This week in numbers

1.5

The Joe Biden administration has approved the first $1.5b for electric vehicle charging infrastructure across

34 states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico. Biden’s Infrastructure Law provides $8.3b over five years for the network, which has a goal of installing

500,000 chargers from coast to coast.

2500

Zimbabwe has begun moving more than 2500 wild animals from a southern reserve to one in the country’s north to rescue them from drought, as climate change replaces poaching as the biggest threat to wildlife. Elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, zebras and lions are among the animals being moved.

5

million people followed online as an RAF plane carried Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin from Edinburgh to London. According to Flightradar24, the 72-minute flight has become the most-tracked, smashing the record during US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Her plane’s journey to Taipei was tracked by about 2.9m people.

0

The billionaire founder of outdoor fashion brand Patagonia has given away his company to a charitable trust. Yvon Chouinard said any profit not reinvested in running the business would go to fighting climate change. The brand’s website now says: “Earth is now our only shareholder.”

13

All tunnelling for Auckland’s City Rail Link is complete. In a moment 13 months in the making, boring machine Dame Whina Cooper broke through at Te Waihorotiu Station on Wednesday night, the final of four tunnel breakthroughs. Once completed, the CRL will increase capacity into the central city on the rail network from 15,000 people an hour to 27,000.

3

thousand stones sparkle on the British Imperial State Crown, now resting on Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin. Perhaps the most familiar item in the Crown Jewels, it includes 2868 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds and five rubies. The crown was made in 1937 for the coronation of the Queen’s father, King George VI and designed to be lighter than the crown it replaced, which dated back to Queen Victoria. However, the Imperial Crown weighs in at 1.06kg.