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Introduction
As partisanship deepens in American politics, establishing sharp contrasts in policy stances and electing counterproductive administrations, the future of LGBTQ+ rights remains uncertain. In the current state of affairs, one of the most contested issues associated with the queer community is access to healthcare services, particularly gender-affirming care, especially for youth. Ge...
U.S.
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Imagine waking up to a nation where grocery prices have skyrocketed, hospital wait times have doubled, and the engine of American innovation has come to a grinding halt. What may seem like a dystopian fantasy could, in fact, be ...
U.S.
From January 7 to January 31, 2025, fires ravaged Los Angeles County, killing 29 people and destroying at least 16,000 structures, with the Palisades fire alone burning through 23,706 acres [1]. Historic weather conditions consisting of drought and extreme Santa Ana winds fueled these devastating flames. While much punditry focused on the response of CalFire and the political backlash that ensued ...
U.S.
President Donald Trump’s first weeks in office were marked by a slew of executive orders, including measures so drastic that 74 executive order-related lawsuits have been filed against him thus far [1]. From reshaping the government to resolving policies he considers representative of the “radical left”, President Trump is certainly taking advantage of his power [2]. Among the mo...
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Last spring, American universities descended into chaos. From state schools to exclusive private institutions, students assembled to express their First Amendment rights and protest Israel and the war in Gaza. The movement’s mobilization rivaled only that of the student-led Vietnam War protests that erupted 60 years ago. Protestors cited these mobilizations of the 1960s, which ultimately ear...
World
On December 8, 2024, the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies overthrew the regime of then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The regime change marked the end of forty-five years of repressive rule by the al-Assad family and fourteen years of civil war [1]. Assad was granted asylum in Russia, one of his key allies throughout the war [2]. His fall was met with great jubilation as th...
World
From Canada to Europe and even as far as East Asia, right-wing governments are gaining momentum amid a broader wave of political upheaval reshaping governments worldwide.
Nowhere is this shift more evident than in the Group of Seven (G7), an informal bloc of industrialized liberal democracies including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States that meets a...
World
“Out with all of them,” Argentine President Javier Milei exclaimed in another one of his tirades against the political elite in Argentina—a message indicating the drastic change he sought to bring [1]. Elected in 2023, President Javier Milei has worked to fix the economy with his radical “anarcho-capitalist” reforms. His fiscal policies have faced notable backlash due to their radical ap...
World
Regional Economic Outlook: Not very encouraging.
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is one of the poorest regions in the world today, with low rates of economic growth and industrialization relative to emerging markets and developing economies in other regions across the globe. Indeed, it features the largest proportion of people living in poverty in the world [1]. In 2018, the average per capi...
World
In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed to combat threats from the Soviet Union. While the USSR has since dissolved, the organization has shifted to protecting its members against Russia. NATO’s mission statement is to “safeguard the freedom and security of all its members” through military and political action, and the organization has proven itself rel...