Hard Numbers: Chile legalizes gay marriage, Peruvian president survives impeachment, Hispanics reject LatinX, US House of Reps ups defense spending

A person waves flags as people gather after the Senate approved a same-sex marriage bill, in Santiago, Chile December 7, 2021

8: Chile’s Congress approved same-sex marriage Wednesday, becoming the eighth Latin American country to do so. Conservative President Sebastián Piñera for years opposed the measure, which would give full parental rights to same-sex couples, but six months ago changed his position, paving the way for the bill’s passage.

76: Peruvian President Pedro Castillo has avoided impeachment, with 76 members of Congress voting against the measure, against 46 who supported it. Castillo, a Marxist-leaning former schoolteacher, narrowly won the presidential vote in June but has become extremely unpopular amid corruption allegations and controversies in the mining sector.

768 billion: The US House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a $768 billion defense bill, $24 billion more than President Biden had requested. Lawmakers upped the price tag, citing security concerns from China and Russia.

2: Just 2 percent of Hispanic voters in the US identify with the descriptive ‘LatinX,’ a gender-neutral or non-binary term to replace Latina or Latino in Spanish. Use of the term LatinX has become a point of contention in US politics, with progressive Democrats pushing for its adoption despite pushback that most Hispanics don’t like or use it.

More from GZERO Media

German Chancellor and chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Angela Merkel addresses a news conference in Berlin, Germany September 19, 2016.
REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Angela Merkel was elected chancellor of Germany on November 22, 2005, becoming the first woman to hold that job. During that time Merkel was arguably the most powerful woman in the world, presiding over one of its largest economies for four terms in the Bundesregierung. Twenty years on, the anniversary is a reminder of how singular her breakthrough remains. It’s still the exception when a woman runs a country.