Trump’s Hot Air Far From Greatest Climate Threat, by Andrew Revkin, ProPublica  Report The real risk for climate change in a Donald Trump presidency, according to close to a dozen experts interviewed for this story, lies less in impacts on specific policies like Obama’s Clean Power Plan and more in the realm of shifts in America’s position in international affairs. Extremist terrorism Germany’s biggest threat: Merkel  Reuters Report German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to improve security from extremist terrorists in her New Year’s address, urged Germans to forsake populism and to lead the effort to solve European Union challenges. Merkel is seen as a liberal anchor of

Foreign banks in Britain pay fraction of tax rate, by Tom Bergin Some of the biggest foreign investment and commercial banks operating in Britain paid an average tax rate of just 6 percent on the billions of dollars of profits they made in the country last year, a Reuters analysis of regulatory filings shows. That is less than a third of Britain’s corporate rate of 20 percent. There is however nothing illegal about this. Battle Ends, Bloody Syrian War Grinds On, by Laila Bassam, Angus McDowall and Stephanie Nebehay  Report Rebel resistance in the Syrian city of Aleppo ended in December after years of fighting