writing team to take the time in the future to better understand the complexities of our people and communities. We are not tacos.

“Our heritage as Latinos is shaped by a variety of diasporas, cultures and food traditions, and should not be reduced to a stereotype.”

Twitter hires law firm to sue Elon Musk

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Twitter hires law firm to sue Elon Musk

Twitter has hired an elite law firm to handle its forthcoming lawsuit against Elon Musk, which could be filed any day now.

After Musk pulled out of his deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion on Friday, Twitter Board Chairman Bret Taylor said the company will sue Musk to enforce the merger contract and force him to complete “the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon.” Twitter then hired the “merger law heavyweight” Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to work on a lawsuit it expects to file early this week in the Delaware Court of Chancery, Bloomberg reported.

The New York Times wrote, “Most legal experts say Twitter has the upper hand, in part because Mr. Musk attached few strings to his agreement to buy the company, and the company is determined to force the deal through.” The Times quoted Stanford University Professor David Larcker as saying, “The outcomes are: The court says Musk can walk away. Another outcome is that he is forced to go through with the deal, and the court can enforce this. Or there might be some middle ground where there’s a price renegotiation.”

Another NYT story points out previous cases in which judges ruled that companies had to complete merger agreements but noted that “judges have more frequently ordered damages rather than force a company or individual to buy a company it no longer wants.”

Twitter’s board is also in a tough position, as settling with Musk for a lower amount brings the risk of Twitter shareholders filing a lawsuit, Lipton told CNBC. One shareholder lawsuit was already filed against Twitter and Musk in May; the lawsuit alleged that Musk manipulated the market to drive down Twitter’s value.

“Wachtell Lipton has perhaps the leading litigation practice in Delaware, where the majority of US public companies are incorporated,” the Financial Times wrote. “It defends companies in lawsuits over breach of fiduciary duty and broken merger agreements in the state.”

The Wachtell firm gives Twitter “access to lawyers including Bill Savitt and Leo Strine, who served as Chancellor of the Delaware Chancery Court,” Bloomberg wrote. Wachtell has previously represented Musk and Tesla in other matters.

To defend against Twitter’s lawsuit, Musk has hired Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. “The firm led his successful defense against a defamation claim in 2019 and is representing him as part of an ongoing shareholder lawsuit over his failed attempt to take Tesla private in 2018,” Bloomberg wrote.

Twitter’s stock continued its decline, with a drop of over 8 percent in today’s trading so far. The stock price was less than $34 as of this writing, while Musk agreed to buy the company for $54.20 per share.

The Twitter/Musk deal includes a $1 billion breakup fee that applies in some circumstances, but Twitter can try for more than that. As we’ve written, the merger deal says that if Twitter meets its obligations under the agreement, it “shall be entitled to specific performance or other equitable remedy” to “cause the Equity Investor [Musk] to fund the Equity Financing, or to enforce the Equity Investor’s obligation to fund the Equity Financing directly, and to consummate the Closing.”

Despite Musk’s claims, legal experts say he faces a difficult task in defending against Twitter’s lawsuit. “Merger agreements are ‘very hard to get out of,’ and so far, Musk appears to have provided insufficient evidence backing up his claims that Twitter lied about its spam figures, [Tulane Law School Professor Ann] Lipton said,” according to CNBC.

Japan’s ruling coalition increased its majority in an election showing after Abe killing

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Japan’s ruling coalition increased its majority in an election showing after Abe killing

Japan’s conservative coalition government increased its majority in the upper house of parliament in an election on Sunday, two days after the assassination of dominant politician and power broker Shinzo Abe, reported by Reuters.

Abe, Japan’s longest-serving modern leader, was gunned down on Friday during a campaign speech in the western city of Nara in a killing that stunned a country where political violence and gun crime are rare.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), of which Abe remained an influential lawmaker, and its junior partner Komeito won 76 of the 125 seats contested in the chamber, from 69 previously, according to an exit poll by public broadcaster NHK.

People close to Kishida have said his team also wants to gradually phase out “Abenomics”, Japan’s signature economic policy of government spending and monetary stimulus named after the ex-premier who started the experiment nearly a decade ago.

Kishida may now have the political capital to change course, analysts said, and is also likely to have three years to drive through legislation before another election needs to be held.

“Kishida may have more leeway in pursuing policies based on his ideas, though lawmakers who were close to Abe could rally and more vocally call for sustaining Abenomics,” said Koya Miyamae, senior economist at SMBC Nikko Securities.

The LDP won 63 seats, up from 55, to win a majority of the contested seats, but not enough to take a single majority overall.

Elections for parliament’s less powerful upper house are typically a referendum on the sitting government. Change of government was not at stake, as that is determined by the lower house.

