Today’s Big Story

Birth Rates Plummet Worldwide

‘Lack of choice, not desire’ is the reason, says UN report

Children are our future, as the saying goes. So I’m not sure what this says about our future. Because according to a new report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN agency for reproductive rights, global fertility rates are now experiencing an “unprecedented decline.” But it’s not for lack of desire.

The agency has taken its strongest line yet on the increasing fertility decline around the world—warning that hundreds of millions of people are not able to have the number of children they want, citing the prohibitive cost of parenthood and the lack of a suitable partner as some of the reasons. UNFPA surveyed more than 14,000 people in over a dozen countries about their fertility intentions. One in five said they haven’t had or expect they won't have their desired number of children.

And more than half said financial factors such as affordable housing, childcare options and job security were things that had limited, or would limit, their ability to grow their families. Sky News reports that birth rates have been declining across almost all regions of the world, while life expectancy continues to grow. There are concerns, from politicians and commentators like Elon Musk, that future generations of working age people will find it more difficult to economically support people of pension age as the ratio of workers to pensioners shifts.

The survey was carried out in four European countries, four in Asia, three across Africa and three from the Americas. The countries were picked to try and represent “a wide variety of countries with different cultural contexts, fertility rates and policy approaches,” according to the report’s editor Dr Rebecca Zerzan. It includes, for example, the country with the lowest fertility rate in the world—South Korea. It also includes a country with a birth rate among the highest in the world, which also happens to be the most populous country in its continent—Nigeria. The others, in order of population size, are India, the U.S., Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Thailand, South Africa, Italy, Morocco, Sweden and Hungary.

“Calling this a crisis, saying it’s real. That’s a shift I think,” demographer Anna Rotkirch, who has researched fertility intentions in Europe and advises the Finnish government on population policy, tells the BBC. She points out that 40 years ago China, Korea, Japan, Thailand and Turkey were all worried their populations were too high. By 2015 they wanted to boost fertility. And now, the UNFPA found an even bigger barrier to children than finances was a lack of time.

U.S. Inflation Remains Muted

Consumer prices rose 2.4% over the year, with a lower than expected month-over-month increase

Businesses across the United States have for months warned that they would raise prices on their customers in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs. But the latest data show that it is happening only in a limited way so far, helping to keep a lid on inflation. The Consumer Price Index, released on Wednesday, rose 2.4% in May from a year earlier, just above April’s 2.3% annual increase.

According to Semafor, that bolsters the case for the U.S. Federal Reserve to hold interest rates steady at next week’s meeting, despite pressure from the president to lower borrowing costs. The data suggests American companies are still selling inventory amassed prior to tariffs, analysts said. Others may be delaying price changes due to the “huge uncertainty in U.S. trade policy,” the chief economist at Fitch Ratings said in a note, adding that high core inflation in the coming months “still looks very likely.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that prices did rise for some items exposed to tariffs, including appliances, car parts and audio equipment. While a drop in airline fares and energy prices also helped to offset an increase in housing-related costs and those related to dining out.

Starbucks Is Entering the Protein Wars

They found an ingenious way to boost protein (and the cost of your drink)

Since Brian Niccol took over as Starbucks CEO last September, he’s been promising to counter slow sales by revitalizing the company’s commitment to being a “third place”—a space where customers sit and stay a while. But in the short term, his bigger win may come in the form of foam. Apparently, it’s banana-flavored and served with the retailer’s iced latte.

The coffee giant is tapping into the growing demand for protein-packed drinks as consumers seek to boost their intake for health and wellness. Brands like Dutch Bros Coffee and Smoothie King have added more protein to their products to cater to changing consumer appetites. And adding a protein option seems like a no-brainer for Starbucks, considering the protein shake category is blossoming into a $6 billion sector, according to Beverage Digest. Plus, it’s an easy healthy sounding upgrade, right?

Niccol told Axios that the new “protein cold foam” being tested is for a number of different consumer groups including 20-year-old males, 50-year-old females and the near 18 million people expected to be taking GLP-1s (like Ozempic and Wegovy).

2025’s Most Viral Internet Slang

These viral phrases are dominating online culture

No cap, it seems like every year, the internet births a new lexicon—one that's as fast-moving and unpredictable as the online trends that fuel it. And 2025 is no different, with a fresh crop of viral words that’ve quickly become shorthand for everything from viral moments to internet culture’s quirks.

As Mashable points out, this is more than just slang. These phrases are creative expressions of identity in an ever-evolving digital landscape. Whether you're on TikTok, Twitch, or the latest meme loop, these are the terms that have dominated conversations among Gen Z and Gen Alpha this year. “Aura farming” is the art of cultivating an undeniable, magnetic energy that draws people in. When someone says “let me cook,” they’re preparing to flex their skills or impress with a creative idea or a solution. “Clock it” is all about drawing attention to something noteworthy.

Research from Preply, an online language learning marketplace that connects learners with tutors, showed how internet usage is influencing today's internet users' language skills in everyday life. Anna Pyshna, a spokesperson for Preply, called it a linguistic identity crisis. “On one hand, you have spelling bee-level grammar searches,” she told USA Today. “On the other, you have TikTok redefining language with memes and phonetic chaos.”

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