By Alex Vuocolo
Headlines out of China were a drag on world markets Tuesday morning.
The country recorded 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than the previous year. While China's rate of population growth has been slowing for years, most experts were not expecting a decline for at least another decade. This is the first drop since the 1950s, when the Communist Party's attempts to rapidly industrialize and collectivize farming led to a massive famine.
It's unclear how much the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the decline, given the lack of transparency around the country's reporting practices. What is clear is that one million fewer babies were born in 2022 than the year before, while deaths jumped from 10.14 to 10.41 million.
China's leaders have long considered overpopulation a problem, but in 2016 the government ended its controversial one-child policy in an effort to bolster birth rates.
Meanwhile, the country also reported its second-lowest growth rate in at least four decades.
The second-largest economy in the world grew by 3 percent in 2022, which is less than half the 2021 rate of 8.1 percent — though slightly higher than the 2.4 percent rate in 2020, when countrywide coronavirus shutdowns essentially ground the country to a halt.
In the fourth quarter of last year, the country reported zero growth.
Notably the country in recent months has eased up on its Zero-COVID policies, which reinstated lockdowns whenever there was an outbreak, sending shockwaves through the global economy.
In the West, China is synonymous with rapid economic and population growth. But these reports point toward a new era for the developing country.
Over a dozen states are under air quality alerts as smoke from the Canadian wildfires continues to make its way across the country.
Millions of Americans continue to be under a heat advisory as extreme temperatures are still affecting the southern U.S.
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As we reported on Friday, a suspect has been charged in connection with a series of murders that took place on Gilgo Beach, Long Island more than a decade ago. The victims' remains were found between 2010 and 2011 after the disappearance of one woman resulted in a search of the area. This morning, our sister network News 12 reported that police in Suffolk County are now executing a search warrant at a storage unit.
The suspect in a shooting that left four people dead in Hampton, Georgia on Saturday was killed by police.
A 7.2 magnitude earthquake was reported in Alaska over the weekend, leading to a brief tsunami warning.
Over 11 million Americans are under a heat advisory, with the extreme weather hitting the southern U.S.
If someone's number is drawn Monday night, it will be the third-largest jackpot in Powerball's history — its largest was November 2022's $2.04 billion prize — and the seventh-largest of any U.S. lottery.
French President Emmanuel Macron hailed Birkin as a “complete artist,” noting that her soft voice went hand-in-hand with her “ardent” activism. Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak called Birkin “the most French British person" and “the emblem for a whole epoch who never went out of fashion."
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut ruled that banning large capacity magazines and requiring a permit to purchase a gun falls in line with “the nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety," Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
