By Hannah Quinque

Dear Read­er,

What has most sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect­ed your view of the U.S. with­in the last year? Black Lives Mat­ter protests, maybe? Well, they might have changed, but the same fights are fought still. Dis­as­trous ways to deal with Covid-19? Vac­ci­na­tion might have saved many lives, but 50,000 Amer­i­cans have died from Covid-19 since Octo­ber, and the rate of new infec­tions is still at 70,000 new cas­es each day. But hey, one major change can’t be dis­put­ed even by the most cyn­i­cal blog­ger: There’s a dif­fer­ent POTUS (Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States)! And although he faces obsta­cles at home, a recent study sug­gests that Joe Biden’s pres­i­den­cy made America’s image abroad take off again after a Trump-induced dive. Read more »