But the strong showing could help Kishida consolidate his rule as he looks to steer Japan’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, keep a lid on rising consumer prices, and bolster defence at a time of tension with its powerful neighbour China.

Final results are due on Monday afternoon.

“It’s significant we were able to pull this election together at a time violence was shaking the foundations of the election,” Kishida, an Abe protege, said after the exit poll.

“Right now, as we face issues including the coronavirus, Ukraine, and inflation, solidarity within the government and coalition parties is vital,” he added.

The party held a moment of silence for Abe at its Tokyo headquarters as members waited for results to come in.

The gains may allow Kishida to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution, a dream Abe never achieved.

Parties open to revising the constitution maintained their two-thirds majority in the upper house.

Kishida may move cautiously on constitutional change, but the apparent victory looked set to pave the way for more defence spending, a key LDP election promise, said Robert Ward of the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

Kishida “now has a green light for this”, Ward said.

Asked about constitutional revision on Sunday evening, Kishida said he would focus on putting together a bill to be discussed in parliament.

US vehicle auto watchdog investigating Tesla crash that killed 2 in Florida

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US vehicle auto watchdog investigating Tesla crash that killed 2 in Florida

The US federal vehicle auto watchdog dispatched investigators to probe yet another Tesla crash — this time one along Interstate 75 in Florida that killed two people last week.

A Special Crash Investigations team was sent to probe the fatal collission Wednesday, where a 2015 model year Tesla hit the back of a semi-trailer at a rest area near Gainesville, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday.

The agency would not divulge if the Tesla was using the company’s partially automated driving technology.

The vehicle was traveling on Interstate 75 about 2 p.m. Wednesday when, for an unknown reason, it careened into a rest area.

It then traveled into the parking lot and struck the back of a parked Walmart Freightliner tractor-trailer, according to a Florida Highway Patrol press release. The car rear-ended the tractor-trailer, a CBS affiliate reported.

The agency also said in documents that it’s investigating a fatal pedestrian crash earlier in July in California that involved a Tesla Model 3. It also sent a team to probe a Cruise automated vehicle crash in California that caused a minor injury in June.

NHTSA also has been investigating Teslas on Autopilot crashing into parked emergency vehicles. In a separate probe, the agency is looking at Teslas on Autopilot braking for no apparent reason.

Last week, new NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff told The Associated Press that the agency is escalating efforts aimed at understanding the risks posed by automated vehicle technology so it can determine what rules may be necessary to protect drivers, passengers and pedestrians.

Highway Patrol Lt. P.V. Riordan said Friday in an email that his agency will determine whether any partially automated features were in use.

“That is a consideration that will be explored during our investigation,” he said.

NHTSA is probing 37 crashes involving automated driving systems since 2016. Of the incidents, 30 involved Teslas, including 11 fatal crashes that have killed 15.

Who is Tetsuya Yamagami?

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Who is Tetsuya Yamagami?

Police in Japan have launched a murder investigation into the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe — but little is known about the suspect who was arrested at the scene of the fatal shooting on Friday.

Abe, 67, was pronounced dead by doctors at the Nara Medical University Hospital, at 5:03 p.m local time on Friday, just over five hours after being shot while delivering a campaign speech in front of a small crowd on a street.

Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, has admitted to shooting Abe, Nara Nishi police said during a news conference on Friday.

An unnamed employee at the dispatch agency who interviewed Yamagami for the job described him as “totally normal,” but added that he “didn’t say much” and “had a slightly gloomy sense to him,” according to the Kyodo News Agency.

He was taken to the Nara District Prosecutor’s Office on Sunday morning, and is being investigated as a “suspect for murder,” according to police.

Yamagami, who is unemployed, told investigators he holds hatred toward a certain group that he thought Abe was linked to, Nara Nishi police said.

Japan’s public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News Agency have reported that Yamagami also said his mother was involved with the group, citing police.

Police have not named the group, telling CNN they could not provide any information.

According to CNN, Yamagami was described as a “totally normal” and seemingly “earnest” person by at least two people who had interacted with him, Kyodo News also reported.

He was hired through a dispatch agency in October 2020 to work at the freight department of a factory in Kyoto prefecture, the agency reported, citing an unnamed “former senior colleague”.

The former colleague characterized Yamagami as someone who kept to himself.

“If it was work talk, he would respond, but he didn’t go into his private life. He seemed mild-mannered,” the former colleague said, according to Kyodo News. The former colleague added that Yamagami would “eat lunch alone in his car” and that “conversations with him never strayed beyond the topic at hand.”

The former colleague said there had been no issues with Yamagami for the first six months of his employment, until he started to exhibit “gradual neglect” of work practices, according to Kyodo News Agency.

In March, Yamagami started taking “unauthorized time off” and spoke of “heart issues” and other physical problems, despite having no previous issues with punctuality or attendance. His employment ended on May 15, the agency reported.

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