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DC5m United States criminal in english 100 articles, created at 2016-12-26 18:02 articles set mostly negative rate -5.4

1 2.4 Pilot error, technical trouble eyed in Russian military plane crash Fragments of a plane were dragged out of the Black Sea on Monday amid a massive (14.99/15) search operation as Russian officials declared that their investigation into the crash would focus on technical faults or pilot errors � not terrorism. ... 2016-12-26 11:26 797Bytes article.wn.com

2 4.6 George Michael: How Wham! rocked China Fans who attended Wham!'s 1985 concert in Beijing have been recalling the historic (14.99/15) show following the death of George Michael on Sunday. 2016-12-26 11:10 2KB rss.cnn.com

3 5.7 Russia mourns doctor killed in Syria-bound plane crash

(9.99/15) Russia's shock over the military plane crash that killed 92 people became all the more acute when Yelizaveta Glinka, a renowned doctor and charity worker, was on the doomed flight's passenger list. 2016-12-26 11:30 4KB www.digitaljournal.com

4 5.1 Act of terror 'not at forefront' of plane crash probe The probe into the Russian plane crash that killed 92 people Sunday is not considering an act of terror as a strong possible cause of the accident, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry (8.99/15) Peskov said Monday. 2016-12-26 07:10 1KB www.digitaljournal.com

5 0.8 UN’s Ban Ki-moon to push Times Square 2017 countdown button The South Korean statesman was elected as the eighth secretary-general by the United Nations General Assembly in October 2006. Dec. 31 will be his last day in (4.21/15) office. Antonio Guterres, of … 2016-12-26 11:24 1KB lasvegassun.com

6 94.9 At Least 22 Killed in Congo Massacre More unrest in Africa More unrest in Africa 2016-12-26 11:06 2KB www.infowars.com (4.21/15)

7 2.2 Mass graves, booby traps founds as Russians, Syrians sweep Aleppo Russia's Defense Ministry says its troops have found mass graves in Syria's Aleppo with bodies showing signs of torture and mutilation. 2016-12-26 08:54 3KB (3.59/15) www.news24.com 8 11.1 Christmas typhoon destroys homes, kills 6 in Philippines A powerful typhoon that spoiled Christmas Day in parts of the Philippines, leaving at (3.37/15) least four people dead and destroying homes, roared over a congested region near Manila on Monday with slightly weaker but still-fierce winds, officials said. ... 2016-12-26 08:41 892Bytes article.wn.com

9 1.4 China's 1st Aircraft Carrier Sails Into South China Sea China's first aircraft carrier and five other warships passed by Taiwan and sailed into (3.33/15) the contested South China Sea on Monday, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said. The ships, led by the Liaoning, sailed past the Pratas Islands, also known as the Dongsha Islands, a Taiwan-controlled atoll in... 2016-12-26 06:46 3KB abcnews.go.com

10 1.4 Trump's pick for ambassador to Israel has all sides on edge NEW YORK (AP) — If President-elect Donald Trump wanted to show he planned to (3.24/15) obliterate President Barack Obama's approach to Israel, he may have found his man to deliver that message in David Friedman, his pick for U. S. ambassador. The... 2016-12-26 08:39 874Bytes article.wn.com

11 0.0 Leicester to show support for Jamie Vardy as club release 30,000 masks in protest against FA call to uphold (2.20/15) ban Leicester City have printed 30,000 Jamie Vardy masks ahead of their Boxing Day clash with Everton as the club continue to show their anger at the striker's three-match suspension. 2016-12-26 09:04 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk

12 0.0 Turkey urges air support for assault on IS-held Syria town (2.19/15) Turkey on Monday said it wanted international air support for its army's assault on the jihadist-held Syrian town of Al Bab where the military is facing toug... 2016-12-26 09:00 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk

13 2.4 Liverpool's Roberto Firmino faces Christmas Eve drink-driving charge

(2.18/15) Liverpool forward Roberto Firmino has been charged with drink-driving. 2016-12-26 11:21 1KB www.independent.ie

14 2.8 Egypt confirms producer’s arrest Reuters CAIRO (Reuters) — Egypt confirmed on Sunday that it had arrested an Al Jazeera news producer, accusing him of “provoking sedition” on behalf of the Qatar- (2.13/15) based broadcaster that it considers a mouthpiece of the banned Muslim 2016-12-26 07:45 788Bytes article.wn.com 15 3.9 Peace activists set out for Syria from Berlin _ on foot BERLIN (AP) — Several hundred peace activists have started what they say will be a months-long protest march from 2016-12-26 11:35 632Bytes article.wn.com

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16 2.8 Thai police charge man in hacking attacks on government sites BANGKOK — Police in Thailand today charged a suspect with participating in recent (2.12/15) hacking attacks on government computers that were billed as a protest against a restrictive law governing internet use. ... 2016-12-26 10:50 744Bytes article.wn.com

17 22.2 Britney Spears is 'alive and well' despite death hoax Britney Spears is alive, despite a hoax reporting her death on Monday. 2016-12-26 11:32 (2.07/15) 1KB www.cnn.com

18 1.9 As Gov. Haley Joins Trump, a Trump Supporter Succeeds Haley

(2.06/15) If South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump's pick for United Nations ambassador, her successor will be an entrenched veteran of the state's GOP who as attorney general decided not to prosecute then-Gov. Mark Sanford for his spending after his disappearance... 2016-12-26 11:18 6KB abcnews.go.com

19 3.0 Trump to Fill More Than 100 Judicial Vacancies, Reshape Courts President-elect Donald Trump will be able to reshape the judicial system once he takes

(2.06/15) office by filling an estimated 103 court vacancies, The Washington Post reports. 2016-12-26 08:26 2KB www.newsmax.com

20 4.9 PE Prison melee forces lockdown Emergency service personnel have been dispatched to St Albans Prison in Port Elizabeth following a brawl. 2016-12-26 06:23 1KB www.news24.com

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21 0.0 Sarajevo introduces transport restrictions to ease pollution (1.16/15) Sarajevo authorities have banned half of the city's cars from driving on city streets in an attempt to ease air pollution. 2016-12-26 10:04 1KB www.thenewstribune.com

22 3.9 Suicide bomber attacks market in northeast Nigeria A suicide bomber attacked a cattle market on Monday in Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria, the city worst hit by Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency, the police and a (1.11/15) witness said. ... 2016-12-26 06:28 720Bytes article.wn.com 23 10.7 Three killed, 26 injured in St Albans prison clash Three people have been killed and a further 26 injured in a clash between prisoners and wardens at the St Albans Prison in Nelson Mandela Bay. 2016-12-26 10:42 4KB www.news24.com (1.07/15)

24 5.6 13 civilians killed in DR Congo Christmas Day ethnic attack (1.06/15) A militia from DR Congo's Nande ethnic group has killed 13 civilians including a child from the Hutu community in the restive North Kivu province, an officia... 2016-12-26 09:11 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk

25 5.6 Afghan official: 1 police officer killed by car bomb blast An Afghan official says that at least one police officer has been killed after a car bomb (1.06/15) exploded near the convoy of the deputy provincial police chief of southern Helmand... 2016-12-26 07:49 716Bytes article.wn.com

26 3.2 Police: Woman charged after almost running down officer

(1.05/15) A Vermont woman is facing charges after police say she nearly ran down a police officer with her car. 2016-12-26 07:42 1KB www.washingtontimes.com

27 32.0 One dead‚ three injured in head-on collision A man was killed and three other people injured on Sunday night when two vehicles collided head-on on Curie Avenue in Bloemfontein. 2016-12-26 07:59 1KB (1.04/15) www.timeslive.co.za

28 1.8 Chinese naval movement worries Japan, Taiwan Japan alleged Monday that China violated the international maritime law when three Chinese patrol vessels trespassed into sovereign Japanese waters. The alleged (1.04/15) incursion occurred in the area off Uotsuri Island in the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea shortly after 10:30 a.m. Monday, according t... 2016-12-26 07:32 980Bytes article.wn.com

29 2.3 Christmas stabbing Uptown leaves man wounded, woman arrested, New Orleans police say A 39-year-old woman stabbed a 49-year-old man as he tried to leave an Uptown home (1.03/15) during an argument Christmas evening (Dec. 25), New Orleans police said 2016-12-26 10:59 1KB www.nola.com

30 2.6 Czech president links Europe attacks to migration wave (1.02/15) PRAGUE (AP) — The Czech president has linked recent attacks in Europe to the ongoing influx of migrants escaping war-torn, poverty-stricken countries. Milos... 2016-12-26 11:25 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk 31 2.5 Remembering Grand Rapids' president: Gerald R. Ford (1.02/15) Ten years after former President Gerald R. Ford's death, a look back at the life of one of Grand Rapids' most prominent citizens. 2016-12-26 10:30 4KB www.mlive.com

32 5.3 Man in critical condition following shooting in Mt. Clemens The Macomb County Sheriff's Office is investigating a shooting that left a man in critical (1.02/15) condition early Monday morning. 2016-12-26 10:26 1KB www.wxyz.com

33 2.1 Netanyahu seeks to rally Israelis around him in anti- Obama assault

(1.02/15) By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Benjamin Netanyahu has been unrelenting in his criticism of the Obama administration over what he condemned a... 2016-12-26 09:31 6KB www.dailymail.co.uk

34 1.9 Somalia to delay election for 4th time, official says Somalia to delay election for 4th time, official says Associated Press - 26 December 2016 06:55-05:00 News Topics: General news, Presidential elections, Voting fraud and (1.02/15) irregularities, Elections, Legislature, National elections, Government and politics, Voting People, Places... 2016-12-26 09:05 1KB article.wn.com

35 1.8 Pope Francis: Christmas Has Been ‘Kidnapped’ by Materialism Christians need to “liberate” Christmas from materialism, Pope Francis has warned, (1.02/15) since the holy feast has been “kidnapped” by worldliness. 2016-12-26 08:33 3KB feedproxy.google.com

36 4.3 Trump repeating some behaviors he criticized in Clinton Donald Trump spent the past two years attacking rival Hillary Clinton as crooked, (1.02/15) corrupt, and weak. 2016-12-26 07:59 5KB www.wral.com

37 3.0 Recounts or No, US Elections Are Still Vulnerable to Hacking Jill Stein's bid to recount votes in Pennsylvania was in trouble even before a federal

(1.02/15) judge shot it down Dec. 12. 2016-12-26 07:45 12KB www.newsmax.com

38 2.6 Liberman dubs Paris peace conference 'modern day Dreyfus trial' Speaking at an Yisrael Beytenu faction meeting, Liberman cautioned against the (1.02/15) purpose and timing of the conference, comparing it to the historical antisemitic trial. 2016-12-26 07:02 2KB www.jpost.com 39 3.8 Dozens of ISIS fighters killed in Mosul battles Irbil (CNN)Iraqi security and coalition forces have killed 97 ISIS militants in eastern and southern Mosul on Sunday, Iraq's Joint Military Command said, as the group continues (1.02/15) to defend its Iraqi bastion with suicide attacks and artillery. The militants were killed in three separate... 2016-12-26 06:30 1KB article.wn.com

40 1.9 Hundreds of thousands expected to support Boxing Day hunts (0.02/15) While supporters call for the end of the Hunting Act, the League Against Cruel Sports said many still wanted a ban in place. 2016-12-26 08:08 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk

41 2.6 Michigan drunken-driving arrests, crashes on decline, and 5 other facts

(0.01/15) The number of Michigan arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs continues to decline, as do the number of crashes linked to substance abuse, according to the Michigan State Police's 2015 Drunken Driving Audit. 2016-12-26 08:00 3KB www.mlive.com

42 1.0 Body found inside burned out home on Detroit's west side Detroit police are investigating after a body was found in a burned out home on (0.01/15) Detroit's west side. 2016-12-26 07:57 1KB www.wxyz.com

43 95.1 Man stabbed to death in eastern Pennsylvania Police are investigating a fatal stabbing in eastern Pennsylvania. 2016-12-26 07:48 868Bytes www.washingtontimes.com (0.01/15)

44 0.6 Six decapitated heads found during Christmas Day violence in Mexico Christmas Day saw no break in Mexico’s plague of drug gang-related violence, as (0.01/15) incidents reported across the worst-affected 2016-12-26 07:14 713Bytes article.wn.com

