It’s been another exciting week in news and politics, with events that run the gamut from uplifting to troubling. If you missed anything, here’s a quick rundown:

China Ends One-Child Policy

Creative Commons photo source:https://www.flickr.com/photos/ephemeris/2426606150/

The government of China has made a historic decision this week to end its policy of universally allowing only one child per Chinese family in the country. This decision comes on the tail end of the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee meeting, organized to discuss governmental policies and internal affairs. The ending of this one-child policy, put in place more than 35 years ago, is likely in response to the country’s reversal of fortunes regarding overpopulation – instead of growing too fast to control, China’s population is increasingly made up of aging non-workers, resulting in a predicted economic slump. Instead, the Committee has motioned for a switch to a two-child rule, to allowing an increase in the amount of children born, and a more populous future Chinese workforce.

However, many researchers in population studies, otherwise known as demographers, doubt the efficacy of this policy to have a reliable effect on the problem of an aging society. Such skeptics involve more than 35 researchers from around the globe, according to the South China Morning Post. Their main fear is that the culture may be too used to the idea of small families to transition to larger familial structures quickly enough to prevent disaster.

New Speaker of the House Paul Ryan

Creative Commons photo source:https://www.flickr.com/photos/ephemeris/2426606150/
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan was officially elected Speaker of the House for the Republican Party on Thursday, officially replacing John Boehner, who resigned from his position earlier this month. This vote will hopefully put an end to infighting within the party that Ryan himself has addressed and decried. He said, in his first speech to the House,

“We are not solving problems. We are adding to them. And I am not interested in laying blame. We are not settling scores. We are wiping the slate clean,”

Paul Ryan’s new goal for the GOP is to be a unifying force for change, and will attempt to reconcile the opposing views of the fiscal conservative old guard (of which the previous Speaker, John Boehner, was a part) and the social neoconservatives of recent years. The recent history of the GOP has been one of splintered factions and a bogged-down legislative process, both of which Ryan will seek to correct.

American Special Forces in Syria

Creative Commons photo source:https://www.flickr.com/photos/dvids/6910298803/
The White House has announced the first public deploying of American Special Forces units in Syria to advise and assist anti-ISIS militias in the area. This is the first public boots-on-the-ground response this far, and the most significant contribution of American manpower to the fight to date. White House Press Secretary has spoken out on the issue, clarifying that the 50 Spec Ops operatives sent will “not have a combat mission”. Instead, these soldiers’ purpose in the area is to assist in logistics and strategy in planning combat missions, assaults and defenses alike.

This is not, however, the very first presence of Spec Ops forces in the region. Several covert operations, including rescue missions for Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers, have already taken place in the past few months. These were, however, again, covert missions, secretive and not disclosed to the public at large. This deployment is officially sanctioned. The most important thing to take away from this news is to consider it a possible next step in an escalation toward an official War on ISIS.

Featured image Creative Commons photo source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrlins/5555525137/