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Uprising’s guest expert Arun Gupta is a Journalist and regular contributor to the Guardian, In These Times, The Progressive, and Truthout, analyzes today’s news headlines:

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that the US has just bombed a rebel group in northwestern Syria that is not ISIS. The group called Ahrar al-Sham is associated with the Nusra Front and the US move represents an expansion of the war. Other rebel groups relying on US bombs to weaken President Bashar Al Assad were dismayed at the change in strategy. President Obama announced yesterday that he would pursue official authorization from Congress to continue the war and even to expand it. Meanwhile, mortar rounds fired at a school in a suburb of the capital Damascus killed 13 Syrian children yesterday. It is not yet known who fired the rounds. Click here for an RT.com and here for a CTV news article about the story.

Among his post-election announcements President Obama also said yesterday that he planned to take the long-anticipated executive action on immigration by the end of this year. And, he asked the lame-duck Congress to approve a $6.2 billion emergency fund to combat the Ebola crisis in West Africa where it is most needed, as well as here in the US. Some of the money would go to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while much of the rest would go to the Agency for International Development – US AID. Click here for an an Al Jazeera article, and here for an LA Times article about the story.

And finally eclipsed by the election madness yesterday were several major local wins by communities to ban the controversial practice of fracking. Denton, Texas, apparently one of the most heavily fracked cities in the US, passed a voter initiative to ban all fracking activities. The historic vote is already facing opposition by an energy group that has asked for an immediate injunction against the ban. Three counties also joined Denton in passing fracking bans: Athens, Ohio, and the California counties of Mendocino and San Benito. Click here for a Guardian newspaper article about the story.