5: How to Resist President Donald Trump
If you’re like me, you’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time over the last week or so scrolling through Facebook as your friends and acquaintances go crazy about Donald Trump becoming the next president of the United States. You’ve watched donations get made to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and other groups that promise to oppose Trump on issues ranging from civil liberties to reproductive rights.
You’ve probably seen that Change.org petition about how, thanks to the magic of faithless electors, Hillary Clinton can still become president. (She can’t.) And you’ve definitely seen or heard about the massive protests in cities across America, where people vented their anger or sadness or fear over the fact that an alleged serial sexual assailant who spouts the rhetoric of a racist demagogue is about to become the most powerful man on Earth.
Vice News
4: Syria war: Aleppo pounded by air strikes for second day
Air strikes and artillery have pounded rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo for a second day, killing dozens of people, damaging medical facilities and flattening residential buildings.
Sources told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that at least 84 people had been killed and dozens wounded in and around Aleppo city over the past 48 hours, as air raids launched by Syrian jets rained down on rebel-held areas amid a new government offensive.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 21 people, including five children and an emergency worker, were killed on Wednesday in the al-Shaar, al-Sukkari, al-Sakhour and Karam al-Beik neighbourhoods.
Aljazeera
3: The NSA’s Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain Sight
THEY CALLED IT Project X. It was an unusually audacious, highly sensitive assignment: to build a massive skyscraper, capable of withstanding an atomic blast, in the middle of New York City. It would have no windows, 29 floors with three basement levels, and enough food to last 1,500 people two weeks in the event of a catastrophe.
But the building’s primary purpose would not be to protect humans from toxic radiation amid nuclear war. Rather, the fortified skyscraper would safeguard powerful computers, cables, and switchboards. It would house one of the most important telecommunications hubs in the United States — the world’s largest center for processing long-distance phone calls, operated by the New York Telephone Company, a subsidiary of AT&T.
The building was designed by the architectural firm John Carl Warnecke & Associates, whose grand vision was to create a communication nerve center like a “20th century fortress, with spears and arrows replaced by protons and neutrons laying quiet siege to an army of machines within.”
The Intercept
We feature a surprise address by Senator Bernie Sanders outside the White House on Tuesday during a global day of action against the Dakota Access pipeline that included demonstrations in over 300 cities. “Today we are saying it is time for a new approach to the Native American people, not to run a pipeline through their land,” Sanders said, demanding that their sovereign rights be honored. He also spoke about the need for politicians to protect access to clean water, recognize that climate change is real and support an aggressive shift away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources.
Democracy Now
1: Donald Trump renews war with media as transition chaos continues
Donald Trump has renewed his fight with the American media, criticizing the New York Times, ducking reporters to visit a restaurant and turning to Twitter as a means of direct communication.
The US president-elect even appeared to allude to his reality TV show The Apprentice as he denied reports that his transition process is in turmoil and plagued by infighting.
Trump waged an unprecedented one-man war against the media during his election campaign, banning some organisations from his rallies and regularly inciting his supporters to boo and jeer reporters. He used Twitter, on which he has more than 15 million followers, to berate his critics and throw out often incendiary statements.
The Guardian