45 0.7 Four prisoners on the run after Christmas morning jailbreak in Tennessee in which six inmates fled through a hole behind a toilet A water leak behind a toilet caused a hole, and six men were able to climb through and find their way outside of the Cocke County Jail Annex in the early hours of Christmas morning. 2016-12-26 11:39 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk 46 5.7 Predator 'killed woman he met on Tinder because she refused to have sex with him and dissolved her body in acid' Emmanuel Delani Valdez Bocanegra, 26, was quizzed by police when friends and family of his victim reported her missing in Leon, central Mexico. 2016-12-26 11:38 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk

47 8.4 Limpopo abductor arrested after victim escapes A 40-year-old man has been arrested after he allegedly abducted a young girl in Makhado in Limpopo, police say. 2016-12-26 11:35 1KB www.news24.com

48 11.7 Multiple killer, rapist, former Army cook Ronald Gray again facing death penalty Multiple killer, rapist, former Army cook Ronald Gray again facing death penalty 2016-12-26 11:35 1KB www.cbsnews.com

49 2.2 Five-year-old girl battles incredibly rare and incurable condition that grinds her bones into DUST A young girl's parents have revealed that their daughter has an incurable condition which grinds her bones into dust. Leigh Sowden suffers from Langerhans' cell histiocytosis. 2016-12-26 11:33 5KB www.dailymail.co.uk

50 3.2 Homeless man set on fire in Berlin underground, police release CCTV images of suspects — RT News Seven attackers set a homeless man on fire at a Berlin subway station, police have said. The authorities are now investigating the case as an attempted murder and have released CCTV images of the suspects. 2016-12-26 11:28 2KB www.rt.com

51 88.2 Suspect In Deadly Mount Vernon Nightclub Shooting Charged With Murder Authorities say the 36-year-old suspect fired off shots near the entrance of The Mansion club around 4:30 a.m. Christmas morning. 2016-12-26 11:28 1KB newyork.cbslocal.com

52 2.5 Baby goes on transplant list at 10:15. At 10:55, a match This 5-month-old has been fighting a rare liver disorder since he was born. 2016-12-26 11:22 2KB rssfeeds.usatoday.com

53 3.1 Obama Enacts “Ministry of Truth” As Public Focuses on Holidays

Feds to Feds to "legally" crack down on First Amendment 2016-12-26 11:13 10KB www.infowars.com 54 2.0 In the Time of Trump, All We Have Is Each Other This Christmas I mourn the long, slow death of our democracy that led to the political ascendancy of Donald Trump. I fear the euphoria of those who have embraced the atavistic lust for violence and bigotry stoked by him. These nativist forces, part of the continuum... 2016-12-26 11:04 12KB www.commondreams.org

55 3.1 Experts warn ’17 to be year of ‘smart home’ hacking Of course, no surprise here Of course, no surprise here 2016-12-26 10:46 886Bytes www.infowars.com

56 1.9 EU single market membership may hamper UK trade deals — RT Business Britain should be "self-confident" about leaving the European Union, according to the Bank of England’s former governor Mervyn King. He said Brexit could be a success and could open "real opportunities" for economic reforms. 2016-12-26 10:42 2KB www.rt.com

57 2.7 Union welcomes win for SAA pilot in defamation case The Federation of Unions of SA has welcomed the court decision to award R450 000 to a former South African Airways pilot in defamation damages. 2016-12-26 10:34 4KB www.fin24.com

58 97.9 Former Fort Bragg soldier convicted of murder and rape faces execution after eight-year delay Ronald Gray, a former Fort Bragg soldier who killed four women and raped several others is headed for execution eight years after he was first scheduled to die. 2016-12-26 10:30 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk

59 93.3 2 Killed, 4 Wounded in NY Nightclub Shooting Video Police have arrested a man they say opened fire on a packed suburban New York City nightclub, killing two people and wounding four others. 2016-12-26 18:01 1KB abcnews.go.com

60 23.7 Man killed near Lakefront Airport in New Orleans Police were investigating the homicide in the 7900 block of Lamb Street, the department said. 2016-12-26 10:27 1KB www.nola.com

61 1.4 Washtenaw County court news to follow in 2017 Here's a look at court news from major incidents 2014 through 2016 that will continue into 2017. 2016-12-26 10:23 752Bytes www.mlive.com 62 0.3 GPS ankle bracelet company grows rapidly in Indianapolis A GPS ankle bracelet company is likely to grow rapidly in Indiana as authorities increasingly use tracking devices to increase compliance with pretrial release, probation or parole conditions among accused and convicted offenders. 2016-12-26 10:20 1KB www.washingtontimes.com

63 7.1 Myanmar says Muslim with links to government murdered in troubled Rakhine By Shwe Yee Saw Myint YANGON, Dec 26 (Reuters) - A man has been found dead with stab wounds in Myanmar's Rakhine State, in what the government said on Monday... 2016-12-26 10:17 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk

64 4.6 74-year-old man charged with Park Manor shooting A 74-year-old man has been charged with shooting another man Saturday night in the Park Manor neighborhood on the South Side. 2016-12-26 10:10 1KB chicago.suntimes.com

65 6.0 Las Cruces man pleads guilty to drug trafficking charges A Las Cruces man has pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking charges. 2016-12-26 10:09 1KB www.washingtontimes.com

66 2.1 Officer caught up in prostitution probe loses certification A Tucson police officer caught up in an investigation into a prostitution ring has given up his certification to serve as an officer in Arizona. 2016-12-26 10:08 1KB www.washingtontimes.com

67 0.3 Parent caught 'teaching their child to drive after being almost twice over the legal alcohol limit on Christmas Day' A parent was caught allegedly giving their child a driving lesson while drunk, blowing a blood alcohol of 0.095, almost twice the legal alcohol limit of 0.05, and was publicly shamed by WA Police. 2016-12-26 10:03 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk

68 2.4 These are the 5 craziest anti-robbery fights of 2016 2016 was a year chock-full of fighting back. From cashiers throwing hammers at robbers with guns to a little kid testing out his real-life street-fighting moves on a thief at a video game store, th… 2016-12-26 10:00 3KB nypost.com 69 2.3 In this 'weird, lost corner of America,' the beach of your dreams awaits in the remotest national park Deep in the South Pacific lies the National Park of American Samoa, a seldom-seen outpost that includes flying foxes, killer starfish, monster crabs. 2016-12-26 10:00 9KB www.latimes.com

70 1.5 Santa Monica synagogue smeared with feces and food during Hanukkah It was an unsettling start to Hanukkah as Rabbi Boruch Rabinowitz arrived at the Living Torah Center Chabad to find an act of vandalism on the front door. 2016-12-26 09:58 3KB www.aol.com

71 1.2 Drexel Condemns Professor As “Utterly Reprehensible” For Calling For “White Genocide,” Orders Him To Meeting

RELATED - Professor At Drexel University Tweets: 2016-12-26 16:30 2KB www.patdollard.com

72 1.2 History Suggests Left’s #CalExit Secession Movement is Doomed The "CalExit" leftists who want California to secede from the Union have a tough history to face: no such effort has ever succeeded. 2016-12-26 09:47 1KB feedproxy.google.com

73 3.3 Cafeteria manager jailed for insulting Turkey's Erdogan, lawyer says By Humeyra Pamuk ISTANBUL, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Turkish authorities have arrested the cafeteria manager of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper for insulting th... 2016-12-26 09:41 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk

74 2.2 Mom arrested for drunk driving handed son sippy cup filled with wine when pulled over Elizabeth Louise Floyd, 27, handed her five-year-old son a sippy cup filled with wine when police pulled her over in Loveland, Ohio, on Friday. She was arrested for drunk driving. 2016-12-26 09:38 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk

75 2.3 Teenager's parents report their own 18-year-old DAUGHTER for drink-driving after she gave her friend a lift home from a night out Shannon Downie, 18, of Aberdeenshire, was banned from driving for a year and fined £400 after her parents saw her driving after a night out drinking and tipped off the police. 2016-12-26 09:29 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk 76 1.3 Palestinian protesters dressed as Father Christmas are tear gassed by Israeli troops Palestinian protesters dressed as Father Christmas were tear gassed by the Israeli Army as fights broke out in Bethlehem yesterday. 2016-12-26 09:20 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk

77 0.0 Kyron Horman's stepmother arrested for 'driving stolen vehicle after boyfriend obtained restraining order' Terri Horman was stopped by police and taken into custody after she was caught in Belvedere, a wealthy suburb of San Francisco, just before 1:30pm on Friday. 2016-12-26 09:17 6KB www.dailymail.co.uk

78 1.9 Plenty of space for a spot of naked horseriding! Estate where Lady Godiva once lived goes on sale for £3million - complete with ten bedrooms, a tennis court and even its own CHURCH The estate once belonging to Lady Godiva in Belbroughton, near Coventry, is up for sale for £3million in its current state as Bell Hall, a Victorian grand gentleman's estate. 2016-12-26 09:08 5KB www.dailymail.co.uk

79 0.9 U. N. Security Council condemns Israeli settlements after the U. S. sits out the vote – and Trump vows 'things will be different' after he's in office The U. S. has consistently vetoed such measures but President Barack Obama decided to abstain, allowing it to pass. Donald Trump pledged on Twitter: 'As to the U. N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.' 2016-12-26 09:07 7KB www.dailymail.co.uk

80 1.4 Trump weighs in on UN vote, nuke arsenal NBC News' Hallie Jackson reports on the Trump team's response to the UN settlement vote, Trump's Friday tweet about an arms race and Jason Miller's decision not to take a WH job. 2016-12-26 08:05 744Bytes www.msnbc.com

81 2.5 No 72 virgins in heaven for you pal: Jihadi dad who turned his young daughter into a suicide bomber and blew her up in a Damascus police station is dead A jihadi father who used his seven-year-old daughter as a suicide bomber in Syria and was shown on a video sending her off to her death has now met his own end. 2016-12-26 09:04 4KB www.dailymail.co.uk 82 0.0 Russian Aim to Improve Nuclear Forces Logical Amid US Alarming Policy - Lawmaker Russian steps toward improving nuclear technology is a logical step in light of Washington's disquieting move to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that may threaten global security, French lawmaker and member of the legislative defense committee Nicolas Dhuicq told Sputnik. ... 2016-12-26 08:56 950Bytes article.wn.com

83 0.9 Italian president attends the funeral of Berlin Christmas market massacre victim as her heartbroken family lay her to rest Relatives carried Fabrizia di Lorenzo's coffin during the service at Sulmona Cathedral, in Italy today in the presence of President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella and Interior Minister Marco Minnit. 2016-12-26 08:54 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk

84 0.4 Insane Clown Posse fan faces prison after he 'chopped his friend's pinky off with machete' An Insane Clown Posse fan in Wisconsin faces more than 12 years in prison after he chopped off a friend's pinky and drank her blood in a 'ritualistic memorial' for a fallen Juggalo. 2016-12-26 08:52 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk

85 3.8 8 sentences by Muskegon County Circuit Court's William Marietti

The following people were sentenced on Monday, Dec. 19, 2016. 2016-12-26 08:41 1KB www.mlive.com

86 0.0 Our secret weapon against the populist right in 2017 is hope Political misery stands before us, but there is cause for optimism. Now is the time to ask for more 2016-12-26 08:39 6KB www.theguardian.com

87 1.9 Hungarian PM urges Brussels to change after Berlin attack — RT News Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has called on Brussels to protect Europe’s borders from illegal immigration in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack in Berlin, but European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker prefers to rely on European values. 2016-12-26 08:38 3KB www.rt.com

88 0.8 Cat playfully slaps puppy along face as he tries to rest on a bed This is the charming moment a cat playfully slaps a small puppy across the face as the dog attempts to relax in a bed before it retreats under the covers to escape from the assault. 2016-12-26 08:30 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk 89 1.2 Inside Burma's Chin tribe where women wear huge earrings and face tattoos as part of a tradition 'to make them so ugly they wouldn't be kidnapped' High in the mountains of Myanmar lives the Chin tribe whose women still bear the scars of a 'barbaric' ancient tradition. They were tattooed to prevent them from being kidnapped. 2016-12-26 08:26 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk

90 1.7 Serbia arrests three after 77 migrants found hidden in vehicles BELGRADE, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Serbian authorities arrested three men on suspicion of people trafficking after 77 migrants were found hidden in cargo vehicles,... 2016-12-26 08:22 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk

91 3.3 In a city already on edge, Detroit police raid on blind pig ignites 1967 riot In the summer of 1967, police confrontations with black residents added to racial tensions in Detroit. 2016-12-26 08:17 11KB rssfeeds.freep.com

