Statista

According to NASA, there is “unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate”. Data from Copernicus, the European Earth Observation program for the European Space Agency, shows that July 22, 2024, was the world’s hottest daily global average temperature since the institution’s records began in 1940 (hitting a global average of 17.16 °C/62.76 °F).

At a regional scale too, absolute temperature records are being broken around the globe. Just in the years 2022-2025, 41 countries broke or tied their all-time national heat records, some of them more than once. Japan saw its hottest day on record last August, reaching 41.8°C/107.2°F in Isesaki, in the Gunma Prefecture. Eight other countries tied or beat their heat records last year, including Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Paraguay. Some records were also set in Southeast Asia in 2024, when an exceptional heatwave hit the region. Cambodia set a new record at 42.8 °C/109.0 °F, while Laos hit a new all-time high of 43.7 °C/110.7 °F.

Meanwhile, Australia and Uruguay matched their national records in 2022, with 50.7 °C/123.3 °F in Onslow and 44.0°C/111.2 °F in Florida, respectively, as the United Kingdom saw the mercury break an all-time high in July 2022 as it passed the 40°C barrier.

Previously, during the summer of 2021 - one of the hottest on Earth -, Canada, Spain and Italy recorded peak temperatures. The Italian record, 48.8 °C/119.8 °F at Syracuse, was reported to be the highest temperature ever measured in Europe, which was certified by the WMO in 2024.

In Antarctica, a new record was hit in 2020 at the Esperanza base during the austral summer when temperatures rose to over 18 °C/64.9 °F. One year earlier, the French national record of 46 °C/114.8 °F was measured at Vérargues (Hérault), while the 2019 heatwave also saw other records broken in Europe, such as in Belgium and Germany.

According to the WMO, the world record is still officially attributed to Furnace Creek, in California’s Death Valley National Park, with 56.7 °C/134 °F reached in 1913.

While warm weather conjures up thoughts of holidays, the beach and barbecues, it can prove extremely dangerous. People running errands should never leave their children or pets in a car in sunny weather, even for a few minutes, the National Safety Council advises. If it's 85° Fahrenheit (29.5° Celsius) outside, the temperature inside a vehicle can soar to more than 100° F (almost 38° C) in little more than 10 minutes, even if the windows are kept slightly open. A child's body heats up faster than an adult's, adding to the danger. The lethality of warm cars can be seen from heartbreaking data published on Notheatstroke.org, which is maintained by lecturer Jan Hull at the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San Jose State University.

It shows that across the United States, more than two dozen children still die every year after being left in a hot car. Five have already died in 2026 as of May 21. That's alarming considering that most parts of the country still have to experience their warmest months of the year. Last year, 32 children died from heatstroke after being left in warm vehicles while in 2018 and 2019, the number of deaths was 53 each. However, looking at data since 2008, there is no clear downward trend visible in five-year averages.

Hull's data also shows that these deaths are not exclusive to America's hottest states, but have also happened in places like Maine, North Dakota or Montana. Likewise, a small number of car heatstroke deaths in children also happen in winter, showing that parents and other caregivers need to remain vigilant at all times.

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Over half (53 percent) of South Koreans do not take sick leave. At least, that's what the results of a survey of adults aged 18 to 64 carried out by Statista as part of its Consumer Insights show. This contrasts with another Asian country, China, where less than a third of respondents (29 percent) said they had not taken sick leave in the year before they were surveyed. In South Korea, however, employers are not obliged to grant their employees time off for non-work-related illnesses or injuries.

At the other end of the scale, Australian respondents mirrored a different sick day culture, with only 13 percent reporting an absence-free 12 months. It's a similar, if less pronounced, story in Finland, Germany, Swede, the UK and the U.S., where between 19 and 25 percent of respondents reported the same. In contrast to their European neighbors, almost four in ten people in France and Spain didn't take sick leave.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set his sights on making India one of the world’s top three AI superpowers by 2047, both in consumption and innovation. To reach that goal, the country is aiming to attract more than $200 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure investments over the next two years.

