• UN: Saudi coalition airstrikes responsible for majority of civilian deaths in Yemen
• War Crimes in Yemen: Human Rights Watch blasts US/Saudi airstrike of Yemen funeral that killed at least 110

Few people, for example, are aware that a NSA program known as TREASUREMAP is being developed to continuously map every Internet connection — cellphones, laptops, tablets — of everyone on the planet, including Americans.

"Map the entire Internet," says the top secret NSA slide. "Any device, anywhere, all the time." It adds that the program will allow "Computer Attack/Exploit Planning" as well as "Network Reconnaissance."

As the Senate Intelligence Committee's ranking member began his opening remarks regarding the intelligence community's formal assessment that Russia attempted to interfere in the US election, the lights went out.

Senator Mark Warner (D, Virginia) continued his remarks without a microphone on Thursday morning as lawmakers, the nominee candidate Representative Mike Pompeo (R, Kentucky), reporters, and protesters sat in darkness, first reported by The Hill.

One can certainly object to Buzzfeed's decision and, as the New York Times notes this morning, many journalists are doing so. It's almost impossible to imagine a scenario where it's justifiable for a news outlet to publish a totally anonymous, unverified, unvetted document filled with scurrilous and inflammatory allegations about which its own editor-in-chief says there "is serious reason to doubt the allegations," on the ground that they want to leave it to the public to decide whether to believe it.

But even if one believes there is no such case where that is justified, yesterday's circumstances presented the most compelling scenario possible for doing this. Once CNN strongly hinted at these allegations, it left it to the public imagination to conjure up the dirt Russia allegedly had to blackmail and control Trump. By publishing these accusations, BuzzFeed ended that speculation. More importantly, it allowed everyone to see how dubious this document is, one the CIA and CNN had elevated into some sort of grave national security threat.

• 100's of US tanks and heavy equipment flows into Europe to counter 'Russian aggression' - Money for war but none for US health, education and infrastructure
• US occupation: American troops in Europe to outnumber all European troops combined