News

The European Union has drafted a law that will allow “Brussels to impose economic pain—ranging from trade and investment restrictions to sanctions on intellectual property rights—on any country that has sought to economically blackmail the EU” (Politico, December 6, 2021). This law will be the EU’s biggest foreign policy advance in decades.

According to the United Nations, “Tens of millions are going hungry in Latin America and the Caribbean as the Covid-19 pandemic sharpens a regional malnutrition crisis to its worst levels in decades” (CNN, November 30, 2021). From 2019 to 2020, rates of hunger in the region rose by 30 percent. Lockdowns and loss of jobs have limited the ability to obtain food, with women going hungry at greater rates than men.

For decades, Europeans have not been outwardly religious, yet the United States has been different—until recently. In 1975, most Americans (68 percent) viewed organized religion with confidence, but that has dropped to 36 percent (Christianity Today, October 19, 2021). This decline in confidence in organized religion has also contributed to a continued decline in church attendance.

“Barbados, a former British colony, will… ditch Queen Elizabeth as head of state, breaking its last remaining imperial bonds with Britain nearly 400 years since the first English ship arrived at the Caribbean island” (Euractiv.com, November 24, 2021). The current Governor General will be sworn in as the new President of Barbados.