As it stands, India is lagging behind leaders such as the United States and China in core AI infrastructure, private investment, granted AI patents and foundational language models. However, it is seeking to close the gap. Earlier this month, Tata Electronics signed an agreement with Dutch semiconductor equipment maker Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography (ASML) to build India’s first front-end semiconductor fabrication plant, marking part of a broader push to establish a domestic chip industry currently dominated by regional players such as Taiwan.

One of India’s biggest strengths is its growing AI talent pool and rapid adoption of AI technologies. A LinkedIn study cited in Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index report found India recorded the world’s second-fastest AI talent growth among LinkedIn users between 2019 and 2025, rising 120 percent, behind only the United Arab Emirates. India also ranked first globally in AI skill pe*******on on LinkedIn, with AI-related skills appearing on member profiles nearly three times more often than the global average. The United States ranked second, followed by Germany.

Big cities like Hong Kong or Los Angeles are well-known for their expensive real estate markets. But there are also plenty of housing markets you wouldn’t necessarily expect among the least affordable – including several in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

According to a 2026 ranking by Forbes, Hong Kong remains the world’s least affordable housing market, with median home prices still more than 16 times higher than median pre-tax household incomes, based on the dominant housing type in each market. It is followed by Sydney (13.8) and Vancouver (11.8), while several U.S. cities, including San Jose (11.4), Los Angeles (10.9) and Honolulu (10.5), also rank among the least affordable. The first European market in the ranking is London, with a price-to-income ratio of 8.1. Overall, the list highlights the continued dominance of major cities in Australia, Canada and the United States.

While affordability ratios have eased slightly in some markets in recent years, the broader trend remains unchanged. Across most major urban areas, ratios still hover well above historic norms, often in the 8-to-14 range, meaning housing costs continue to outpace incomes by a wide margin and keep homeownership out of reach for large parts of the population.

Global internet traffic has surged in recent years, more than doubling between 2020 and 2025 as digital services, streaming and cloud computing continue to expand worldwide. According to data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), total traffic volumes have increased sharply across both fixed (landline) and mobile networks.

As our chart shows, landline traffic remains by far the dominant channel, rising from around 3,100 exabytes in 2020 to 7,300 exabytes in 2025. Mobile data usage has also grown rapidly, climbing from about 560 to 1,500 exabytes over the same period. In both cases, Asia-Pacific accounts for the largest share, at 50 to 60 percent, with traffic more than doubling across fixed networks and reaching over 900 exabytes on mobile alone.

Other regions have followed a similar upward trajectory, albeit at lower levels. The Americas and Europe remain the second- and third-largest markets, while regions such as Africa and the Arab States have recorded particularly strong relative growth, reflecting rising connectivity and smartphone adoption.

Overall, the data highlights the accelerating scale of global data consumption, with fixed networks continuing to carry the bulk of traffic even as mobile usage expands rapidly. With one exabyte equivalent to one billion gigabytes, which is roughly equivalent to the storage capacity of about 8 million 128GB smartphones, the figures underscore the massive and growing infrastructure demands of the digital economy.

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Amnesty International has published its annual Death Sentences and Executions report for the year 2025, with data showing a sharp increase in the number of executions carried out. At least 2,707 people are known to have been put to death by the state last year, up 78 percent compared to 2024. As our infographic shows, the death penalty continues to be quite widespread in Asia, with China, India, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia, among others, employing it. The use of capital punishment is very rare in Europe: it only exists in Belarus, and Amnesty International notes that 2025 was the first year it recorded neither new death sentences nor executions since President Alexander Lukashenko assumed office in 1994. While Russia technically also retains the death penalty in its law, the country is considered abolitionist in practice, meaning no executions have been carried out in at least ten years,

In the Americas, the death penalty is also mostly a thing of the past, with the notable exceptions of Guyana, Cuba and the United States. Last year, the U.S. executed 47 people across 11 states, almost twice as many as in 2024 (25 executions). Florida alone accounted for almost half of these executions (19). Capital punishment is still more common in Africa and the West Asia. In 2025, Iran executed at least 2,159 people, more than double its 2024 figure and the highest number on record since 1981, and the Islamic republic has been consistently using the death penalty as a tool of political repression.