“Avengers: Endgame” became the most-watched foreign film in South Korean history, with 13.4 million admissions, its distributor said.　The latest Marvel superhero flick set the record at around noon on Sunday, Walt Disney Company Korea said based on a real-time box-office tally from the Korean Film Council.　The previous No. 1 was “Avatar” (2009), which sold 13.30 million tickets from 2009 to 2010.

　The incidence of premature puberty has increased in the past five years in South Korea, according to the National Health Insurance Corp.　The number of children who reached puberty too early stood at 95,401 in 2017, up 42.3 percent from 2013. 　Symptoms of precocious puberty include rapid growth, changes in body shape and size, and the development of ability to reproduce before the age of 8 in girls and 9 in boys. 

　About 400 million Europeans from 28 countries will head to the polls May 23-26 to choose lawmakers to represent them at the European Parliament for the next five years. 　Voters in each EU nation choose some of the 751 lawmakers in the parliament, which sits in both Brussels and Strasbourg, France. This number will reduce to 705 seats should Britain approve its Brexit divorce deal before the elections start. (AP)

　Currently, China with a population of 1.41 billion and India with 1.34 billion remain the two most populous countries, comprising 19 percent and 18 percent of the total global population, respectively, according to a UN report. And in about seven years, or around 2024, India’s population is expected to surpass that of China.　According to the UN estimates, after 2024 India’s population is projected to continue growing for several decades to around 1.5 billion in 2030 and approaching 1.66 billion

　The United States became the world’s top crude oil producer in 2017, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia, according to the International Energy Agency. The US produced 14.3 percent of the world’s oil, and Saudi Arabia stood in second place with 12.9 percent with Russia close behind at 12.2 percent.　In terms of the volume of oil they produced in 2017, the three countries produced more oil than the next seven countries on the list combined.

　The average number of pay TV subscribers in South Korea stood at 32.5 million last year, data from the Ministry of Science and ICT showed.　That number - which includes people who paid for satellite broadcasting and internet protocol television services - increased about 530,000 during the second half of the year, according to the data.　KT Corp. had a market share of 21.1 percent, or over 6.8 million subscribers, followed by SK Broadband Co. with 14.3 percent and CJ Hello at 12.6 percent.　LG Upl

　Iceland ranked No. 1 on this year’s KidsRights Index, followed by Portugal, Switzerland, Finland and Germany.　The annual list, compiled in cooperation with the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam, uses UN data to measure how countries measure up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.　Afghanistan was the worst, followed by Sierra Leone, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and the Central African Republic. 　South Korea ranked 70th among the 181 countries studied. 

　US military spending has risen for the first time in seven years, reflecting Trump administration policy, according to a new report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.　Worldwide military spending also rose by 2.6 percent to $1.8 trillion last year, the institute said.　It was the second consecutive year that the global figure has risen, bringing military spending to its highest level since 1988.　The US figure alone, $649 billion, was as much as the combined military

　More than 1 in 10 senior citizens in South Korea suffer from dementia, data showed.　According to the data from the National Institute of Dementia, 748,945 South Koreans aged 65 and above suffered from dementia as of 2018 last year. 　That figure is expected to grow to 2.18 million by 2040, 3.03 million by 2050 and 3.32 million by 2060 as the population continues to age. 

　The Moon Jae-in administration announced that it will soon initiate the procedure for providing food aid to North Korea. The South Korean government has not sent any direct humanitarian aid to the impoverished country since 2010. 　According to the Unification Ministry’s data, the total amount of assistance provided to the North by the South Korean government stands at around 2.4 trillion won ($2.03 billion) since the Kim Young-sam administration offered 150,000 metric tons of rice in 1995. The

　Filipinos spend the greatest amount of time on social media among Asians, closely followed by Indonesians, Thais and Malaysians, according to Global Digital 2019 reports from We Are Social and Hootsuite. 　In 2019, Filipinos spend an average of four hours and 12 minutes on social media daily, an increase of 15 minutes per day from last year. They topped the list for the fourth year in a row. 　On the other hand, the Japanese spend the least amount of time on social media -- 36 minutes per day. Tr

　The proportion of marriage immigrants and naturalized citizens who have lived in South Korea for more than 10 years rose last year from three years earlier, a survey showed.　According to the poll conducted by the Ministry of Gender and Equality, there were 306,995 multicultural households in Korea last year. Among them, 85.7 percent consisted of at least one immigrant parent and the remaining 14.3 percent had a naturalized Korean.　Those who have lived more than 10 years in Korea accounted for 6

　The death rate from cancer in South Korea has been on the rise every year, according to the Korea Insurance Development Institute.　The number of life insurance subscribers who died of cancer increased from 18,144 in 2008 to 19,560 in 2010, 21,179 in 2012, 23,213 in 2015 and 24,940 in 2017, data showed.　By total number of deaths, the deadliest cancers were of the lungs, liver, stomach, pancreas, colon and breast.　

　South Koreans in their 50s were the most aggressive investors in digital currencies last year, a survey showed, with experts calling for a more cautious approach to the volatile investment destination. 　According to the survey by the Korea Financial Investors Protection Foundation, of 2,530 people aged from 25 to 64, 7.4 percent were investing in digital currencies as of end-2018, up 1 percentage point from a year earlier.　The average investment came to 6.93 million won ($6,100), soaring 64.2 p

　Air passengers had to grapple with more incidents of luggage mishaps in 2018, with those in Europe faring far worse than Asia or North America, according to data. 　For every 1,000 passengers, there were 5.69 cases of lost, damaged or severely delayed luggage worldwide in 2018, according to a report by Sita, a Brussels-based firm that specializes in air transport communications and information technology.　That is an increase from 5.57 cases per 1,000 passengers in 2017.　Travelers in Europe had t