92 4.3 Longtime Des Moines church treasurer charged with theft A woman who’d watched over the money of a Des Moines church for the past 15 years has been accused of stealing from it. 2016-12-26 08:12 1KB www.washingtontimes.com

93 3.9 Japan, US Set To Sign Pact To Limit US Base Worker Immunity Japan and the US have agreed in principle on guidelines for limiting immunity from Japanese prosecution for civilian workers at American military bases, following a murder case this year on a southern... 2016-12-26 08:11 729Bytes article.wn.com

94 0.0 Protest like your basic rights depend on it – because power is taken, never given The arc of change may be long, but we must keep fighting. Shared values can build momentum, shift culture and even influence policy over time 2016-12-26 08:00 5KB www.theguardian.com

95 1.0 Bring on the street vendors: They'll make L. A. a better walking city City officials are at long last moving forward with plans to make street vending lawful in Los Angeles. It’s simply perverse to make criminals out of the entrepreneurial poor, so this advance in economic liberty is worthwhile as an end in itself. But there’s a side benefit... 2016-12-26 08:00 4KB www.latimes.com 96 2.1 British futurist in charge of US cryogenic facility reveals plans to freeze his own head

"The rest of my body is replaceable". 2016-12-26 07:46 1KB www.infowars.com

97 2.7 Israel ministers approve bill to remove online 'incitement' Israeli ministers have approved a bill that would allow a court to order sites such as Facebook and YouTube to remove material found to be 2016-12-26 07:45 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk

98 3.2 2 escape uninjured after 'hard landing' in Stellenbosch Two occupants of a helicopter have escaped uninjured after a hard landing in Stellenbosch, paramedics say. 2016-12-26 07:43 804Bytes www.news24.com

99 1.3 Fragile new Ukraine truce holds for third day A new indefinite truce in Ukraine held by a thread for a third day Monday as both pro- Russian insurgents and Kiev reported clashes near a prized railroad hub but no deaths. 2016-12-26 07:40 3KB www.digitaljournal.com

100 2.8 Two men shot in the face with a shotgun in home raid - as police hunt fugitives Two men were shot in the face with a shotgun as three people stormed a rural home in Pimpama on the Gold Coast. One man was arrested a police are hunting two others. Victims are in stable conditions. 2016-12-26 07:31 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk Articles

DC5m United States criminal in english 100 articles, created at 2016-12-26 18:02

1 /100 2.4 Pilot error, technical trouble eyed in Russian military plane crash (14.99/15) Fragments of a plane were dragged out of the Black Sea on Monday amid a massive search operation as Russian officials declared that their investigation into the crash would focus on technical faults or pilot errors � not terrorism. ...

Crashed Russian jet fragments pulled from Black Sea, investigation ongoing abc7news.com

Crashed jet fragments pulled Russia hunts for crashed Russia examines all ‘Terrorist act’ not among from Black Sea jet's black boxes, says no possible reasons for Black prime theories for Black Sea wral.com signs of foul play Sea jet crash plane crash dailymail.co.uk article.wn.com article.wn.com

Divers find Russian airplane Officials: No Signs Of Terror CAIR LA Director Tweets fragments in the Black Sea Plot In Russian Plane Crash Wish for Twice the Dead in nypost.com Over Black Sea Russian Plane Crash newyork.cbslocal.com feedproxy.google.com

2016-12-26 11:26 system article.wn.com

2 /100 (14.99/15) 4.6 George Michael: How Wham! rocked China Michael -- together with his music partner Andrew Ridgeley -- became the first western pop act to perform in China after 18-months of successful negotiations between the Chinese government and Wham's agent, Simon Napier-Bell. Author Lu Jun, who was one of the 15,000 people at Wham!'s Worker's Gymnasium concert in Beijing in April 1985, recalled to CNN that the audience was "calm" and restrained," while foreign visitors were jumping up and down in time with the music.

Lu said police would stop the Chinese spectators from behaving in an "overexcited" manner, but they turned a blind eye to foreigners.

'Cultural exchange'

Mao Danqing, then a student a Peking University, recalled the concert as being "like a cultural exchange activity. "

"Before Wham! came to China, the Chinese stage performance was very artificial and unnatural," Mao, now living in Japan, told CNN.

READ: World pays tribute to global superstar

"I had never watched such a concert before. How could the music, the sound and the people perform in that way? "

Both men remained fans of Wham! and Michael's solo work and both said the concert had a long-standing impact on their lives.

Lu, recalls it being such a rare occurrence that many people "felt desperate to hear music from outside. "

"People began to change, they wore jeans," he said.

"The music opened people's minds and subconsciously freed a generation. "

'Heart shaking'

Mao recalled the "heart shaking" feeling Wham! gave him and his friends.

"Wham! was special," Mao told CNN. "They are elements of China's reform.

"During the mid-1980s, many foreign movies, novels and music were introduced to China without any preparation for people. They just suddenly showed up.

"Wham! was symbolic of more a lifestyle as opposed to just music. They represented freedom, enthusiasm and passion, natural and unrestrained," he said.

"That's the lifestyle every Chinese young person was trying to imitate in college at that time. Wham! represented enlightenment in China at that time. " George Michael 'rekindled 30 years a star: George Wham!'s influence felt in The world pays tribute to close friendship with Kenny Michael’s biggest moments China after landmark 1985 George Michael Goss' before his death myfox8.com concert pagesix.com dailymail.co.uk article.wn.com

George Michael had his own George Michael helped put WATCH: The Life and George Michael: rare cultural revolution in China 'Carpool Karaoke' on the Death of George Michael authenticity in the dailymail.co.uk map article.wn.com manufactured music money.cnn.com industry cnn.com

2016-12-26 11:10 Mengchen Zhang rss.cnn.com

3 /100 5.7 Russia mourns doctor killed in Syria-bound plane crash

(9.99/15) Russia's shock over the military plane crash that killed 92 people became all the more acute when Yelizaveta Glinka, a renowned doctor and charity worker, was on the doomed flight's passenger list.

The diminutive 54-year-old woman, affectionately known as "Dr. Liza", had boarded the same military flight to Syria as more than 60 members of the famed Red Army Choir, who were on their way to entertain troops stationed at the Hmeimim base Moscow uses to launch airstrikes in the war-scarred country.

But Glinka's objective was neither musical nor military. She was on a mission to deliver medication to a university hospital in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia.

Since Sunday's crash Muscovites have been laying flowers and candles in front of the headquarters of Fair Aid, the charity she founded in 2007 to care for the homeless, terminally-ill patients and abandoned pensioners in Russia which often offers little support to vulnerable social groups.

"She didn't live her life in vain because she did a lot of good," said 48-year-old Anna, weeping as she laid flowers on the organisation's doorstep in central Moscow. Glinka's death sparked a national outpouring of grief that spanned the political spectrum, with the defence ministry, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and the opposition-friendly mayor of the Urals city of Yekaterinburg pledging to rename a medical facility in her honour.

But unlike the Red Army Choir, Glinka was not known internationally, humbly building her reputation as a selfless worker by assisting Russia's underprivileged.

- 'Heaven-sent virtue' -

After graduating from medical school in Moscow in 1986, Glinka and her husband Gleb emigrated to the United States where she studied palliative care.

She later returned to Russia and also lived for some time in neighbouring Ukraine, where she founded a hospice affiliated with a Kiev oncology clinic.

In Moscow she is mostly remembered for feeding, clothing and providing medical care to the homeless people who sleep in the Russian capital's sprawling train stations.

"Liza Glinka helped the people that everyone turned away," human rights activist and opposition journalist Zoya Svetova, who knew Glinka, told AFP.

"Few organisations are ready to help the homeless at train stations. "

When fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Glinka -- who was also a member of the Kremlin's human rights council -- travelled to the war zone to provide emergency care to children injured as a result of the conflict. She told Russian media in July that she had evacuated 446 children from the area since the start of the fighting and taken them to Russia to undergo medical treatment.

Glinka had travelled to Syria earlier this year where she visited a local hospital and saw it was severely lacking in medicine.

"To save the lives of others, that was her mission everywhere: in Russia, in Donbass (eastern Ukraine), Syria," the head of the Kremlin human rights council, Mikhail Fedotov, said in a statement Sunday, calling Glinka "a miracle, a heaven-sent message of virtue. "

- 'Stronger than any weapon' -

But some have criticised the doctor, even after her death, for working around conflicts many say have been exacerbated by President Vladimir Putin's policies.

"This shows us that our society is split between those who support Putin and those who don't," Svetova said. "There is no middle ground, and that's dangerous. "

The journalist added that Glinka, who had received a humanitarian award from Putin this year, cooperated with the Kremlin because "without it, she wouldn't have been able to do anything. "

"We are never sure that we will return alive," Glinka said upon receiving the award, referring to her travels in conflict zones.

"But we are sure that good, compassion and mercy are stronger than any weapon. " Act of terror `not at Russia mourns 92 killed in CAIR LA Director Tweets Russia: Focus is on faults, forefront` of plane crash plane crash Wish for Twice the Dead in not terror, in plane crash probe: Kremlin article.wn.com Russian Plane Crash probe article.wn.com feedproxy.google.com article.wn.com

The Latest: Pope prays for Parts of crashed Russian Russia Discounts Likelihood Russia: Focus Is on Faults the Russian plane crash plane found in Black Sea of Terrorism in Black Sea in Plane Crash Probe Video victims digitaljournal.com Plane Crash abcnews.go.com article.wn.com article.wn.com

2016-12-26 11:30 www.digitaljournal.com

4 /100 5.1 Act of terror 'not at forefront' of plane crash probe

(8.99/15) The probe into the Russian plane crash that killed 92 people Sunday is not considering an act of terror as a strong possible cause of the accident, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.

"All possible versions are being looked into and it's too early to say anything with certainty, but as you know, the version of an act of terror is by far not at the forefront," Peskov told journalists.

Thousands of rescuers were searching for bodies in the Black Sea as Russia marked a day of mourning Monday following the crash of a Syria-bound military plane.

The Tu-154 jet, whose passengers included more than 60 members of the internationally- renowned Red Army Choir who were heading to entertain Russian troops in Syria for the New Year, went down off the resort city of Sochi shortly after take-off Sunday. ‘Terrorist act’ not among Act of terror `not at Russia: Focus is on faults, Russia Discounts Likelihood prime theories for Black Sea forefront` of plane crash not terror, in plane crash of Terrorism in Black Sea plane crash probe: Kremlin probe Plane Crash article.wn.com article.wn.com article.wn.com article.wn.com

Russia Rules Out Terrorism Russian Transport Minister The Latest: Russia: No sign Moscow says terrorism as Cause of Plane Crash says terrorism not likely the of terror plot in plane crash likely not behind military article.wn.com cause of plane crash article.wn.com plane crash article.wn.com cbsnews.com

2016-12-26 07:10 www.digitaljournal.com

5 /100 0.8 UN’s Ban Ki-moon to push Times Square 2017 countdown button (4.21/15) Associated Press

Monday, Dec. 26, 2016 | 7:24 a.m.

NEW YORK — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will perform one last ceremonial duty before ending his 10-year leadership of the world body.

Organizers of the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration announced Monday that Ban will push the Waterford crystal button to begin the official 60-second countdown to 2017.

The South Korean statesman was elected as the eighth secretary-general by the United Nations General Assembly in October 2006. Dec. 31 will be his last day in office. Antonio Guterres, of Portugal, will take over on Jan. 1.

Times Square Alliance head Tim Tompkins praised Ban's legacy of "bringing people and nations together, supporting refugee relief efforts and opposing war. "

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to watch the ball drop at midnight Saturday in Times Square. UN's Ban Ki-Moon To Push UN chief to push Times UN's Ban Ki-moon to push UN's Ban Ki-Moon to Push Times Square 2017 Square 2017 countdown Times Square 2017 Times Square 2017 Countdown Button button countdown button Countdown Button article.wn.com independent.ie thenewstribune.com abcnews.go.com

2016-12-26 11:24 Associated Press lasvegassun.com

6 /100 (4.21/15) 94.9 At Least 22 Killed in Congo Massacre At least 22 civilians have been killed in a massacre in Democratic Republic of Congo and the death toll is likely to rise.

The violence broke out in the town of Eringeti in North Kivu province, AFP reports. Regional official Amisi Kalonda blamed the most recent deaths on Alllied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels.

