ALEC's latest nasty proposal: an agency to streamline privatization of any government services, including any and all roads.

This would naturally lead to a new form of massive surveillance of drivers.

De facto segregation has returned to US schools. Where in the 1950s it was segregation between schools in the same school district, now it is segregation between school districts.

This seems to be a consequence of de facto segregation in housing.

When combined with the practice of funding education mostly from local property taxes, the result is that the schools where poor children go are badly funded.

Real-Life Hunger Is No Game.

Costa Rica's public banks have shielded that country from the worst damage, even through US economic warfare that subjugated the economy in every other aspect.

By the way, the world urgently needs some countries to default on their debt, so as to teach predatory lenders a lesson. At present they have every reason to suppose they can profit heavily by leading a country into international debt.

Newspapers in Sri Lanka urged the UK not to proceed with a royal charter to regulate the press, lest states like Sri Lanka cite it as a precedent.

Sweden is closing prisons because of increased emphasis on rehabilitation and a relaxation in the War on Drugs.

If the US tries to do this, the owners of private prisons will sue.