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As millions fell into poverty during the pandemic, billionaires' wealth soared
CNN
The coronavirus pandemic has worsened the massive financial gap between rich and poor around the world, a new report has found.
Global billionaires last year enjoyed the steepest increase in their share of wealth since the World Inequality Lab began keeping records in 1995, according to the research group's analysis released Tuesday. Their net worth grew by more than $3.6 trillion in 2020 alone, boosting their share of global household wealth to 3.5%.
At the same time, the pandemic pushed about 100 million people into extreme poverty, raising the global total to 711 million in 2021, according to a World Bank estimate cited by the analysis. Even more people would have fallen into poverty had many developed nations not enacted relief efforts to shield their residents from the financial fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The retired Air Force general announced as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Donald Trump after the abrupt Friday night firing of his predecessor is a respected career F-16 pilot who is described by current and former officials who served with him as a professional with a “strong moral center.”
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Over the past 10 days, Vice President JD Vance put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on notice, rattled the confidence of century-old allies in Western Europe during his first foreign trip, decamped to Capitol Hill to help in delicate budget talks and delivered a spirited defense of the Trump administration’s first month to a gathering of conservatives outside the nation’s capital.