It is only Thursday, and this week has been one of the most exasperating ones for me, as an empathetic news-watcher. I expect, many of you can identify these feelings within yourselves as well. However, if you have not been engaging with the seemingly-unavoidable doom of global politics, here is are the highlights, or rather, lowlights:

• New Epstein files were released, including mentions of former UK Foreign Minister to the US, Peter Mandelson.
• Major earthquake in eastern Afghanistan killed over 2,200 people, worsening humanitarian crises there
• Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot during a public appearance in Utah
• Russia launched drone attacks that breached Polish airspace, Poland triggered NATO’s Article 4
• Political protest waves in South Asia: in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal
• Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro sentenced to 27 years, three months in prison for plotting a coup and other offences
• Israel conducts a strike against Hamas leaders in Qatar, explosions heard in Doha
• Sudan, Palestine, Myanmar, Syria, South Sudan, Lebanon, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen remain trapped in ongoing humanitarian crises.

I often get asked, “Why do you even care so much about politics? It’s a waste of energy.” Not feeling the need to care is an extreme privilege, while not wanting to care is, I believe, ignorance.

I think any human life that is lost or harmed, whether in the civil war in South Sudan or an American school shooting, is an injury to all of humanity. Each of us adds something new to humanity, and that is what it thrives on.

Caring about politics is not about partisanship or endless debate; it’s about recognizing the structures that shape lives and deciding whether those structures reflect justice, compassion, and dignity. Ignoring them allows suffering to persist unchecked. Every policy, every law, every act of leadership ripples outward, affecting real people, real communities, and the very future of our shared humanity.

So, please, engage with politics. It really does affect all of us.