Californians are gong back to wasteful lawns again.

I don't like the article's tone of sympathy for that.

President Zuma's history of corruption.

He's not as horrible as his predecessor Thabo Mbeki, who denied HIV medicine to millions because he refused to recognize that it caused AIDS. But Zuma's pretty lousy anyway.

The latest plan to cut taxes on the wealthy in the UK is a "flat tax", with a few smaller tax cuts for the poor added in.

They don't point out that the decrease in revenue would mean additional cruel cuts to support for the poor and disabled. What we need to do is increase tax on the rich.

The US says its intervention in Yemen is because Iran is sending arms to the Houthis in Yemen. Arms were found in boats, but evidence suggests it was bound for Somalia instead.

More fundamentally, even if Iran is sending arms to the Houthis, so what? Salafi Arabia has sent plenty of arms to jihadis; that is a much bigger harm to western countries. It makes no sense for the US to support Salafi Arabia's war crimes.

Most election spending this year in the US is "outside" funds, often from hidden sources.