‘I’ll kiss the ground’: chaos feared amid Gaza ceasefire as families head home: Many of the 90% of Palestinians who have been displaced by the war are about to set off to see what remains of their homes, presumably under the assumption that the cease fire holds.

TikTok ban: App shuts down in the United States hours ahead of a ban: Whether the ban will last is a different story.

Nowhere to retvrn: how far-right revisionism spreads online: You can’t ‘return’ to something if it never existed in the first place.

A new era of lies: Mark Zuckerberg has just ushered in an extinction-level event for truth on social media: Looks like I’m not the only person kinda terrified about Zuckerberg’s latest pronouncement.

Understanding DOGE as Procurement Capture: The Department of Government Efficiency is clearly going to be nothing to do with government efficiency.

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.