News and Prophecy Staff

The Telegraph reports that research continues to document the hazards of children spending time in front of electronic screens. In a review of 80 published studies, “the World Cancer Research Fund [WCRF] found increasing exposure to smartphones, tablets and gaming consoles in childhood is driving long-term weight gain—identified as one of the key causes of cancer” (November 7, 2018). In fact, obesity in childhood leads to adult obesity.

A recent BBC article laments the changing relationship between the United States, Britain, and the rest of Europe (January 14, 2019). The author reflects nostalgically on the former close ties between the U.S. and Europe—a relationship that grew closer under American presidents following the Cold War.

The London Telegraph recently published an article with the sobering title “Geostrategic dystopia: is this the year the world falls apart?” (January 7, 2019). The article states, “This is the year that serial hammer blows to the Western alliance system and the edifice of global governance threaten to bring the old order tumbling down…. Pax Americana is unravelling. The transatlantic concord underpinning the West since the 1950s is dying.

Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29 of this year. Yet, this week, British MPs voted “No” on a British exit plan that has been more than two years in the making (BBC, January 15, 2019). While European leaders have referred to Prime Minister May’s exit plan as the best solution possible, the votes against the plan were more than two to one—the greatest defeat in history for any British government.

Between 1990 and 2010, divorce rates among middle-aged couples doubled! However, “new research, gathered from a 14-year study from the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, shows that regular religious service attendance is associated with 50 percent lower divorce rates in later life” (PublishedPR.com, December 3, 2018).