Our daily journey around the world

🇬🇷🏳️‍🌈 Greece’s parliament voted to legalize same-sex marriage. Yesterday’s 176-76 vote makes Greece the first Christian Orthodox-majority country – and 16th EU nation – where gay marriage is legal. The new bill also expands parental rights for same-sex couples, granting them full status as legal guardians and allowing them to adopt children, but stopped short of granting same-sex couples access to assisted reproduction or the option of surrogate pregnancies, and also excludes transgender people.

🇯🇵 Japan is no longer the world’s third-largest economy. Japan’s economy shrunk at an annual rate of 0.4% last quarter, bringing its 2023 GDP to $4.2 trillion – good for fourth place in the world behind Germany ($4.4 trillion). The decrease in Japan’s GDP was mostly attributed to a decline in consumer spending, with local citizens facing a range of issues including a weakening currency and elevated costs for many goods.

🇩🇪 Microsoft announced plans to invest $3.5 billion in Germany for AI development. The tech giant wants to double its AI and cloud computing capacity in Germany, as well as establish a new AI training program that aims to educate 1.2 million people over the next two years. The deal marks Microsoft’s largest single foreign investment, and comes on the heels of similar multi-billion-dollar deals with the UK and Australia last year.