Almost 70 per cent of Canadians believe conscience rights make Canada a better country while only about seven per cent say the Charter guarantee leaves us worse off, pollster Angus Reid reports.

No matter how many times we hear that we live in a secular society, faith keeps popping up. An Angus Reid Institute Poll has found that a majority of Canadians don’t just have a faith, they use it.

The pollster Gallup reports Pope Francis’ popularity in the United States has dropped significantly over the past year, fueled by his writings and teachings surrounding the environment, capitalism, income inequality and other issues.

Growing conservative disaffection with Pope Francis appears to be taking a toll on his once teflon-grade popularity in the United States, with a new Gallup poll showing the pontiff’s favourability rating among all Americans dropping to 59 per cent from a 76-per-cent peak early last year.

A third of the people in sub-Saharan Africa are chronically hungry. But, strangely, small-scale farmers, 80 per cent of them women, are the Africans most likely to come up short when trying to feed their families.