The ADF, a rebel group dominated by Ugandan Muslims and thought to be allied with Al- Shabab, poured into the town December 24.

“Yesterday, they killed 10 civilians. Twelve other bodies were found (Sunday) in the surrounding villages,” Kalonda said. The victims had been killed with knives or machetes, he said, an ADF hallmark.

A Catholic priest in the area told AFP there had been 27 deaths and the toll could rise “if bodies are found in the forest” surrounding the town. While officials are blaming the ADF, other reports suggest that other groups, including elements of the Congolese army, may have taken part.

A Congolese army spokesman confirmed the attacks, calling the civilian toll “very heavy,” but noting that the army had “killed four ADF rebels,” according to Al Jazeera.

Hundreds have been hacked to death in the area around Beni, the regional hub of North Kivu, since 2014, with Congolese authorities and the UN mission in the region unable to do much to protect civilians.

A source told AFP another attack was underway the evening of December 25 in the town of Oicha. An army spokesman would only say that troops were engaged in an operation in the area.

The latest bloodshed comes at a moment of political tension in the country. President Joseph Kabila and his supporters have been engaged in a standoff with opponents over his refusal to call an election or step down, despite his term ending December 20.

Kabila has been in power since 2001.

On December 24, opposition leaders announced that Kabila had agreed to step down by the end of 2017 and that the constitution would not be altered to allow him to run for a third term, but not before more than two dozen were killed and many more arrested during demonstrations earlier in the week against Kabila and his refusal to let go of power.

The final deal has apparently not yet been signed.

Rebels blamed for killing 25 DR Congo troops killed 10 Rebels Blamed for Killing 25 Militia attacks kill 34 Congo with machetes in Congo soldiers from Burundi With Machetes in Congo civilians thenewstribune.com dailymail.co.uk abcnews.go.com article.wn.com

2016-12-26 11:06 - www.infowars.com

7 /100 2.2 Mass graves, booby traps founds as Russians, Syrians sweep Aleppo (3.59/15) Beirut — Russia's Defense Ministry said on Monday that its troops had found mass graves in Syria's Aleppo with bodies showing signs of torture and mutilation.

Dozens of bodies have been uncovered, according to Ministry spokesman Major General

Igor Konashenkov. He said some bore gunshot wounds.

While the Syrian war is now largely fought with mortars, tanks, and air power, death has come at close quarters as well. Human rights observers and the media have recorded numerous examples of massacres and organised torture, perpetrated by the government, opposition, and ISIS.

The Russian Air Force has helped Syrian President Bashar Assad and its allies to capture Aleppo, Syria's largest city, after weeks of a siege. Russia has since dispatched military police to the city.

Konashenkov also accused rebels, who controlled eastern Aleppo before they were pushed out earlier this month, of laying multiple booby traps and mines across town, endangering the civilian population.

The

Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers information on the conflict through local contacts, said on Sunday that at least 63 Syrian soldiers and militiamen had been killed by such booby traps in east Aleppo since the government took control of it from rebels last Thursday. The

Observatory said the victims were a mix of demining personnel and soldiers or militiamen looting the districts.

As

Russian and Syrian forces secured and consolidated eastern Aleppo, Syrian president Bashar Assad was showing signs of increasing confidence in his position.

On

Sunday, Assad visited a Christian orphanage near the capital Damascus to mark

Christmas.

Photographs posted on the Syrian presidency's Facebook page showed Assad along with his wife, Asma, standing with nuns and orphans in the Damascus suburb of Sednaya.

In the northern city of Aleppo, Christians celebrated Christmas for the first time in four years with the country's largest city now under full control of government forces.

The rebel withdrawal from east Aleppo last week marked Assad's biggest victory since Syria's crisis began in 2011.

Christians, one of the largest religious minorities at about 10 percent of Syria's pre-war

23 million-strong population, have tried to stay on the sidelines of the conflict. However, the opposition's increasingly outspoken Islamism has kept many leaning toward Assad's government.

Mass graves, booby traps Mass graves, booby traps Russians find mass graves Mass graves found in found in Aleppo as Russians as Russians, Syrians sweep of Syrians in Aleppo, says eastern Aleppo, Russia and Syrians sweep city Aleppo Russia's defence ministry claims article.wn.com article.wn.com independent.ie article.wn.com

The Latest: Russia says Mass graves of tortured mass graves found in civilians found in Aleppo – eastern Aleppo Russian MoD — RT News article.wn.com rt.com

2016-12-26 08:54 www.news24.com

8 /100 11.1 Christmas typhoon destroys homes, kills 6 in Philippines (3.37/15) A powerful typhoon that spoiled Christmas Day in parts of the Philippines, leaving at least four people dead and destroying homes, roared over a congested region near Manila on Monday with slightly weaker but still-fierce winds, officials said. ... Deadly typhoon rips through northern Philippines nypost.com

Typhoon kills 6, spoils Christmas festivities in Philippines latimes.com

Typhoon Nock-Ten kills 6 in Christmas typhoon leaves Typhoon Nock-ten strands the Philippines; 380,000 three dead in Philippines thousands in Philippines abandon Christmas article.wn.com rss.cnn.com celebrations for shelters article.wn.com

2016-12-26 08:41 system article.wn.com

9 /100 1.4 China's 1st Aircraft Carrier Sails Into South China Sea

(3.33/15) China's first aircraft carrier and five other warships passed by Taiwan and sailed into the contested South China Sea on Monday, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said.

The ships, led by the Liaoning, sailed past the Pratas Islands, also known as the Dongsha Islands, a Taiwan-controlled atoll in the northern part of the South China Sea, according to the ministry.

China's Defense Ministry said Saturday that the Liaoning had set off for a routine open-sea exercise in the Western Pacific as part of its annual training. But its entering into the politically sensitive South China Sea follows rising tensions between Beijing and Taipei over the status of the self-ruled island.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has refused to endorse Beijing's concept that Taiwan is a part of China. Beijing claims the self-governing island as its own territory and says failing to endorse the one-China principle would destabilize relations.

The Taiwanese ministry said the Liaoning and warships had on Sunday sailed 90 nautical miles south of Taiwan in the Bashi Channel, a waterway between Taiwan and the Philippines .

Tensions have mounted in the South China Sea, where the U. S. and China accuse each other of engaging in a dangerous military buildup. China claims nearly all of the sea and is pitted against smaller neighbors in multiple disputes over islands, coral reefs and lagoons.

The U. S.-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative think tank said this month that satellite imagery showed China building large anti-aircraft guns on artificial islands in the contested waters, where China has also laid airstrips, built communications facilities and deployed suspected missiles.

China has characterized its moves as defensive in nature and accused U. S. warships of making provocative passes through the region.

The Liaoning, commissioned by the Chinese navy in 2012, first sailed to the South China Sea in 2013, when it docked at a navy base near the Chinese holiday resort of Sanya. The vessel at the time was not outfitted with a full aircraft complement.

China’s 1st aircraft carrier China's 1st aircraft carrier Chinese aircraft carrier, 5 sails into South China Sea sails into South China Sea warships pass Taiwan on article.wn.com mynorthwest.com way to S. China Sea drills — RT News rt.com

2016-12-26 06:46 By abcnews.go.com

10 /100 1.4 Trump's pick for ambassador to Israel has all sides on edge (3.24/15) NEW YORK (AP) — If President-elect Donald Trump wanted to show he planned to obliterate President Barack Obama 's approach to Israel , he may have found his man to deliver that message in David Friedman , his pick for U. S. ambassador . PSC calls for immediate recall of SA ambassador to Israel timeslive.co.za

Israel: humbled Netanyahu places hopes in Trump article.wn.com

Trump’s pick for Trump's Pick for Donald Trump's Pick For ambassador to Israel has all Ambassador to Israel Has Ambassador To Israel Has sides on edge All Sides on Edge All Sides On Edge lasvegassun.com newsmax.com article.wn.com

2016-12-26 08:39 system article.wn.com

11 /100 0.0 Leicester to show support for Jamie Vardy as club release 30,000 masks in protest against FA call to uphold ban (2.20/15) Vardy was sent off at Stoke on December 17 for a two-footed challenge on Mame Biram Diouf, with referee Craig Pawson deeming the foul reckless enough to warrant a straight red. West Ham on New Year's Eve as well as the trip to Middlesbrough on January 2 - and with the club clearly infuriated by the verdict, Vardy masks will be on each home seat inside the King Power Stadium for the visit of Everton. The protest comes after Leicester chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha had described the decision to reject Vardy's appeal as 'unfair'. Srivaddhanaprabha said via his Instagram account: 'I am so sorry for the unfair judgement of referee to Vardy and more sorry that our appeal was rejected. This kind of judgement distort the charming of English Premier. 'I spend a lot of time and effort to make my beloved LCFC a success, but this incident made me feel dispirit from football. 'Anyway, we move on now and it's time that we need to be unity together and cheer up (louder than before) to our team no matter what happen, we are fearless and never quit!' The FA's verdict will come as a blow to Leicester boss Claudio Ranieri and his side as they struggle to live up to the expectations as defending Premier League champions. The Foxes have won only four of their opening 17 league games of the campaign and are just three points above the relegation zone. Vardy will be available again for the FA Cup third-round tie against the Toffees at Goodison Park on January 7.

Leicester fans given Jamie Leicester hands out Jamie Vardy masks as forward Vardy masks in protest starts three-match ban charlotteobserver.com article.wn.com

2016-12-26 09:04 Matt Barlow www.dailymail.co.uk

12 /100 0.0 Turkey urges air support for assault on IS-held Syria town (2.19/15) Turkey on Monday said it wanted international air support for its army's assault on the jihadist-held Syrian town of Al Bab where the military is facing tough resistance from Islamic State (IS) extremists. Turkish forces have for weeks joined pro- Ankara Syrian rebels in fierce fighting for Al Bab, taking increasing casualties as they approach closer to the centre. Turkey is part of the US-led coalition against IS jihadists in Syria and lets Western war planes use its Incirlik air base as a hub for air raids. "As for our operations in Al Bab, the international coalition should assume its responsibilities, especially where air support is concerned," presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in televised comments in Ankara. "The weather conditions can sometimes entail delays," Kalin acknowledged. "But the absence of air support when there is no valid reason is unacceptable," he added. The US and its allies have been conducting their own air strikes against IS targets in Syria but there have been no reports of them specifically aiding the Turkish operation. Turkey at the weekend deployed more tanks and artillery to the border and also has sent 500 elite commandos to Al Bab in readiness for a final fight for the town, reports said. A Britain-based monitoring group has accused Turkey of killing 88 civilians in air strikes on Al- Bab. However the army has unequivocally denied such claims. Thirty-six Turkish soldiers have died so far in the operation inside Syria -- dubbed Euphrates Shield -- since it was launched on August 24. Islamic State jihadists last week circulated a video purportedly showing two Turkish soldiers captured by the extremists in Syria being burned alive. The authenticity of the video cannot be confirmed and Turkey's leadership has made no mention of the images. Turkey's Defence Minister Fikri Isik has said three Turkish soldiers are being held by IS, without giving further detail. The issue was evoked at Kalin's televised news conference but the spokesman did not give any comment. Users in Turkey had reported severe problems with social media after the video emerged. However by Monday access to Twitter was fully restored after three days of disruption.

The Latest: Turkey wants The Latest: Turkey Wants Turkey asks US-led coalition Turkey asks U.S.-led more air support from More Air Support From for air support at Syria’s al- coalition for air support at coalition Coalition Bab Syria's al-Bab article.wn.com abcnews.go.com article.wn.com dailymail.co.uk

2016-12-26 09:00 Afp www.dailymail.co.uk

13 /100 2.4 Liverpool's Roberto Firmino faces Christmas Eve drink-driving charge (2.18/15) Liverpool forward Roberto Firmino has been charged with drink-driving.

Merseyside Police said the Brazilian star was stopped by police in Liverpool city centre on Christmas Eve.

He is expected to appear in court next month.

A force spokesman said: " Merseyside Police has charged a 25-year-old man with drink-driving after his car was stopped in Liverpool city centre in the early hours of Saturday.

