Essentially, the Fed is increasing interest rates and reducing it's spending to counteract inflation. This is in contrast to the increased spending it has had during the pandemic so far.

This article was mostly a summary of a settlement with Purdue pharma: "the settlement, part of a restructuring plan for Purdue approved in September by a bankruptcy judge, should not go forward because it releases the company's owners, members of the billionaire Sackler family, from liability in civil opioidrelated cases." This seems like a big win in the effort to make pharmaceutical companies more accountable, and I'm interested to see what (if any) action follows.

This article is essentially about the African Union Health Minister saying that there are methods to soften the blow of the Omicron Variant that warrant some optimism. We generally see bad news around COVID, especially with Omicron, so this is good to see.

It seems like the main issue with trans restroom rights is enforcement: "Although the Supreme Court declined in July to consider a challenge to Grimm's victory in a lower federal court, SCOTUS did not set a federal precedent for similar school restroom cases, essentially leaving it up to each presidential administration to enforce Title IX in educational settings."

Especially in the bay area, it's easy to feel like large progress is being made, but this article shows that that's not really the case throughout the country, especially with states like Texas passing anti-trans sports bills. I'm not really sure what the solution is to create national change, but it is clear that we need one.

Venezuela has decided to launch a government cryptocurrency: "Venezuela had announced in August that it is revamping its national currency, the bolivar and launching its central bank digital currency (CBDC) - the digital bolivar - on 1 October". While it may not be something they keep forever, it seems like it could help in the short term as Venezuela suffers from hyperinflation.

Venezuela was hit hard by hyperinflation and US sanctions. With distrust in the government's currency and economic systems, cryptocurrency has become increasingly popular in the country: "In Venezuela, crypto is mainly used to hedge against inflation that causes bank deposits to sharply depreciate in weeks or even days"

This article talks about high fuel prices across the globe. Interestingly, Venezuela has some of the lowest prices (possibly because they have the most reserves). I'd be interested to see how this has impacted their economy over time.

This article talked about the benefit of dollarization in Venezuela. I never thought about how other currencies' integration could be an economic tool, but it makes a lot of sense how it could help in this case: "Venezuelans spontaneously began to adopt the dollar in 2019 as a way of fending off hyperinflation".

Fairly self-explanatory. It seems like Cuba wants approval from the UN to export more vaccines, and that there was a prior agreement for Venezuela to buy some vaccines from Cuba. However, the Venezuelan National Academy of Medicine seems to be concerned about the research that went into these vaccines.

We mentioned this in class, but it seems the president of Brazil might be prosecuted for incompetence in handling the pandemic in Brazil. The question in my mind, though, is whether he's being prosecuted for incompetence or malicious intent. If it's the former, what's the line between reasonable and criminal incompetence for public officials? They do also mention, however, that he likely won't be charged because of the government's structure: "Any charges against Bolsonaro, however, would have to be brought by Brazil's prosecutor - a general appointed by Bolsonaro, making it highly unlikely that he will face trial."

It seems like distrust of the government, as well as its initial reluctance to enact precautions, has left a lot of people in Russia with a very apathetic attitude toward the pandemic.

The gist seems to be that while Californians value abortion rights a lot more than other states, there are still a significant amount of people who believe that California should not protect abortion rights as much as it does.

This is a pretty clear indicator of the economic bias against the queer community in the U.S.

While Pope Francis is one of the most progressive popes in recent history, especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues. However, the Catholic Church (unsurprisingly) still has rather conservative views on queer people and the community in general, especially people who aren't cisgender. I'd be interested to see (though I doubt this information will be public anytime soon) how much of this comes from Pope Francis' own beliefs as opposed to the pressure applied by the rest of the church.

I don't know that much about LGBTQ+ rights or the queer community there. I'd be interested to see what it's like and how this fits into the movement for more LGBTQ+ rights in China.

The Attorney General seems to condemn the Texas abortion ban. The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act is supposed to protect women's rights to abortions. While this statement seems to be a good initial step, it's unclear how much the federal government can/will help challenge the Texas law.

This is very cool, good work!