Statista

The UK’s Labour Party has won the 2024 general election, pushing out the Conservatives after 14 years of rule. The Labour party, headed by Sir Keir Starmer, won 412 parliamentary seats across the UK, securing a landslide majority well over the 326 seats mark, and seeing a gain of 211 seats since the last general election in 2019. Counting was still ongoing at the time of writing, with two seats yet to be accounted for. As the following chart based on BBC reporting shows, the Conservatives, or Tories as they are commonly known, trailed some way behind, having lost 250 seats since the last parliamentary election - the Tory party’s worst ever. Notable MPs to have lost their positions include Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Penny Mordaunt. It’s brighter news for the Greens though, who secured four seats in parliament, up from just one seat in the House of Commons in the 2019 election. This puts them on par with the newly established far-right Reform UK, headed by Brexiteer Nigel Farage, the MP candidate for Clacton. Farage, who is a Member of the European Parliament, has now entered the House of Commons for the first time, after seven failed attempts. Meanwhile, another surprise success went to Jeremy Corbyn, who retained the Islington North seat as an independent candidate after having been expelled from the Labour party which he formerly led. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party saw major losses, losing 38 seats, as swathes of voters chose to cast their ballot instead for Labour this time round, while in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin had a greater number of MPs win seats than any other party for the first time. Starmer has said that his UK government will now work towards starting “to rebuild our country”, having pledged in their manifesto to, among other promises, build 1.5 million homes over the next five years, cut NHS waiting times by adding more than 40,000 appointments a week by paying staff more to work weekends and evenings and to recruit 6,500 more teachers and introduce free breakfast clubs at every primary school in England.

30 years ago, on July 5, 1994, Jeff Bezos founded a company called Cadabra, Inc. While that may not ring a bell with everyone, the company’s later name certainly will: Amazon.com. The story goes that Bezos quickly changed the name to Amazon after a lawyer had misheard the original name as “cadaver” – and the rest is history. On July 16, 1995, the unheard-of company from Seattle launched a website immodestly claiming to be "earth's biggest bookstore". While that may have sounded a little presumptuous back then, three decades later said company is not only the biggest bookstore on earth but arguably the biggest store, period. If there is one thing that Bezos has been (in)famous for during his time at the helm, which ended in July 2021, it’s his relentless focus on long-term growth. Having ignored critics for years, Bezos’ willingness to sacrifice short-term profits for long-term growth has paid off big time, turning Amazon into a multitrillion-dollar company and Bezos into one of the wealthiest people on the planet. Under Bezos' leadership, Amazon has cemented its position as the leading online retailer in large parts of the world, built an industry-leading cloud computing business, and established itself as a major player in digital media and consumer technology. The company has achieved all that by rigorously re-investing most of the money it makes, until eventually the profits became too large to spend. Last year, the company turned a profit of $30.4 billion on $574.8 billion in net sales, which is more than its total profit from 1997 through 2019.

Fourth of July holiday travel is expected to reach a new record high in 2024, as more than 70 million Americans are forecast to hit the road or the skies to travel more than 50 miles for this year's celebrations. That's according to projections from AAA who are predicting that 60.6 million Americans will take to the nation's roads, while 5.7 million will take a plane and 4.6 million will travel by train or other means for Independence Day. That represents an increase of 5 percent from last year and 8 percent from 2019, as low air fares and gas prices are fueling Americans' appetite for travel. "With summer vacations in full swing and the flexibility of remote work, more Americans are taking extended trips around Independence Day," Paula Twidale, Senior Vice President of AAA Travel said in a statement. "We anticipate this July 4th week will be the busiest ever with an additional 5.7 million people traveling compared to 2019." All modes of transport are set to see a noticeable increase this year and road trips will continue to dominate Fourth of July travel. 85 percent of travelers are expected to drive to their holiday destination as gas prices have eased from the historic highs of the past two years. Even though air travel is far less common for Independence Day celebrations, airports are expected to be busier than ever these days. In the weeks leading up to July 4, the TSA reported several new records for performed safety checks at U.S. airports.

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After concern about civil rights peaked in the United States in early 2021, the share of respondents identifying it as an important issue for the country quickly dropped again – back to 2019 levels as of Q4 2021 and Q1 2022. It has stayed on this level ever since and as of Q1 of 2024, 26 percent in the U.S. said they considered civil rights important for the nation. This is according to the Statista Consumer Insights. Throughout 2020, civil rights took center stage in U.S. political discourse after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in May triggered mass protests and a reckoning with the still-rampant racial injustice in the country. As of Q2 2021, 32 percent of respondents still named civil rights as an important issue for the United States. Higher ranked issues at that time were the economic situation, unemployment, health and social security (at 43-45 percent as the Delta variant intensified concern about Covid-19 once more) as well as inflation (35 percent) and crime (33 percent). By Q1 of 2022, concern about civil rights was additionally overtaken by concern about climate and the environment as well as concern about education, immigration, poverty and housing, delegating its importance back to an also-ran.

