Lost at Sea.

A liar's dividend.

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1. The U.S. military said on Sunday that it has ended its search for two Navy SEALs who were lost at sea during an operation that seized Iranian-made missile parts bound for Houthi rebels in Yemen. The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the military had declared the two SEALs deceased and was now conducting recovery operations following a “10-day exhaustive search.” “We mourn the loss of our two Naval Special Warfare warriors, and we will forever honor their sacrifice and example,” said Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, commander of the U.S. Central Command. (Source: wsj.com)

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2. China’s population has shrunk for the second year in a row. The National Bureau of Statistics reports just 9.02 million births in 2023 – only half as many as in 2017. Set alongside China’s 11.1 million deaths in 2023, up 500,000 on 2022, it means China’s population shrank 2.08 million in 2023 after falling 850,000 in 2022. That’s a loss of about 3 million in two years. The two consecutive declines are the first since the great famine of 1959-1961, and the trend is accelerating. Updated low-scenario projections from a research team at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, one of the first to predict the 2022 turndown, have China’s population shrinking from its present 1.4 billion to just 525 million by 2100. China’s working-age population is projected to fall to just 210 million by 2100 – a mere one-fifth of its peak in 2014. (Source: asiatimes.com, stats.gov.cn, alphahistory.com, theconversation.com)