USA - Halloween has passed, and as Christmas approaches, millions around the world will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. But news outlets are referencing a 2014 Pew Research Center survey on religion and the rising number of those who practice witchcraft in the US, saying that witches now outnumber Presbyterians in the country. “Experts believe that the explosion in the witch population is due to millennial women’s embracing of new-age spirituality, mindfulness, meditation, and yoga,” the Daily Mail reported in its witchcraft coverage last week. Wicca is recognized as an official religion in the United States. “Experts say that one does not need to be a Wicca or Pagan in order to be a witch, meaning that the actual number of those who practice witchcraft may be higher,” the Mail reported.

UK - Badly behaved toddlers are being branded mentally unwell, a major NHS report reveals which claims that one in 18 preschoolers is suffering from a psychological condition. The first official survey of children’s mental health since 2004 concludes that hundreds of thousands of two to four-year-olds have “at least one mental disorder”. But the report was also criticised by experts for inappropriately “medicalising” unruly behaviour. Meanwhile a third of girls and nearly a quarter of boys with mental health disorders were found to spend more than four hours a day on social media. This compared to 12 per cent of other children.

UK - All modern humans descended from a solitary pair who lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, scientists say. Scientists surveyed the genetic 'bar codes' of five million animals - including humans - from 100,000 different species and deduced that we sprang from a single pair of adults after a catastrophic event almost wiped out the human race. These bar codes, or snippets of DNA that reside outside the nuclei of living cells, suggest that it's not just people who came from a single pair of beings, but nine out of every 10 animal species, too. Stoeckle and Thaler, the scientists who headed the study, concluded that ninety percent of all animal species alive today come from parents that all began giving birth at roughly the same time, less than 250 thousand years ago - throwing into doubt the patterns of human evolution. 

UK - Pledge host Maajid Nawaz has criticised French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel for their “tone deaf” attitude to an EU army as a centralist European army is a “scary idea.” Earlier this month Emmanuel Macon announced that France’s need for a European army stemmed from the need to protect themselves from China, Russia and the United States of America.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday hit back against President Hassan Rouhani after the Iranian leader called Israel a “cancerous tumor” established by Western countries to advance their interests in the Middle East. “Israel knows very well how to defend itself from the murderous Iranian regime,” said Netanyahu, in a statement. “Rouhani’s slander, which calls for the destruction of Israel, proves yet again why the nations of the world need to join in the sanctions against the Iranian terrorist regime which threatens them,” charged the prime minister.

USA - President Donald Trump has reportedly shelved his ‘deal of the century’ peace plan, at least for now, Palestinian Authority media outlets reported on Thursday. The decision was taken after Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, reportedly recommended that the White House postpone the publication of the initiative because of the political and security crisis in Israel, according to the Palestinian Authority paper Al-Quds. The Trump Administration has been working on the plan for nearly two years and has postponed its publication repeatedly mainly because of fierce Palestinian opposition to the proposal which reportedly envisions a demilitarized Palestinian state.

RUSSIA - The global economy is facing a threat of spiraling protectionist measures that can lead to a devastating crisis, Vladimir Putin warned. Nations must find a way to prevent this and establish rules on how the economy should work. The Russian president spoke out against the growing trend of using unilateral restrictions to achieve economic advantage, as he addressed guests of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday. “The system of multilateral cooperation, which took years to build, is no longer allowed to evolve. It is being broken in a very crude way. Breaking the rules is becoming the new rule,” he said. “The disregard for existing norms and a loss of trust may combine with the unpredictability and turbulence of the colossal change. These factors may lead to a systemic crisis, which the world has not seen yet,” he said.

USA - For some people, opening up a credit card statement is like a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past. Holiday shoppers are expected to spend generously this year, with the National Retail Federation estimating the average consumer's outlay at $1,007 for everything from gifts to food to holiday attire — a 4.1 percent increase from last year. Another analysis, from NerdWallet, anticipates an 18 percent jump on gift spending alone, to an average total $776. But that doesn't give the true picture of the cost: 28 percent of shoppers are entering this holiday season still paying off debt from last year's festivities, according to NerdWallet.

SOUTH AFRICA - More than 6 million of the country’s children regularly go hungry, with dire consequences for their capacity to thrive – or even survive – according to the 2018 South African Child Gauge, which urges the government to move swiftly to address the gaps in family services. These children live below the food poverty line which, in real terms, means their families cannot provide even the minimum amount of nutrition they need. Currently, the document says, only a quarter of all South African children live in nuclear families, as opposed to 62% in extended family arrangements. Another factor is the large number of single-person households (22%), created as adult migrants move to cities to seek work, leaving their children behind in the care of family members.

USA - Thanksgiving is nothing to celebrate for Native Americans, who are gathering in the town where the Pilgrims settled for a solemn National Day of Mourning observance. Thursday's noon gathering in downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts, will recall the disease, racism and oppression that the European settlers brought. It's the 49th year that the United American Indians of New England have organized the event on Thanksgiving Day. Moonanum James, a co-leader of the group, says: "Native people have no reason to celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims."

SOUTH AFRICA - Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year - and sometimes one of the most violent. With plenty of bargains up for grabs, shoppers can get impatient and even aggressive as they hit the high street. And this year is no different - with shocking scenes already starting to erupt in stores across the world this morning. In their quest to snap up a bargain, shoppers at a South Africa mall were seen breaking into a store as staff tried to keep them out. Footage shows staff pushing against the doors of Baywest Mall, before they begin to break open and people start to flood in. Screams are heard as people begin to run towards the potential bargains, ripping signs and destroying displays in their wake.

UK - When is the UK due to leave the EU? For the UK to leave the EU it had to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which gives the two sides two years to agree the terms of the split. Theresa May triggered this process on 29 March, 2017, meaning the UK is scheduled to leave at 11pm UK time on Friday, 29 March 2019. It can be extended if all 28 EU members agree, but at the moment all sides are focusing on that date as being the key one, and Theresa May has now put it into British law.

UK - Edward Heath “misled” members of the Conservative Party prior to the presentation of his European deal to MPs in the House of Commons, a politician who was there at the time has claimed. British and European diplomats have agreed on Theresa May’s Brexit deal in principle this morning, despite threats from Spain to veto the withdrawal agreement. Finalising Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union could bring an end to almost 50 years of close cooperation with Brussels. However, MPs who debated joining the EEC in 1971 were given false information by then Prime Minister Edward Heath, according to a Tory MP who was at the heart of it as events unfolded. 

GERMANY - Angela Merkel has suggested countries should be willing to give up control over their own affairs and let organisations such as the European Union have more power in a veiled swipe at Brexit, as the German Chancellor threatens to derail Britain's exit from the bloc.

FRANCE - The French town of Strasbourg has unveiled its official poster for the European Parliament election campaign featuring an image of US President Donald Trump covered by a star-shaped European Union flag. The poster also features a blurry stop sign and the slogan: “This time, I’m voting!”. Hundreds of posters have been plastered across the eastern French city, the official base of the European Union's Parliament.