RELIGION HEADLINES WED 9-9

(SRN NEWS)-

(  )  The U.K. government says it is banning trade with Israel’s West Bank, where it claims that Jewish settlers are carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.  Israel denies that charge and points out that the West Bank is part of Israeli territory.  Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband says the U.K. will ban imports of all goods from the region, and some services including financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate and advertising.  He says that France and Canada will also ban trade in goods from the West Bank.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people.

(  )  Divorce is a hot topic on social media these days.  A growing number of people, the majority of them women, are sharing unvarnished divorce stories, both offering and seeking advice.  Marriage has been in decline in the U.S. for decades while divorce and cohabitation have become much more common.  On TikTok, where niche categories of content sometimes earn a nickname, content that delves into marital woes has been dubbed “divorce-tok.”  Legal experts are pointing out that the candor that makes divorce-related content so popular could also be detrimental for those posting if they’re in the midst of legal proceedings.

(  )  The WNBA is looking for a new commissioner now that Cathy Engelbert says she is retiring at the end of the year.  Engelbert led the league for seven years and will step down amidst an uproar over transgenderism that she has failed to resolve.  At issue is whether men will be allowed to join the league.  A WNBA task force met last month and discussed transgender athletes but did not make any changes to eligibility rules.  The league’s collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” but it does not include any more specific language defining male or female.

(  )  By many measures, Americans are growing less religious.  Since 2007, the percentage of people who pray daily has dropped, while the religiously unaffiliated have grown to 29 percent.  But those numbers can distract from just how much faith still matters in American public life – much more so than in Western Europe, despite its similar religious roots.  About two-thirds of Americans consider religion important in their daily lives, compared with 56 percent in Italy, 40 percent in Spain and 36 percent in Germany.  While about two-thirds of American Christians pray every day, only 18 percent of European Christians do so.