Identification with the Democratic Party has plummeted in the U.S. to the lowest recorded levels, according to a Gallup database. Even before the first presidential debate featuring both current President Joe Biden and his challenger in the 2024 elections, Donald Trump, only 23 percent of U.S. respondents surveyed by the organization said in June that they identified as Democrats. This is fewer than ever since continuous records of the question started at the organization in 2004. Identification with the Republican Party was not much higher in June of this year at only 25 percent (while identifying as an Independent became much more popular). However, a look at Gallup’s records for previous years shows that Democrats mostly had a leg up when it comes to party identification. This applied both in June 2016, the year of Donald Trump’s election, and throughout his presidency. Only as recently as 2022, while Biden was already in office, did Republicans catch up and the finally overtake Democrats in some months, for example June 2024. However, the low support for established parties and the heightened will to identify as an Independent still speaks to a level of resignation with both established U.S. parties. Identification with Republicans reached its lowest point over the last 20 years in October 2013 at just 20 percent and also hit 22 percent during the Trump administration in January 2018. Meanwhile, the lowest Democratic party affiliation had ever dropped before was 24 percent in September 2022 and September 2023, both under Biden. While Biden’s approval hit 38 percent in June, this is not so far removed from Trump’s 39 percent in June 2020 at the same time in his presidency that Biden is at now. Biden has received heavy criticism for his performance at the debate on Thursday – including from inside his own party – for speaking at times incoherently and rambling while appearing no younger than his age, 81. Trump was meanwhile criticized for insults and wrong characterizations of his Congressional colleagues as well as promoting racial stereotypes of Black and Latino Americans as well as Palestinians. He also downplayed and made false claims in regards to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, used false statements concerning his record of taxation, the economy and environmental protection as well as crime in the U.S.

As the summer holiday travel season is in full swing, U.S. airports are getting quite busy these days. In fact, they're busier than ever according to figures released by the Transport Security Administration (TSA). Sunday, June 23 even broke the all-time record for most people screened at U.S. airports, with 2.99 million people passing through TSA safety checks. That's only the tip of the iceberg, tough. According the TSA, 8 of the 10 busiest travel days ever at U.S. airports have occurred in the past month and more records are expected for the Independence Day travel period. "We expect this summer to be our busiest ever and summer travel usually peaks over the Independence Day holiday," TSA administrator David Pekoske said in a statement. As our chart shows, daily passenger throughput at U.S. airports has consistently exceeded pre-pandemic levels this year after roughly matching 2019 traffic in 2023. With an average of 2.73 million passengers per day passing through TSA checkpoints, June 2024 was the busiest month ever at U.S. airports and there are no signs of Americans' appetite for air travel waning in July. Following an abysmal 2020, when airport throughput fell below one million passengers per day, flight traffic picked up noticeably in the second quarter of 2021, as the vaccine rollout proceeded rapidly. Passenger throughput started climbing steadily, with TSA safety checks exceeding two million in a single day for the first time in the Covid era on June 11, 2021. Throughout the busy summer season, the daily average hovered around the two million mark, trailing 2019 passenger numbers by roughly 500,000 a day on average. By the end of 2021, the gap had narrowed to 350,000-400,000 before gradually climbing closer to pre-pandemic levels throughout 2022. Prior to the pandemic, daily passenger volumes of 2+ million were the norm rather than the exception. At the onset of the pandemic, daily passenger throughput fell as low as 100,000 in April 2020, before slowly climbing back to its current level. In 2023, the TSA performed an average of 2.35 million safety checks per day, compared to 925,000 in 2020 and 2.32 million in 2019. Through June 29 of this year, average daily passenger traffic stands at 2.43 million for this year.

As memories of Covid-19 restrictions are quickly fading, Americans are looking forward to proper, carefree Fourth of July celebrations this year. According to AAA, more than 70 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles this Independence Day week in order to celebrate with their friends and families – a new record. Aside from the obligatory fireworks, a proper cookout is the key ingredient for a real Independence Day celebration in many households. Speaking of ingredients: how much will a typical Fourth of July menu set you back these days? Well, there’s the catch: inflation makes no exception for national holidays, so expect your feast to be more expensive than ever this year. According to the American Farm Bureau’s annual Fourth of July market basket survey, a 10-person cookout involving cheeseburgers, chicken breasts, pork chops and several sides and dessert options will cost $71.22 this year. That’s up "just" 5 percent from last, but 30 percent from 2019.

Every year, parts of the world's forests disappear - an area of around 178 million hectares from 1990 to 2020. Africa is the world region with the highest net forest loss in this period (-14.3 percent), as our infographic with data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows. It is closely followed by South America with a decline of 13.3 percent. In North and Central America and Oceania, forest area is stable, while an increase can be observed in Europe and Asia.   Tropical forests in particular are under threat due to various causes. In Brazil alone, around 1.77 million hectares of rainforest were destroyed in 2022. One of the primary causes of forest loss is deforestation for agricultural purposes: the tropics play a growing role in the global production of agricultural products. The pressure on the land is correspondingly high; forests are cut down or burned to create arable land and pasture.   Rich countries in particular can afford the luxury of protected forests because they import food and plant-based raw materials. Other countries have to make more and more arable land available for the cultivation of crops. Moreover, the increase in forest area alone says nothing about the condition of the forests. For example, German forests have recently been increasingly affected by insect infestation and crown thinning.

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