"Roberto Firmino, from Liverpool, will appear at Liverpool City magistrates' court on Tuesday, January 31, 2016. "

The footballer signed for Liverpool in 2015 for £29million. He had previously played for German side Hoffenheim. Liverpool footballer Roberto Liverpool star Firmino Liverpool star Roberto Liverpool star Roberto Firmino faces drink-driving charged with drink driving Firmino charged with drink Firmino charged with drink charge article.wn.com driving after being pulled driving on Christmas Eve dailymail.co.uk over on Christmas Eve article.wn.com dailymail.co.uk

2016-12-26 11:21 Press Association www.independent.ie

14 /100 (2.13/15) 2.8 Egypt confirms producer’s arrest Reuters CAIRO (Reuters) — Egypt confirmed on Sunday that it had arrested an Al Jazeera news producer, accusing him of “provoking sedition” on behalf of the Qatar-based broadcaster that it considers a mouthpiece of the banned Muslim

Al-Jazeera says Egypt holds producer on 'fabricated charges' article.wn.com

Al-Jazeera Says Egypt Al-Jazeera says Egypt holds Holds Producer on producer on ‘fabricated 'Fabricated Charges' charges’ abcnews.go.com wtop.com

2016-12-26 07:45 system article.wn.com

15 /100 3.9 Peace activists set out for Syria from Berlin _ on foot

(2.12/15) BERLIN (AP) — Several hundred peace activists have started what they say will be a months- long protest march from Berlin to war-ravaged Syria to urge an end to the fighting there. Peace activists set out for Syria from Berlin on foot article.wn.com

Peace Activists Set out for Syria From Berlin _ on Foot abcnews.go.com

'We are all human': Demonstrators demanding peace in Syria begin 1,800- mile march from Berlin to Aleppo dailymail.co.uk

2016-12-26 11:35 Aleppo article.wn.com

16 /100 2.8 Thai police charge man in hacking attacks on government sites (2.12/15) BANGKOK — Police in Thailand today charged a suspect with participating in recent hacking attacks on government computers that were billed as a protest against a restrictive law governing internet use. ...

Thai police charge man in hacking attacks on gov't sites article.wn.com Thai Police Charge Man in Thai police charge man in Hacking Attacks on Gov't hacking attacks on gov’t Sites sites abcnews.go.com wtop.com

2016-12-26 10:50 system article.wn.com

17 /100 22.2 Britney Spears is 'alive and well' despite death hoax

(2.07/15) Sony Music's Twitter account, which was apparently hacked, posted two tweets claiming Spears had died, "RIP @britneyspears #RIPBritney 1981-2016" and "Britney spears is dead by accident! We will tell you more soon #RIPBritney. "

The tweets have since been deleted.

Spears' rep was quick to tell CNN that the pop star was alive.

"I assume their account has been hacked," Spears' manager, Adam Leber, told CNN. "I haven't spoken to anyone... as of yet but I am certain their account was hacked. Britney is fine and well. There have been a few Internet clowns over the years who have made similar claims about her death, but never from the official Sony Music Twitter account. "

Sony Music's Global Head of Communications, Liz Young told CNN repeatedly she had "no comment. "

The official Twitter account of Bob Dylan may also have been affected by a hack. It tweeted "Rest in peace @britneyspears" at around the same time as the tweets from the Sony account.

At least one media outlet rushed to post the "news" before finding out whether it was really true. Mirror Online, in the United Kingdom, published an article that began, "Britney Spears is dead, according to Sony Music," before noting near the bottom, "However, it does seem the Sony Twitter account has been hacked. " The article was later updated to make clear that the story was a hoax.

CNN's Cheri Mossburg contributed reporting. Britney Spears victimized by Sony Music forced to clarify Twitter hoax claiming she that Britney Spears is alive had died dailymail.co.uk myfox8.com

2016-12-26 11:32 Chloe Melas www.cnn.com

18 /100 1.9 As Gov. Haley Joins Trump, a Trump Supporter Succeeds Haley (2.06/15) If South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump's pick for United Nations ambassador, her successor will be an entrenched veteran of the state's GOP who as attorney general decided not to prosecute then-Gov. Mark Sanford for his spending after his disappearance to rendezvous with his mistress.

Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster, a 69-year-old known for his ability to disagree affably, would get the job he's long wanted in the governorship. His leadership offers a sharp contrast in style if not in substance from Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants and the nation's youngest governor at 44, who hasn't hesitated to publicly bash legislators who differed with her.

McMaster also was the nation's first statewide officeholder to back Trump for president, in an endorsement before the state's first-in-the-South presidential primary. The move stunned political observers, but McMaster's support never wavered, despite Democrats' calls to withdraw it.

He told The Associated Press last month he never regretted the endorsement.

"No ma'am, the more it went on, the more confident I was he was the man for the job," he said in his characteristic, genteel drawl. He's revealed little about what he would do as governor, and his office said he wasn't available for an interview.

But as a savvy political insider, McMaster has forged strong relationships statewide.

He's "a commonsense conservative — very reasonable, never abrasive," said House Judiciary Chairman Greg Delleney, R-Chester. "He's a realist, and he's a gentleman, and I think he's going to work with the General Assembly to get things done. "

Legislators hope McMaster's entry could finally lead to passage of a comprehensive road- funding bill. Haley's threats to veto anything with a gas tax increase stymied efforts for years.

Questioned by reporters after a meeting earlier this month, McMaster said, "We will make progress, great progress," but gave no specifics.

In the 2010 GOP primary, Haley trounced McMaster and two other better-known men partly by running against the "good ol' boy" network. Yet days after taking a 32-percentage-point beating, McMaster endorsed Haley with an exuberant "I'm all in! " and has been a close ally since. Beyond campaigning with her statewide, he arranged a series of private meetings between Haley and skeptical business leaders a week after she publicly chided the state Chamber of Commerce as a fan of bailouts and corporate welfare.

Bakari Sellers, a Democrat who lost to McMaster in the 2014 lieutenant governor's race, contends McMaster "exemplifies the good ol' boy network in South Carolina. "

"Henry's been around a very long time. He's the status quo," said Sellers, a former state House member. "Courageous and visionary are not adjectives you use to describe Henry McMaster. "

Other longtime political adversaries applaud McMaster's impending move.

"Henry is somebody who wants to do the right thing and move the state forward," said former state Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian, who's not one to pull punches. "If a good ol' boy means somebody who remembers his friends and has a genial approach to governing, then I would take that as a compliment. He's not going to rant and rave and pick fights. He's not going to denigrate people publicly. "

McMaster began his political career in 1973 as an aide to then-U. S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. He led the state Republican Party for 10 years, while the GOP took control of the Legislature.

He frequently boasts of being President Ronald Reagan's first appointment for U. S. attorney in 1981 and launched "Operation Jackpot," an investigation into international drug smuggling that resulted in more than 100 convictions.

As state attorney general, he created a task force of officers posing as children to catch online sex predators and built an attorney network to prosecute criminal domestic violence. In 2010, he helped lead a multi-state challenge of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul that allowed states to opt out of its intended Medicaid expansion — as South Carolina has steadfastly done.

In 2009, McMaster asked the state Ethics Commission to investigate Sanford after his disappearance to rendezvous with his mistress in Argentina brought scrutiny to his travels.

After Sanford paid $74,000 to resolve 37 civil charges, McMaster opted not to pursue criminal charges, saying Sanford's use of first-class tickets, travel on state aircraft and questionable campaign reimbursements didn't rise to a criminal level — and it was time for the state to move on.

A month after that announcement, McMaster lost to Haley.

Legislators say his decades-long relationship with many of them is an asset. GOP Senate Education Chairman John Courson, who met McMaster while at the University of South Carolina in the 1960s, said it helps that McMaster "understands the personalities in the Senate. "

"Across the board, among Democrats and Republicans, everybody is excited about him coming in — with the belief that he will have a desire to get things done and the ability to do so," said House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia.

Rep. James Smith, D-Columbia, said as a college student in the 1980s, he put out yard signs for McMaster. "I think people who say he's a good ol' boy are missing what Henry's all about," he said. "Really, he's about building strong relationships and treating people with respect and working for the future of our state. "

As Gov. Haley joins Trump, As SC Gov. Haley Joins a Trump supporter Trump, a Trump Supporter succeeds Haley Succeeds Haley lasvegassun.com newsmax.com

2016-12-26 11:18 By abcnews.go.com

19 /100 3.0 Trump to Fill More Than 100 Judicial Vacancies, Reshape Courts (2.06/15) President-elect Donald Trump will be able to reshape the judicial system once he takes office by filling an estimated 103 court vacancies, The Washington Post reports.

The number, which does not include the opening on the U. S. Supreme Court, is almost double the 54 open judicial openings President Barack Obama was faced with when he took over eight years ago, the newspaper noted.

Once the GOP took control of the Senate in 2015, confirmation of Obama's judicial nominees was slowed, according to the Post.

Now, as an incoming Republican president, Trump will be able to make lifetime appointments to the bench, who will decide on issues including state gun control laws, abortion restrictions, voter registration and immigration.

"I'm optimistic he'll come at this right out of the gate," said Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network,is quoted by the newspaper.

"Every president can expect to make a huge impact. (Trump) is unique in having campaigned really hard on this issue — the significance of the courts, and of the Supreme Court in particular. "

Politico reports the Republican Senate set a modern day record for the fewest confirmations of the lifetime judicial appointees.

The Senate confirmed only 20 Obama judicial appointments to district and appeals courts in the last two years — the lowest number in the past 28 years, according to a report obtained by the website. Numerous judicial vacancies Trump to inherit more than give Trump a chance to 100 court vacancies, plans reshape federal courts to reshape judiciary article.wn.com nola.com

2016-12-26 08:26 Jeffrey Rodack www.newsmax.com

20 /100 (1.24/15) 4.9 PE Prison melee forces lockdown Port Elizabeth - Emergency service personnel have been dispatched to St Albans Prison in Port Elizabeth following a brawl on Monday.

It is understood that the prison is on lockdown while the matter is brought under control and the wounded are tended to.

Eastern Cape Department of Health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said that circumstances surrounding the incident remained unclear.

“At this stage we have had a report of a fracas involving inmates and guards. We believe that seven people have been injured and ambulances have been dispatched to the scene,” he said.

This is a developing story.

Port Elizabeth prison on lockdown following fight timeslive.co.za

2016-12-26 06:23 www.news24.com

21 /100 0.0 Sarajevo introduces transport restrictions to ease pollution (1.16/15) Sarajevo authorities have banned half of the city's cars from driving on city streets in an attempt to ease air pollution.

The city government ordered the introduction of alternative driving days for cars with even and odd numbered license plates and made public transportation free until the situation improves. Some outdoor construction work has also been halted. The ban went into effect on Sunday.

Sarajevo is located in a narrow valley, which hampers the free flow of air. For more than a week, dense smog has completely obscured the view of the city from surrounding hills.

Official statistics from the past seven days show that the concentration of hazardous air particles have been between six and 10 times above the acceptable limit.

Sarajevo Introduces Transport Restrictions to Ease Pollution article.wn.com

2016-12-26 10:04 The Associated www.thenewstribune.com

22 /100 3.9 Suicide bomber attacks market in northeast Nigeria

(1.11/15) A suicide bomber attacked a cattle market on Monday in Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria, the city worst hit by Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency, the police and a witness said. ...

Nigerian troops foil suicide attack in restive city dailymail.co.uk Suicide bomber attacks Suicide bomber attacks market in northeast Nigeria’s market in northeast Nigeria's Maiduguri Maiduguri article.wn.com dailymail.co.uk

2016-12-26 06:28 system article.wn.com

23 /100 10.7 Three killed, 26 injured in St Albans prison clash

(1.07/15) Port Elizabeth - Three people were killed and a further 26 injured in a clash between prisoners and wardens at the St Albans Prison in Nelson Mandela Bay on Monday.

The prison has a history of inmates attacking their guards and has the reputation of being the most violent correctional facility in the Eastern Cape.

Health department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo confirmed that emergency service personnel had been dispatched to St Albans following a brawl between inmates and guards on Monday.

Kupelo confirmed that one inmate is believed to have died from his injuries at the hospital facility on site, while a further two inmates died from their injuries after being transferred to the Livingstone hospital for further treatment.

Kupelo said several wardens had been among those transported to hospitals and that a total of 26 people had been injured in the brawl, and that 10 were in a critical condition. Kupelo said that circumstances surrounding the incident remained unclear.

Free for all

Eastern Cape Correctional Services Provincial Commissioner, Nkosinathi Breakfast, confirmed that there had been an incident at St Albans prison but said the full details were not yet available and that the department would only be issuing a statement on the matter on Tuesday.

Since the incident the prison has been under lockdown, with no visitors being allowed. Many family members of inmates at the prison, who were hoping to visit their loved ones on Boxing Day, were turned away at the gate.

