5: Facebook’s fake news problem
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has come under increasing pressure from both inside and outside the company to address the spread of fake news on the site, something many believe influenced the outcome of the U.S. presidential election last week.
As a first step in addressing the problem, Facebook has decided to ban all fake news sites from using its advertising network to make money.
Vice News
4: A PREVIEW OF TRUMP’S AMERICA: TEXAS WANTS TO FORCE WOMEN TO BURY THEIR MISCARRIAGES AND ABORTIONS
JUST HOURS AFTER the presidential election was called for Donald J. Trump — and as Hillary Clinton was delivering her emotional Wednesday morning concession speech — officials with the Texas Department of State Health Services were for the second time this year hearing public comments on a proposed new rule that would require women who seek abortions, or who miscarry their pregnancies, to cremate or bury their fetal tissue.
The rule is necessary, anti-abortion activists have variously claimed, because it provides dignity to fetuses, which have historically been disposed of in accordance with regulations for medical waste. At least one prominent Texas anti-abortion advocate, Carol Everett, said the rule was necessary to prevent AIDS from spreading through the state’s water system.
Women’s health and other advocates have sternly disagreed. The Texas Medical Association and the Texas Hospital Association (both reflexively hesitant to enter into the state’s politically-charged abortion wars) wrote a joint letter to the health agency questioning the logic of the rule. Meanwhile the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Texas penned a far more stern letter in July, lambasting the state for determining that there would be no fiscal impact (a basic burial costs $2,000, meaning the rule could cost upwards of $96 million per year), and for failing to consider Texas women as stakeholders before proposing the measure. “This new rule appears to force [a] woman to reveal to family, friends and the community her very personal choice of abortion because it requires the woman to contract with a funeral establishment, or ask for family and friends’ support with fetal disposition,” reads the letter. “This is a forced invasion of privacy with no apparent regard for the woman.”
The Intercept
3: U.S. State Dept. Science Envoy on Trump’s Climate Denialism & Why Sanders Could Have Beaten Him
The United Nations has announced that 2016 is very likely to be the hottest year on record, surpassing 2015, which had been the warmest year since records began. Meanwhile, Reuters reports President-elect Donald Trump is seeking quick ways to withdraw the United States from the Paris Accord to combat climate change. Trump is a longtime climate change denier who has described global warming as a Chinese hoax. To talk more about the U.N. climate talks here in Marrakech and the significance Donald Trump’s election for the world’s effort to combat climate change, we are joined by Daniel Kammen, science envoy for the State Department and professor of energy at University of California at Berkeley.
Democracy Now!
2: Syria war: Aleppo pounded by air strikes as pause ends
Intense air strikes have hit several rebel-held areas in Aleppo for the first time in more than two weeks, signalling the start of a major government offensive in Syria’s northern city.
The ferocious bombardment of eastern Aleppo on Tuesday came as Russian armed forces also announced the launch of a large-scale operation against opposition targets in Syria.
Syrian state television said government jets carried out attacks against what it called “terrorist strongholds” and supply depots in the old city of Aleppo, citing what it described as “special sources”.
Aljazeera
1: The dangerous fantasy behind Trump’s normalisation
It was David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, who crystallised the situation into a chilling shard, following the US presidential election result. Speaking on CNN, he said: “When I listen to Conrad Black describe Donald Trump, I think I’m hallucinating. When I hear him described as not sexist, not racist, not playing on white fears, not arousing hate, when he’s described in a kind of normalised way, as someone in absolute possession of policy knowledge, as someone who’s somehow in the acceptable range of rhetoric, I think I’m hallucinating. And I fear for our country, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to do so. I accept the results of our election, of course I do. At the same time, I think Vladimir Putin played a distinct role in this election, and that’s outrageous. And we’ve normalised it already. You would think that Mitt Romney had won.”
The Guardian
