Our daily stroll around the world

🇨🇳🇹🇼 China’s military held a simulated invasion of Taiwan. Chinese officials said the training exercises, which involved 100+ warplanes and dozens of aircraft-carrier-sized ships that over the past three days simulated sealing off Taiwan from the outside world, were held in response to last week’s meeting between Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Beijing conducted similar combat exercises after the previous Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan last August.

🇷🇺 Evan Gershkovich, the WSJ reporter arrested by Russia, was “wrongfully detained,” per US officials. The official designation by the State Department of Gershkovich being “wrongfully detained” signals the launch of a US effort to free the 31-year-old from Russia, after he was arrested last month over accusations of spying on the country’s military industrial complex on behalf of the American government. One interesting thing: the speed at which Gershkovich received such a designation is “unprecedented,” with the process usually taking several months to complete, US officials told the Journal.

🇮🇳🐅 India’s wild tiger population has more than doubled since 2006. That’s according to the country’s latest tiger census, released once every four years, which found the total number currently stands at 3,167 – or about 70% of the world’s entire tiger population. The census marked the 50-year anniversary of India’s Project Tiger campaign to preserve the species, after an estimated 80,000+ wild tigers were killed between 1875 and 1925 alone.