The incident is believed to have broken out in the C Max section of the prison during the breakfast session, with initial reports that a prisoner stabbed a warder, sparking a free for all. Prisoners, believed to have been armed with shanks - homemade stabbing implements - attacked the wardens, who retaliated. Sources said it was a well-known fact that inmates pick up rank among the prison gangs if they drew blood from their guards.

In 2014, the SA Correctional Services Workers’ Union (Sacoswu) called for an investigation and sought legal action against the management of the St Albans facility after two guards were stabbed within four days of each other.

At the time Sacoswu said there had been 28 attacks by inmates on warders over a period of 18 months, with many wardens resigning due to the ongoing violence against them.

Kept in the dark

Some family members of prison wardens took to Facebook to complain that they had been kept in the dark by the department following the incident, with rules preventing wardens from carrying cellphones while on duty compounding the situation.

"My sister is working there and shez on duty as we speak all we are doing is 2 pray coz we cant even contact her due 2 cellphones that are not allowed while inmates have landlines are ringing with no response...... tough, [sic]" wrote Mapat Mzwali.

Mercia Brink said her brother-in-law also worked at St Albans and she had to inform her sister about the incident after hearing about it through her sister-in-law.

"We don’t have a clue about what’s going on, cant even call my brother-in-law as they may not have their phones on them. The uncertainty makes a person crazy," she said.

Call for investigation

Democratic Alliance spokesperson on correctional services, James Selfe, said that he was "deeply concerned by reports that one inmate has been killed and another critically injured at the St Albans Prison in Port Elizabeth".

He said the DA would "request that the Department conduct a full and thorough investigation into the events that led to this death and injury".

"It is not the first time that violent events have occurred at this prison and we cannot allow such incidents to go unaccounted for," Selfe said.

"The DA will further be writing to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services to request the Minister to appear before the Committee as soon as possible at the start of 2017 to account to Parliament for the events," he added.

Port Elizabeth prison on DA to request full lockdown following fight investigation into St Albans timeslive.co.za prison death timeslive.co.za

2016-12-26 10:42 www.news24.com

24 /100 5.6 13 civilians killed in DR Congo Christmas Day ethnic attack (1.06/15) A militia from DR Congo's Nande ethnic group has killed 13 civilians including a child from the Hutu community in the restive North Kivu province, an official told AFP Monday. A military operation to put an end to the Christmas Day killing spree left three Nande fighters dead, said local official Alphonse Mahano. The violence came after 13 members of the Nande ethnic group were killed Thursday by Hutu militia forces at Bwalanda in the same region. Local officials and the army however did not say whether the two attacks were linked. "The victims (of the latest killings) were all Hutu. There was an eight-year-old girl, a father and the rest were women," Mahano said. "The Mai Mazembe (Nande militia) and their allies attacked (the village of) Nyanzale on Sunday morning. The army intervened to restore order," local army spokesman Major Guillaume Djike said. According to the military spokesman, six members of the Nande militia were killed. Nyanzale is a Hutu majority community. At least 35 civilians were killed in North Kivu province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo during the weekend. Among them were 22 people killed on Sunday in Eringeti, a town 55 kilometres (35 miles) north of the regional hub Beni. Local authorities blame the massacre on a Ugandan Muslim rebel movement active in the region, the Allied Democratic Forces. A string of attacks in the past year by both Hutu and Nande militia forces has deepened hatred between the communities. The Nande and some other ethnic groups regard the Hutus as outsiders because of their attachment to the majority ethnic group in neighbouring Rwanda. Hutu farmers have also been forced to abandon land further south because of high property costs and under pressure from major landowners.

Militia attacks kill 34 Congo civilians article.wn.com

2016-12-26 09:11 Afp www.dailymail.co.uk

25 /100 5.6 Afghan official: 1 police officer killed by car bomb blast (1.06/15) An Afghan official says that at least one police officer has been killed after a car bomb exploded near the convoy of the deputy provincial police chief of southern Helmand... Afghan official: police officer killed by car bomb blast article.wn.com

Afghan Official: 1 Police Officer Killed by Car Bomb Blast abcnews.go.com

2016-12-26 07:49 system article.wn.com

26 /100 3.2 Police: Woman charged after almost running down officer (1.05/15) BARRE, Vt. (AP) - A Vermont woman is facing charges after police say she nearly ran down a police officer with her car.

The Times Argus reports (http://bit.ly/2hGF1zZ ) 26-year-old Jamiee Renfrew pleaded not guilty in Barre last week to charges including a felony count of aggravated assault on law enforcement.

Cpl. Randall Tucker said in an affidavit that he had responded to a report of woman drinking alcohol in a car in a parking lot in October. Tucker says he told the woman behind the wheel to stop after she started the vehicle. He alleges she drove forward, and he jumped out of the way.

Tucker says he later learned from witnesses that Renfrew was the driver.

Authorities say Renfrew is also accused of pouring sugar into a gas tank in September.

___

Information from: The Times Argus, http://www.timesargus.com/

India police arrest four over US woman's gang-rape article.wn.com

2016-12-26 07:42 By www.washingtontimes.com

27 /100 (1.04/15) 32.0 One dead‚ three injured in head-on collision ER24 spokesman Russel Meiring said it was understood that local authorities were in pursuit of one of the vehicles when it collided with the second vehicle.

“ER24 paramedics‚ along with other services‚ arrived on the scene and found both wrecked vehicles in the middle of the road.

“Upon closer inspection‚ paramedics found four occupants seated inside one of the light motor vehicles while the driver of the second vehicle was found walking around on the scene.

“On assessment‚ paramedics found a man lying trapped in the driver's seat of the vehicle. Unfortunately‚ the man had already succumbed to his multiple fatal injuries. Nothing could be done for the man and he was declared dead on the scene‚” Meiring said. He said the wife of the deceased was found lying trapped in the front passenger seat of the vehicle while a boy (6) and girl (8) were found seated in the back. All three had sustained moderate injuries.

“Rescue services had to use the jaws-of-life equipment to free the woman from the vehicle.

“Once freed‚ paramedics treated the three patients and thereafter transported them to Pelonomi Provincial Hospital for further care‚” Meiring said.

The driver of the second vehicle escaped without injury and was taken into custody‚ he said.

Seven dead, 27 injured in Christmas shootings in Chicago upi.com

2016-12-26 07:59 TMG Digital www.timeslive.co.za

28 /100 1.8 Chinese naval movement worries Japan, Taiwan

(1.04/15) Japan alleged Monday that China violated the international maritime law when three Chinese patrol vessels trespassed into sovereign Japanese waters. The alleged incursion occurred in the area off Uotsuri Island in the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea shortly after 10:30 a.m. Monday, according t...

Chinese warships pass Japan monitoring Chinese Taiwan amid renewed aircraft carrier in the Pacific tension article.wn.com nypost.com

2016-12-26 07:32 system article.wn.com

29 /100 2.3 Christmas stabbing Uptown leaves man wounded, woman arrested, New Orleans police say (1.03/15) A woman stabbed a 49-year-old man as he tried to leave an Uptown home during an argument Christmas evening (Dec. 25), New Orleans police said.

Police said Coletta Lewis, 39, and the victim were in a verbal fight at a home in the 3400 block of Clara Street when the man headed for the door to try to leave, according to a preliminary police report. Lewis went to the kitchen, got a knife, and stabbed the man once.

The wounded man walked to a hospital, police said.

Lewis was booked on one count of aggravated battery by cutting, NOPD said.

India police arrest four over US woman's gang-rape article.wn.com

2016-12-26 10:59 NOLA.com www.nola.com

30 /100 2.6 Czech president links Europe attacks to migration wave (1.02/15) PRAGUE (AP) — The Czech president has linked recent attacks in Europe to the ongoing influx of migrants escaping war-torn, poverty-stricken countries. Milos Zeman told Czechs in his annual Christmas speech on Monday that "today almost no one doubts the connection between the migration wave and terrorist attacks. " In order to prevent terrorist attacks on Czech soil, the president said that the Czech Republic shouldn't take in migrants on a "so-called volunteer basis," alluding to the European Union's efforts to distribute migrants across the continent. Zeman says he has nothing against helping migrants "on their territory or on neighboring territories," or helping Italy and Greece, but "placing Muslim, hardly compatible migrants on our territory would mean creating a breeding ground for potential terrorist attacks. "

Czech President Links Europe Attacks to Migration Wave abcnews.go.com

2016-12-26 11:25 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk

31 /100 2.5 Remembering Grand Rapids' president: Gerald R. Ford

(1.02/15) Rob Jackson created the Gerald "Our" Ford billboard after the Grand Rapids president died in 2006.

A 1916 photograph of Leslie Lynch King, Jr., who later changed his name to Gerald R. Ford Jr.

Eagle Scout award medal earned by Gerald R. Ford in 1927.

Gerald Ford on the football field at the University of Michigan. A varsity football player, Ford played in two All-Star games and, after graduation, rejected two NFL contract offers.

This 1934 photograph shows Gerald Ford at the University of Michigan, with fellow football players Russell Fuog, Chuck Bernard, Herman Everhardus and Stan Fay.

Gerald R. Ford in his Naval officer's uniform in June 1945.

Gerald R. Ford Jr. and Betty Ford walk out of Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, following their marriage on Oct. 15, 1948.

Gerald R. Ford Jr. talks with a group of farmers while on the campaign trail in 1948, the year he first won election to the congressional seat he would win reelection to 12 more times.

Representative Gerald R. Ford Jr. talks to a visitor in his House Office in this 1950 photograph.

President and Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (MT), Speaker of the House John McCormack and others salute House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford in this 1967 photograph.

Official White House photograph of Minority Leader Gerald Ford in meeting with Richard Nixon.

Gerald R. Ford is sworn in as the 38th President of the United States.

President Ford and his golden retriever, Liberty, are shown in the Oval Office in this Nov. 7, 1974, official White House photograph.

President Gerald R. Ford announces his decision to pardon former President Richard Nixon on Sept. 8, 1974.

President Ford is shown in the Oval Office in this March 25, 1975, White House photograph.

President Ford winces at the sound of the gun fired by Sara Jane Moore outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco on Sept. 22, 1975.

President Ford and Jimmy Carter meet at the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia to debate domestic policy during the first of the three Ford-Carter Debates on Sept. 23, 1976.

President Clinton awards former President Ford the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in a White House ceremony on August 11, 1999.

This White House photograph shows President Ford playing golf during a working vacation on Mackinac Island in July 1975

Former President Gerald R. Ford poses in front of his museum in Grand Rapids.

President Gerald Ford acknowledges the standing ovation at a Gala Dinner in his honor.

A newspaper and roses lay on the ground outside the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids Wednesday, the day after the former president passed away. Candles, signs and flags were also left by visitors throughout the day.

Pall bearers made up of a joint military honor guard carry President Ford's Coffin into the Wahington National Cathedral past President George H Bush and wife Barbara, President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Daughter Chelsea, Sec of State Condoleezza Rice, Sec of DefenseWilliam Gates,( far right second row ), President George W. Bush and Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and wife Lynn, President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter and Nancy Reagan. At left is Jack Ford, the President's son.

President Goerge Bush, with his military aid Navy Lt. Commander Robert Roncska, pauses in silence at President Gerald Ford's grave after placing a bouquet of roses at the site.

First Lady Betty Ford sports a button expressing her support for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment at Inverray Country Club in Hollywood, Florida, where President Ford was playing golf on Feb. 26, 1975.

A crowd tours the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum as part of the grand openings of the new DeVos Learning Center and the renovated Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids Tuesday, June 7, 2016.

How will history remember President Obama? msnbc.com

2016-12-26 10:30 Mark Tower www.mlive.com

32 /100 5.3 Man in critical condition following shooting in Mt. Clemens (1.02/15) MT. CLEMENS, Mich. (WXYZ) - The Macomb County Sheriff's Office is investigating a shooting that left a man in critical condition early Monday morning.

According to police, it happened in the 100 block of south Main St. for a report of a man who had been shot. When they arrived, they found the 44-year-old Clinton Township resident on the ground.

He was taken to McClaren Macomb Medical Center and is currently in critical condition.

