World in a Nutshell.com

On February 13, 2016, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, died of natural causes, he was 79 and had suffered from heart problems.

The Supreme Court, which is the highest court in the United States, is made up of nine judges in order to avoid ties over major decisions. If a court case is particularly important or controversial (like the Dred Scott v Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe v. Wade etc.), it is decided here and then the decision remains in place until a historical event or new court decision changes its status. 

For example, the 1857 Dred Scott decision which deemed that African-Americans were n...

While Americans engaged in a political battle between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans ahead of the 2016 elections, Canadians made a clear choice by electing Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau as the country’s new prime minister. Trudeau, the heartthrob son of Canada’s most popular former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, crushed the conservative incumbent Stephen Harper at the polls.

About Justin Trudeau

• Trudeau is a former school teacher who has served in Canada’s parliament since 2008.

• The 43 year-old Prime Minister has a tattoo of a world surrounded by a Haida raven (the Haida people are one of Canada’s indigenous tribes) o...

At the end of September 2015, Russia began airstrikes in Syria in support of its ally, controversial Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad. Why?

• Russia has a naval installation in the Syrian port of Tartus providing Russia with strategic access to the Mediterranean Sea.

• Syria buys billions of dollars worth of defensive weapons from Russia.

• Russia doesn't believe that the United Nations or any other group of countries have the right to change Syria's regime. (If this can happen in Syria, Putin worries, then he could be targeted just like Libya's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011).

• Russia is trying to assert itself as a leader i...