5: 

2015 was Hottest Year Ever on Record—By Far

Scientists have reported 2015 was the hottest year on record by far. The experts pinned the record-breaking heat on long-term global warming caused by the emission of greenhouse gases. 2015’s record breaks the previous record set the year before, in 2014. In response to the findings, Gerald Meehl, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said, “The whole system is warming up, relentlessly.”

Democracy Now!

4: 

Marina Litvinenko: ‘You can silence one person but not the whole world’

One day before it was published, Marina Litvinenko and her son, Anatoly, sat down to read the report on the murder of her husband and his father. They were invited to a government office and sworn, for 24 hours, to secrecy. They had no idea what was in it. It was the culmination of a long struggle: to discover the truth about Alexander Litvinenko’s death.

The report was a chunky blue booklet running to 328 pages. Its author, the retired high court judge Sir Robert Owen, had chaired last year’s public inquiry into Litvinenko’s poisoning in a Mayfair bar in November 2006. But how far would Owen go? Would he blame the Russian state, and President Vladimir Putinpersonally?

“We looked at the report and thought: ‘Yes!’” Marina said on Thursday. She spoke to the Guardian after Owen’s bombshell finding that Putin and his spy chief, Nikolai Patrushev, had “probably approved” the FSB’s killing of Litvinenko with polonium-210.

The Guardian

3: 

Israel razes Palestinian homes in key area of West Bank

Israeli authorities have demolished several homes in the strategically sensitive E1 region of the occupied West Bank, displacing at least 17 Palestinians, among them children.

Israeli troops forcibly evacuated local residents and bulldozers flattened four homes in the Jabal al-Baba community, on the outskirts of occupied East Jerusalem, on Thursday, according to a local spokesman.

“They showed up at four in the morning and removed everyone from their homes – men, women, children,” Daoud al-Jahalin, the spokesman of the Jahalin Bedouin tribe in the neighbouring village of Abu Nuwwar, told Al Jazeera.

“There were no journalists there to witness it so they did it all by force, pointing their weapons at people and hitting many of the young men.”

Aljazeera

2: 

Mayors challenge pay-to-move proposal

The government is considering paying those on Auckland’s state housing wait list a lump sum, as well as moving costs if they go somewhere with empty houses.

Half of the country’s entire wait list for social housing was in Auckland alone – over 2000 households. That backlog prompted Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett to suggest cash incentives to get people looking elsewhere.

Porirua’s mayor, Nick Leggett, said his city was one of the places it was suggested they go.

“Apparently we’re second on the list as their preferred location,” he said.

“We don’t have massive vacancies and we’ve got people with unmet need currently, who are not being housed. So I would prefer to see that locals have that need met first.”

RNZ

1: 

The Seven Stages of Establishment Backlash: Corbyn/Sanders Edition

The British political and media establishment incrementally lost its collective mind over the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the country’s Labour Party, and its unraveling and implosion show no signs of receding yet. Bernie Sanders is nowhere near as radical as Corbyn; they are not even in the same universe. But, especially on economic issues, Sanders is a more fundamental, systemic critic than the oligarchical power centers are willing to tolerate, and his rejection of corporate dominance over politics, and corporate support for his campaigns, is particularly menacing. He is thus regarded as America’s version of a far-left extremist, threatening establishment power.

For those who observed the unfolding of the British reaction to Corbyn’s victory, it’s been fascinating to watch the D.C./Democratic establishment’s reaction to Sanders’ emergence replicate that, reading from the same script. I personally think Clinton’s nomination is extremely likely, but evidence of a growing Sanders movement is unmistakable. Because of the broader trends driving it, this is clearly unsettling to establishment Democrats — as it should be.

A poll last week found that Sanders has a large lead with millennial voters, including young women; as Rolling Stone put it: “Young female voters support Bernie Sanders by an expansive margin.” The New York Times yesterday trumpeted that, in New Hampshire, Sanders “has jumped out to a 27 percentage point lead,” which is “stunning by New Hampshire standards.” The Wall Street Journal yesterday, in an editorial titled “Taking Sanders Seriously,” declared it is “no longer impossible to imagine the 74-year-old socialist as the Democratic nominee.”

The Intercept