We're told the suspect and the victim were in the same apartment prior to the shooting. The suspect fled before deputies arrived. Stabbing investigation underway in NoDa charlotteobserver.com

2016-12-26 10:26 www.wxyz.com

33 /100 2.1 Netanyahu seeks to rally Israelis around him in anti- Obama assault (1.02/15) By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Benjamin Netanyahu has been unrelenting in his criticism of the Obama administration over what he condemned as its "shameful" decision not to veto a U. N. Security Council resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement-building. But with the clock ticking down on Barack Obama's presidency, a possibly more amenable Republican Donald Trump waiting in the wings and a $38 billion U. S. military aid package to Israel a done deal, it's all a calculated risk for the four-term, right-wing Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu, after what critics are calling a stinging defeat on the international stage, is already manoeuvring to mine deep-seated feelings among many Israelis that their country and its policies towards the Palestinians are overly criticised in a world where deadlier conflicts rage. He has tried to rally Israelis around him by attempting to portray the anti- settlement resolution as a challenge to Israel's claimed sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. That was hammered home with an unscheduled Hanukkah holiday visit to the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites, which is located in Jerusalem's Old City in the eastern sector captured along with the West Bank in a 1967 war. That all of Jerusalem is their country's capital is a consensus view among Israelis, including those who otherwise have doubts about the wisdom of Netanyahu's support for settlements on the West Bank. Palestinians claim eastern Jerusalem as their capital, and Washington has in the past accepted an international view that the city's status must be determined at future peace talks. But Trump has promised to reverse decades of U. S. policy by moving the U. S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. "I did not plan to be here this evening but in light of the U. N. resolution I thought that there was no better place to light the second Hanukkah candle than the Western Wall," Netanyahu said during the event. "I ask those same countries that wish us a Happy Hanukkah how they could vote for a U. N. resolution which says that this place, in which we are now celebrating Hanukkah, is occupied territory? " Some 570,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as part of a future state. At the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu brushed aside a White House denial and again accused the Obama administration of colluding with the Palestinians in the U. N. move against the settlements, which are considered illegal by most countries and described as illegitimate by Washington. Disputing this, Israel cites biblical, historical and political links to the West Bank and Jerusalem, as well as security concerns. The diplomatic drama unfolded over the Christmas holiday, with twists and turns unusual even for the serpentine path followed by Netanyahu's relationship with a Democratic president who opposes settlement building. On Thursday, Netanyahu successfully lobbied Egypt, which proposed the draft resolution, to withdraw it - enlisting the help of President-elect Trump to persuade Cairo to drop the bid. But the Israeli leader was ultimately outmanoeuvred at the United Nations, where New Zealand, Venezuela, Senegal and Malaysia, resubmitted the proposal a day later. It passed 14-0, with an abstention from the United States, withholding Washington's traditional use of its veto to protect Israel at the world body in what was widely seen as a parting shot by Obama against Netanyahu and his settlement policy. ACCELERATED CONSTRUCTION A U. S. official said key to Washington's decision was concern that Israel would continue to accelerate settlement construction in occupied territory and put a two-state solution of the conflict with the Palestinians at risk. The resolution adopted on Friday at the U. N. changes nothing on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians and likely will be all but ignored by the incoming Trump administration. However, Israeli officials fear it could spur further Palestinian moves against Israel in international forums. "The Obama administration made a shameful, underhanded move," Netanyahu said after the vote. It was some of the sharpest criticism he has voiced against Obama, who got off on the wrong foot with Israelis when he skipped their country during a Middle East visit after first taking office in 2009. In a further display of anger, Netanyahu summoned the U. S. ambassador to meet him during a day of reprimands delivered at the Foreign Ministry to envoys of the 10 countries with embassies in Israel among the 14 that backed the resolution. Netanyahu, who is vying with the ultranationalist Jewish Home Party in his governing coalition for right-wing voters, also took aim at what has become a favourite target - an Israeli media he has been painting as left-wing and unpatriotic. "Leftist political parties and TV commentators have been rubbing their hands in glee over the anti-Israeli decision at the United Nations, almost like the Palestinian Authority and Hamas," Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page. But more trouble for the Israeli leader could be ahead at a planned 70-nation, French-hosted conference on Middle East peace due to convene in Paris on Jan. 15, five days before Obama hands over to Trump. "(Netanyahu) fears there is a U. S.-French move brewing before January 20th, possibly a declarative step at the French peace convention," said an Israeli official who attended an Israeli security cabinet session on Sunday. (Editing by Peter Graff)

Netanyahu snubs May over UN settlements vote, Israeli media says theguardian.com

2016-12-26 09:31 Reuters www.dailymail.co.uk

34 /100 1.9 Somalia to delay election for 4th time, official says

(1.02/15) Somalia to delay election for 4th time, official says Associated Press - 26 December 2016 06:55- 05:00 News Topics: General news, Presidential elections, Voting fraud and irregularities, Elections, Legislature, National elections, Government and politics, Voting People, Places and Companies: Africa, Somalia Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Somalia to Delay Election for 4th Time, Official Says abcnews.go.com

2016-12-26 09:05 system article.wn.com

35 /100 1.8 Pope Francis: Christmas Has Been ‘Kidnapped’ by Materialism (1.02/15) In his at Christmas Mass, the Pope said Christ is often met today with the same indifference that greeted his coming 2,000 years ago, whenever Christmas becomes a holiday centered on us rather than Jesus. In his denunciation of materialism, Francis said that “the lights of shop windows push the light of God into the shadows” and people can become “enthused about gifts but indifferent to our neighbors in need.” The Pope contrasted this secularism with the humility and poverty of the first Christmas, when Jesus was born as a defenseless child in a simple stable. “If we want to celebrate Christmas authentically,” Francis said, “we need to contemplate this sign: the frail simplicity of a tiny newborn child, the meekness with which he is placed in a manger, the tender affection with which he is wrapped in his swaddling clothes. That is where God is.” The contrast between the modern spirit of commercialism and the humility of Bethlehem represents a paradox, the Pope suggested, which challenges today’s Christians to be countercultural. The Gospel reveals an apparent contradiction, Francis said, in speaking of “the emperor, the governor, the high and mighty of those times” where God is absent. “He appears not in the splendor of a royal palace, but in the poverty of a stable; not in pomp and show, but in simplicity of life; not in power, but in astonishing smallness.” God’s self-revelation in poverty and simplicity invites today’s Christians to look for him in the same way, he added. “In order to meet him, we need to go where he is,” Francis said. “We need to bow down, to humble ourselves, to make ourselves small.” “The newborn Child challenges us,” he continued. “He calls us to leave behind fleeting illusions and to turn to what is essential, to renounce our insatiable cravings, to abandon our endless yearning for things we will never have.” Only by leaving these things behind can we discover, in the simplicity of the divine Child, “peace, joy and the luminous meaning of life,” he said. As he has done in past Christmases, Pope Francis took advantage of the situation to condemn the sin of , which he has likened to King Herod’s slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem. “Let us allow ourselves to be challenged by those children who are not allowed to be born,” he said, “by those who cry because no one relieves their hunger, by those who hold in their hands not toys, but weapons.” Francis said that the mystery of Christmas challenges and unsettles us, because it is both “a mystery of hope and of sadness.” It has a taste of sadness, because “love is not accepted,” he said, symbolized by Joseph and Mary, who met with closed doors “because there was no place for them in the inn.” “Jesus was born rejected by some and regarded by many others with indifference,” he said. On the other hand, Christmas is a feast of joy and hope, he added, because, “for all the darkness in our lives, God’s light shines forth.” In coming to earth, Jesus offers “the love that brings light to our lives and peace to our hearts,” he said. The Pope concluded his address by inviting his hearers to “draw close to God who draws close to us.” “With Mary and Joseph, let us pause before the manger, before Jesus who is born as bread for my life. Contemplating his humble and infinite love, let us simply tell him: Thank you. Thank you because you have done all this for me,” he said.

New book looks at the life of Pope Francis msnbc.com

2016-12-26 08:33 by feedproxy.google.com

36 /100 4.3 Trump repeating some behaviors he criticized in Clinton (1.02/15) By LISA LERER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump spent the past two years attacking rival Hillary Clinton as crooked, corrupt, and weak.

But some of those attacks seem to have already slipped into the history books.

From installing Wall Street executives in his Cabinet to avoiding news conferences, the president-elect is adopting some of the same behavior for which he criticized Clinton during their fiery presidential campaign.

Here's a look at what Trump said then — and what he's doing now:

___

GOLDMAN SACHS

Then: "I know the guys at Goldman Sachs," Trump said at a South Carolina rally in February, when he was locked in a fierce primary battle with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. "They have total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton. " Now: A number of former employees of the Wall Street bank will pay a key role in crafting Trump's economic policy. He's tapped Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn to lead the White House National Economic Council. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary nominee, spent 17 years working at Goldman Sachs and Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist and senior counselor, started his career as an investment banker at the firm.

Trump is following in a long political tradition, though one he derided on the campaign trail: If Cohn accepts the nomination, he'll be the third Goldman executive to run the NEC.

___

BIG DONORS

Then: "Crooked Hillary. Look, can you imagine another four years of the Clintons? Seriously. It's time to move on. And she's totally controlled by Wall Street and all these people that gave her millions," Trump said at a May rally in Lynden, Washington.

Now: Trump has stocked his Cabinet with six top donors — far more than any recent White House. "I want people that made a fortune. Because now they're negotiating with you, OK? " Trump said, in a December 9 speech in Des Moines.

The biggest giver? Linda McMahon, incoming small business administrator, gave $7.5 million to a super PAC backing Trump, more than a third of the money collected by the political action committee.

___

NEWS CONFERENCES

Then: "She doesn't do news conferences, because she can't," Trump said at an August rally in Ashburn, Virginia. "She's so dishonest she doesn't want people peppering her with questions. "

Now: Trump opened his last news conference on July 27, saying: "You know, I put myself through your news conferences often, not that it's fun. "

He hasn't held one since.

Trump skipped the news conference a president-elect typically gives after winning the White House. Instead, he released a YouTube video of under three minutes. He also recently abruptly canceled plans to hold his first post-election news conference, opting instead to describe his plans for managing his businesses in tweets. "I will hold a press conference in the near future to discuss the business, Cabinet picks and all other topics of interest. Busy times! " he tweeted in mid-December.

___

FAMILY TIES:

Then: "It is impossible to figure out where the Clinton Foundation ends and the State Department begins. It is now abundantly clear that the Clintons set up a business to profit from public office. They sold access and specific actions by and really for I guess the making of large amounts of money," Trump said at an August rally in Austin. Now: While Trump has promised to separate himself from his businesses, there is plenty of overlap between his enterprises and his immediate family. His companies will be run by his sons, Donald Jr and Eric. And his daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have joined Trump at a number of meetings with world leaders of countries where the family has financial interests.

In a financial disclosure he was required to file during the campaign, Trump listed stakes in about 500 companies in at least 25 countries.

Ivanka, in particular, has been caught making early efforts to leverage her father's new position into profits. After an interview with the family appeared on "60 Minutes," her jewelry company, Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, blasted out an email promoting the $10,800 gold bangle bracelet that she had worn during the appearance. The company later said they were "proactively discussing new policies and procedures. "

Ivanka is also auctioning off a private coffee meeting with her to benefit her brother's foundation. The meeting is valued at $50,000, with the current top bid coming in at $25,000.

"United States Secret Service will be Present for the Duration of the Experience," warns the auction site.

Trump on Saturday said he would dissolve his charitable foundation amid efforts to eliminate any conflicts of interest before he takes office next month.

___

CLINTON INVESTIGATIONS

Then: "If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been anything like it, and we're going to have a special prosecutor," Trump said in the October presidential debate, referring to Clinton.

Now: Since winning office, Trump has said he has no intention of pushing for an investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state or the workings of her family foundation. "It's just not something that I feel very strongly about," he told the New York Times.

"She went through a lot. And suffered greatly in many different ways," he said. "I'm not looking to hurt them. "

Trump hypocrisy over Clinton exposed in White House appointments news24.com

2016-12-26 07:59 By www.wral.com

37 /100 37 /100 3.0 Recounts or No, US Elections Are Still Vulnerable to Hacking (1.02/15) Jill Stein's bid to recount votes in Pennsylvania was in trouble even before a federal judge shot it down Dec. 12. That's because the Green Party candidate's effort stood almost no chance of detecting potential fraud or error in the vote — there was basically nothing to recount.

Pennsylvania is one of 11 states where the majority of voters use antiquated machines that store votes electronically, without printed ballots or other paper-based backups that could be used to double-check the balloting.

