This week marks the first anniversary of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Regardless of your political leanings, I’m sure you remember the exact moment when the outcome was known. (I was on a bus in South Korea with about 60 other journalists. It fell into stunned silence when someone announced Trump had won the necessary electoral votes.) Today in The Conversation Canada, Henry Giroux of McMaster University returns with an essay on how everything has changed in the last year. “How could a liberal society give up its ideals so quickly?” asks Prof. Giroux.

Also this week, the United Nations’ climate change conference is being held in Bonn. Known as the 23rd session of the Conference of the Parities (COP23), this meeting could be a chance to step up and be a global leader on climate change, says Deborah de Lange of Ryerson University. “Canada has — since the nation’s abdication from the Kyoto Accord in 2011 — been a relative laggard on climate change policy,” says Prof. de Lange.

ISIS has been driven out of its key strongholds in Syria, but that hasn’t weakened its “virtual caliphate,” say André Gagné and Marc-André Argentino of Concordia University. Their article highlights the way the Islamic State is continuing its ability to spread its propaganda through the use of virtual study groups.

And finally….trying to keep track of the healthy foods we’re supposed to eat can be confusing. Thankfully, Karen Mornin of the University of British Columbia has written an extremely informative article about the foods you should chose to lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases – which remain the No. 1 killer in Canada.

Regards,