Adam J. West

Millions of men and women spend untold hours in glitzy main halls of casinos, while many others play "friendly" games of "nickel" poker, gathered around octagon tables. Still others indulge in office sports pools, all the while hoping to cash in on the losses of others.

Workers on the Crossrail project, a new railway line in London, have recently unearthed the human remains of thirteen individuals suspected of dying from the Black Death. What can we learn from this historic and, so far, unprecedented plague?

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” That old saying that simply means one should not be unappreciative for gifts. Yet, many are less-than-thankful about the “gift” described in the news recently as the “horse-for-beef scandal” now affecting Europe and the United Kingdom.

After nearly eight years as leader of the largest religious organisation on the face of the earth, Pope Benedict XVI has tendered his resignation in an announcement last Monday that startled the world. With his resignation set to occur on February 28, 2013, a new pope will soon afterward be selected by a conclave of Roman Catholic cardinals assembled at the Vatican in Rome. Observers are wondering what this unexpected and monumental change will mean for Roman Catholicism, and for the struggling European Union.