Roosegaarde reports that the 7 meter-tall "cleaning temples" have cleansed 30 million cubic meters of air in the past 41 days, repurposing the collected waste to make 300 commemorative rings, each with its own tiny collection of smog particles.

CNN, which has come under enormous scrutiny for its lack of editorial standards over the course of the 2016 presidential election, fell for a series of so-called “fake news” reports that hammered its own network on Friday. Late Thursday evening on Thanksgiving, a Twitter user in the Boston area reported that CNN was airing hardcore pornography for 30 minutes through local provider RCN. The original report on those Tweets surfaced in The Independent, a leading left-of-center newspaper based in the United Kingdom. From there, the story spread like wildfire to many other media outlets including Variety magazine, the U.K. Daily Mail, the New York Post, Esquire magazine and Mashable, among others.

Rudy Giuliani is considered a leading candidate for Secretary of State in the Trump Administration. Giuliani is actively campaigning for the position and could be named National Director of Intelligence if his appointment at State falls through. As the public waits to hear the verdict on these matters, a review of Giuliani’s history and qualifications is in order. In particular, his actions on and before 9/11 should be carefully reviewed. As mayor of New York City on 9/11, Giuliani was in a unique position to benefit from the attacks. That’s because he gained national notoriety for his presumed valiant response that day, and he received the kind of publicity that every ambitious politician desires. Immediately after 9/11, Giuliani’s approval rating rocketed to 79% among New York City voters, a dramatic increase over the 36% rating he had received a year earlier. At a 9/11 memorial service, Oprah Winfrey called him “America’s Mayor.” And on December 24, 2001, TIME magazine named Giuliani its Person of the Year for 2001.

Black Friday is when you’re supposed to shop till you drop. It kicks off the holiday selling season. No season is more sacred for retailers. They’re expected to do about 40% of their annual sales in those few weeks till Christmas. The National Retail Federation is bubbling over with enthusiasm, expecting holiday sales to grow 3.6% this year to $656 billion. Since Trump has won the election, consumer optimism about the economy has surged, and this is expected to be one hot holiday selling season.

As tensions once again grow between Iran and the US, with both countries unsure if Donald Trump will extend Barack Obama's landmark "nuclear deal" which in January 2016 lifted Iran's sanctions (imposed previously by the same Obama regime) and allowed Iran to export three times as much crude oil as the country did one year ago, Iran has fallen back to the same diplomacy that marked the darker periods of diplomacy between Tehran and Washington. As a result, earlier this week Iran explicitly warned the Trump administration, that extending U.S. sanctions on Iran for 10 years would breach the Iranian nuclear agreement, with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei warning that Tehran would retaliate if the sanctions are approved. The U.S. House of Representatives re-authorized last week the Iran Sanctions Act, or ISA, for 10 years. The law was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran's energy industry and deter Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. The Iran measure will expire at the end of 2016 if it is not renewed. The House bill must still be passed by the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama to become law.

I was amused to find my site listed on the now-infamous list of purportedly Russian-controlled propaganda sites cited by The Washington Post. I find it amusing because I invite anyone to search my 3,600-page archive of published material over the past decade (which includes some guest posts and poems) and identify a single pro-Russia or pro-Russian foreign policy entry. If anything, my perspective is pro-US dollar, pro-liberty, pro-open markets, pro-local control, pro-free-press, pro-innovation, and pro-opportunities to rebuild America’s abandoned, decaying localized economies: in other words, the exact opposite of Russian propaganda.

Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights. While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve

Moscow protested against Ukraine's plans to carry out missile tests near Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 following the toppling of a pro-Russian Ukrainian president, raising the temperature in the dispute between the two countries. Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsia said late on Friday it has received a notification from Ukraine on missile tests in "Russia's sovereign air space" on December 1 and 2 in the region of Simferopol in Crimea.

In a statement issued by the Commission after Castro’s death, Mr Junker said the Communist dictator was “one of the historic figures of the past century and the embodiment of the Cuban Revolution.”

Hillary Clinton’s loss was a shock to the purveyors of U.S. military hegemony, who saw in her an easier path to keep the Syria conflict going. Secretary of State Clinton was instrumental in the early days of Syria intervention, in 2010 making a series of demands for Syria to get in line behind the U.S. vision for the Middle East. When Bashar al-Assad refused to roll over, regime change became the talking point of Washington think tanks and mainstream media echo chambers. Clinton promised during her campaign to ramp up action in Syria, to the delight of the same neocons who brought the Iraq invasion. She acknowledged that many civilians would die if the U.S. set up a no-fly zone.

Cuba’s former president Fidel Castro, one of the world’s longest-serving and most iconic leaders, has died aged 90. His younger brother and successor as president Raul Castro announced the news on state television.

For an anti-establishment kind of guy, Donald Trump sure is looking hard at a bunch of government insiders to fill his cabinet.

The world, through the ballot box, is speaking out. From the British «Yes» vote on BREXIT – the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union – to the election of the anti-globalization Donald Trump as president of the United States, the world is speaking out against the homogenization of the world into a super-state of blurred and overlapping governments, cultural identities, religions, and politics. The U.S. presidential election was not so much an election as it was a referendum on globalization in all of its malignant manifestations: free trade, open borders, and subjugation of national sovereignty to amorphous international organizations. From every continent, there is growing popular support for «exiting» international contrivances, from the European Union and International Criminal Court to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and even the United Nations.

Fifteen European countries, headed by Germany, have issued a statement pushing for the reopening of “a new structured dialogue” with Russia aimed at preventing a possible arms race in Europe, according to the German foreign minister. The countries, all belonging to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), have expressed their deep concern over the current situation in Europe and support the relaunch of a conventional arms treaty with Russia, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Die Welt newspaper in an interview published on Friday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's biggest contender in next year's German election campaign may not be a rival party leader but so-called "social bots" - software programmed to sway opinion on social media sites. In her first speech to parliament since announcing plans on Sunday to seek a fourth term as chancellor, Merkel called for a debate on how fake news, bots and trolls can manipulate public opinion.

During World War 2, nations desperately raced to harness the atom. The United State ultimately won that race, and during their victory lap – being the sole nation to possess nuclear weapons – used them against their enemy Japan … twice. Tens of thousands of lives were extinguished in the blink of an eye and Japan, already a defeated nation, submitted absolutely to US hegemony which would prevail both over Japan and most of Asia for nearly a century onward.

The effort to shut down the alternative media following the election victory of Donald Trump is kicking into high gear. On November 16 PolitiFact declared it would “fight back against fake news” and produced a hit list of alternative media sites. Blacklisted News is included on a list compiled by a site created specifically to target alternative media the establishment wants eliminated.

PropOrNot is an independent team of concerned American citizens with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, including professional experience in computer science, statistics, public policy, and national security affairs. We are currently volunteering time and skills to identify propaganda – particularly Russian propaganda – targeting a U.S. audience. We collect public-record information connecting propaganda outlets to each other and their coordinators abroad, analyze what we find, act as a central repository and point of reference for related information, and organize efforts to oppose it.

Britain’s exit from the EU could be blocked, Tony Blair has said, as he ruled out a return to frontline politics because there is “too much hostility” towards him. The former Labour prime minister said he had been accused of “treason” for suggesting that Britain keep its “options open” over Brexit. But he insisted that voters had a right to decide they want to stay in the EU after “scrutinising” Theresa May’s final deal with European leaders.