A guide to the planned US protests on Jan 21.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is going to be threatened again by the troll and his extractivist cabinet members.

Obama's last blow against the US independent press: establishing an "anti-propaganda center" to "recognize, understand, expose, and counter" foreign propaganda.

In principle, that's not a bad thing to do; in practice, almost any sort of US state propaganda could be described as "countering" some sort of foreign propaganda. A single foreign article published anywhere in the world could serve as the excuse for a mammoth US government propaganda campaign.

Looking back over the history of American journalism, we find, about a century ago, that articles based on rumors and lies were common.

The imperialist war against Spain was started through such pressure. The slogan for the war was "Remember the Maine", alluding to a US warship that exploded mysteriously in Havana. The most recent investigation concluded it was an internal explosion.

Movements for independence in Cuba and the Philippines were both crushed by the US, which turned Cuba into a puppet government, and reduced the Philippines to a colony after years of war and repression.

The rain in Spain fell mainly on fresh vegetables for sale to the UK, so UK supermarkets will fly in fresh vegetables from the US.

The heavy rain was probably a result of global heating, and flying the vegetables will surely cause more global heating. This is one little example of how civilization can fall.