Revealed: 1.5m children in England studying in unfit school buildings: Years of insufficient budgets mean that buildings used for services like education, health and justice in the UK are literally crumbling.

£100m spent in England on failed efforts to block children’s Send support: Only 1.2% of council’s decisions to refuse to provide special educational funding for children are supported by courts when appealed.

Welcome to Britain’s Victorian Christmas, where volunteers in Santa hats fulfil the basic functions of the state: A decent country would not rely on the whims of charitable donations to meet the basic human needs of its population.

Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots: Public health agencies are no longer allowed to promote public health.

The billionaires are full of bull: ‘You don’t earn trust with “balance” – especially not between two imbalanced things – you earn it by consistently providing evidence to support your findings.’

Starmer urged to change donation rules amid talk of Musk bankrolling Reform: Yep, it’s probably not a great idea to allow foreign billionaires to make huge donations to UK political parties by having their companies do it.

Chicken Farm: On the US healthcare system - ‘The “front line” of doctors and nurses are fighting a two front war: one against whatever ails you, and the other against the insurer’.

Why Romania’s election was annulled – and what happens next?: Romanian courts rule that their presidential election was too contaminated with social media manipulation, Russian interference, cyber attacks and illegal funding to stand.

I have a cunning plan…: Charles Stross comes up with a cunning business plan for a world in which Trump’s presidency leads to a reemergence of polio in the US.

Going off the record with Trump? That’s just kissing his ring: Yep, Trump really doesn’t seem like the sort of person you need to be off the record with hear what’s truly on his mind.

Syrians celebrate fall of Bashar al-Assad after five decades of dynastic rule: Although some also worry about what will come next.

Congressional Republicans conclude SARS-CoV-2 originated in a lab leak: Whatever the truth of the matter is, it’s obvious that the process that led to this particular report was a total abuse of science.

Russia Tests Cutting Off Access to Global Web, and VPNs Can’t Get Around It

Culture war and revolution: 30 Years of Manic Street Preachers’ Generation Terrorists: Great as they are, kind of a shame how many of their songs still make perfect sense decades later.

One million elderly people skipping meals as costs bite: Neither eating or heating is affordable for some.

Choke Point 2.0: A primer on the right’s latest conspiracy theory: Today’s wild claim is something like ‘Biden is personally causing his political enemies to be refused bank service’.