There's almost no way to know if they've accurately recorded individual votes — or if anyone tampered with the count.

More than 80 percent of Pennsylvanians who voted Nov. 8 cast their ballots on such machines, according to VotePA, a nonprofit seeking their replacement.

A recount would, in the words of VotePA's Marybeth Kuznik, a veteran election judge, essentially amount to this: "You go to the computer and you say, 'OK, computer, you counted this a week- and-a-half ago. Were you right the first time?'"

These paperless digital voting machines, used by roughly 1 in 5 U. S. voters last month, present one of the most glaring dangers to the security of the rickety, underfunded U. S. election system. Like many electronic voting machines, they are vulnerable to hacking. But other machines typically leave a paper trail that could be manually checked. The paperless digital machines open the door to potential election rigging that might not ever be detected.

What's more, their prevalence magnifies other risks in the election system, such as the possibility that hackers might compromise the computers that tally votes, by making failures or attacks harder to catch. And like other voting machines adopted since the 2000 election, the paperless systems are nearing the end of their useful life — yet there is no comprehensive plan to replace them.

"If I were going to hack this election, I would go for the paperless machines because they are so hard to check," said Barbara Simons, a former IBM executive and co-author of "Broken Ballots," a history of the unlearned lessons of flawed U. S. voting technology.

FRAUD AND THE U. S. VOTING SYSTEM

Although Stein premised her recount effort on the need to ensure that the 2016 election wasn't tainted by hacking or fraud, there's no evidence of either so far — a fact federal judge Paul Diamond cited prominently in his decision halting the Pennsylvania recount. "Suspicion of a 'hacked' Pennsylvania election borders on the irrational," the judge wrote in his opinion.

Stein also pursued recounts in Wisconsin and Michigan, to little avail. Those states use more reliable paper-based voting technologies. (The Electoral College certified Republican Donald Trump's presidential victory last week.)

But a cadre of computer scientists from major universities backed Stein's recounts to underscore the vulnerability of U. S. elections. These researchers have been successfully hacking e-voting machines for more than a decade in tests commissioned by New York, California, Ohio and other states.

Stein and her witnesses said their fraud concerns were justified given U. S. charges that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential campaign. Emails of top Democrats were hacked and leaked in what U. S. intelligence officials called Russian subterfuge against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Over the summer, hackers also tried to breach the voter registration databases of Arizona and Illinois using Russian-based servers, U. S. officials said. Election networks in at least 20 states were probed for vulnerabilities.

"It's a target-rich environment," said Rice University computer scientist Dan Wallach. Researchers would like to see the U. S. move entirely to computer-scannable paper ballots, since paper can't be hacked. Many advanced democracies require paper ballots, including Germany, Britain, Japan and Singapore.

Green Party lawyers seeking the Pennsylvania recount called the state's election system "a national disgrace" in a federal lawsuit, noting that many states outlaw paperless voting. They asked a judge to order a forensic examination of a sampling of the electronic machines, saying that's the only way to know for sure that votes weren't altered.

That would involve examination of all of the systems involved in the election — voting-machine computer chips and memory cards that store operating software and ballots, the computers that program the ballots, and even the machine vendors' source code — to detect any "bugs, holes or back doors" a hacker could have exploited, said Daniel Lopresti, chairman of the Lehigh University computer-science department.

But forensic analyses aren't foolproof, especially if hackers were good at covering their tracks. "What you're hoping for is some evidence that was left, some degree of clumsiness or carelessness, a belief by the individual that we won't dig quite that deep," Lopresti said.

PENNSYLVANIA: A PERFECT TARGET

The U. S. voting system — a loosely regulated, locally managed patchwork of more than 3,000 jurisdictions overseen by the states — employs more than two dozen types of machinery from 15 manufacturers.

Elections officials across the nation say they take great care to secure their machines from tampering. They are locked away when not in use and sealed to prevent tampering.

All that makes national elections very difficult to steal without getting caught. "It would take a 'large conspiracy' to hack the results of a presidential election," said Kay Stimson, speaking for the National Association of Secretaries of State.

But difficult is not impossible. Wallach and his colleagues believe a crafty team of pros could strike surgically, focusing on select counties in a few battleground states where "a small nudge might be decisive," he said.

As a battleground state with paperless voting machines, Pennsylvania is a perfect candidate. In affidavits for the recount, computer scientist J. Alex Halderman of the University of Michigan laid out how attackers could conduct a successful hack:

Just because the machines aren't on the internet doesn't mean they can't be hacked. Election workers could be duped or bribed into installing malware that sat dormant until Election Day. Locks could be picked to gain access to the machines, seals compromised with razor blades and acetone.

Studies by Halderman, Wallach and others proved years ago that it's possible to infect voting machines in an entire precinct via the compact flash cards used to load electronic ballots.

An infected machine "could do anything you can imagine," said Wallach. "It could flip votes from one candidate to another. It could delete votes. It could cast write-in votes for Mickey Mouse for president. "

HACKING THE COUNT

Vote-tallying systems, typically at the county level, are also tempting targets. They tend to be little more than PCs running a database.

Tabulation databases at the county level, which collect results from individual precincts, are supposed to be "airgapped," or disconnected from the internet at all times — though experts say they sometimes get connected anyway. They're considered insecure for other reasons; many have USB ports where malware could be introduced.

Vulnerabilities notwithstanding, there are no known cases of U. S. tallying systems being hacked. But it is not uncommon for candidates who have lost elections involving electronic voting to challenge results, claiming irregularities they blame on fraud, or human or mechanical errors.

Shelby County, Tennessee, home to Memphis, has seen a flood of lawsuits related to alleged tabulation errors, the most recent stemming from a 2015 court clerk race. "Nearly every election cycle in the county in recent memory has been plagued by a myriad of errors and complaints of wrongdoing," Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett wrote in a 2012 letter to the state comptroller recently obtained by The Associated Press.

OLD AND GETTING OLDER

Most voting machines in the U. S. are at or near the end of their expected lifespans. Forty-three states use machines more than a decade old. Most run on vintage operating systems such as Windows 2000 that pre-date the iPhone and are no longer updated with security patches. Old, stockpiled machines get cannibalized; when they can't supply parts, officials scrounge on eBay.

On Nov. 8, election officials across the U. S. handled numerous complaints of aging touchscreens losing calibration and casting votes for the wrong candidate. Such "vote flipping" tends to get exaggerated attention on social media and has become so familiar it's been enshrined in a TV episode of "The Simpsons. "

But while many experts agree the U. S. voting system needs an upgrade, no one wants to pay to fix it.

From the private-sector perspective, it's a tiny market. University of Iowa computer scientist Douglas Jones estimates that voting-equipment makers pull in total annual revenues of less than $200 million — roughly what Google generates in a day. The biggest player, ES&S, is private and has just 450 full-time employees. (Researchers worry that smaller companies like these are also much more vulnerable to hacking by sophisticated state actors.)

The sector boomed after the 2000 Florida recount debacle, when punch-card technology was discredited by hanging chads and a poor "butterfly" ballot design. Congress appropriated $4 billion for election upgrades, and the states raced to replace punch cards and lever machines with digital technology.

But when that money ran out, so did many states' ability to address security concerns they'd overlooked in their initial rush. Four in 5 U. S. election officials polled by New York University's Brennan Center last year said they are desperate to replace equipment but lack the cash.

DISPARATE IMPACT

Voters in poorer areas suffer disproportionately, the center found. Data collected in Virginia, Ohio, Minnesota and Colorado suggests the poor are more apt to encounter failing machines. Six Minnesota counties buying new machines had household median incomes more than $20,000 higher than jurisdictions not making purchases, the center found.

In Virginia, wealthier counties near Washington have upgraded to more trustworthy technology while lower-income counties in the state's southwest have not been able to afford it, said Edgardo Cortes, the state elections commissioner.

"The federal money is not there and in most instances state money is not being made available, either," said Cortes. "So the entire cost is falling to local governments. "

Just as Congress delivered a death blow to punch cards, it should also outlaw paperless touchscreen voting machines and pay for their replacement, said Andrew Appel, a Princeton University computer scientist.

But even counties that can afford better voting tech face problems.

The clerk of Travis County, Texas, Dana DeBeauvoir, has been trying for a decade to build a bulletproof electronic voting system , because even the scanners that count paper ballots can be hacked. (Of course, such hacking could be detected and remedied by recounting paper ballots manually.)

The Travis County system would have a paper trail and use encryption systems to let voters confirm online that their vote counted and wasn't subject to tampering. For transparency, DeBeauvoir wants to use open source software that anyone can examine, not the proprietary code the industry uses.

None of the major vendors has shown interest, she says. "I don't think it fits their profit model. " Recounts or no, US elections are still vulnerable to hacking charlotteobserver.com

2016-12-26 07:45 www.newsmax.com

38 /100 2.6 Liberman dubs Paris peace conference 'modern day Dreyfus trial' (1.02/15) The Middle East peace conference planned by the French for January 15 will be similar to the antisemitic trial of French Jewish artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus in 1894, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman told his Yisrael Beytenu faction on Monday. Liberman said UN Security Council resolution 2334 was "awful, unnecessary, and, harms any chance to reach dialogue with the other side. " He said he was worried that such misguided international efforts would continue with the French conference.

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He noted that the timing of the conference was problematic, coming five days before US- president elect Donald Trump is sworn in and three months before elections are being held in France, in which current president Francois Hollande is not running. "It is not a peace conference but a tribunal against Israel that is intended to harm Israel and its good name," he said. "It will not just be a trial against Israel but a modern Dreyfus trial. Look at all how France has been voting against us. We know the direction and the goal of the conference. It adds to the atmosphere in France against Jews. " Liberman then recounted a series of recent antisemitic incidents in France, directing his next words to the Jewish community in France. "This is the time to tell French Jews: This is not your country or your land and it's time to leave. " Determining future priorities, the defense minister said what mattered now was reaching understandings with the Trump administration on Iran, the Palestinians, settlements, and Syria. When asked by The Jerusalem Post whether he blamed the UN resolution on Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett's insistence on advancing settlement legislation, he said it was "not connected to legislation" and "what is done is done. " However, he said it was "wrong to focus on declarations and annexation. " He added that "the reason Israel has been limited from building in Judea and Samaria is not because of a lack of legislation but because of disagreements with American administrations on the extent of construction. "

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Israel minister dubs French peace meeting new 'Dreyfus trial' digitaljournal.com

2016-12-26 07:02 GIL HOFFMAN www.jpost.com

39 /100 (1.02/15) 3.8 Dozens of ISIS fighters killed in Mosul battles Irbil ( CNN ) Iraqi security and coalition forces have killed 97 ISIS militants in eastern and southern Mosul on Sunday, Iraq 's Joint Military Command said, as the group continues to defend its Iraqi bastion with suicide attacks and artillery.

Mosul: Dozens of ISIS fighters killed by Iraqi forces cnn.com

2016-12-26 06:30 gpriyanka article.wn.com

40 /100 1.9 Hundreds of thousands expected to support Boxing Day hunts (0.02/15) Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to gather to support Boxing Day hunts, reigniting the row over whether fox hunting should be legal. Supporters of fox hunting, who say they are expecting more than 250,000 people to turn out for Boxing Day events, called for the scrapping of the Hunting Act, which forbids the hunting of animals such as foxes with dogs. But the League Against Cruel Sports said polling showed the opposition to fox hunting remained high, with 84% of the 1,986 people quizzed in an Ipsos MORI survey saying it should not be made legal again. The anti-blood sports charity said polling over time showed opposition to repealing the ban had risen steadily, and had also increased to 82% in rural areas, up from 69% four years ago. League Against Cruel Sports chief executive Eduardo Goncalves said: “The Boxing Day hunts are portrayed as a glorious pageant taking place in front of a huge number of people who support them, but the truth is very different. “The fact is 84% of the public do not want fox hunting made legal. Just because families might venture out on Boxing Day to see the hunt, stroke the dogs or watch the horses, doesn’t mean they support repealing a law to enable the hunt to chase and kill wild animals with their dogs for sport.” Drag hunting, where hounds are trained to follow an artificial trail, is legal, but anti-hunt campaigners claim illegal hunting of foxes continues. The Countryside Alliance said nobody connected to one of the more than 300 hunts in England and Wales registered with Council of Hunting Associations had been convicted of hunting offences in the past two years. Since the Act was brought in 2005, 94% of the 423 people successful prosecuted under the Act were for casual hunting or poaching and had nothing to do with registered hunts, the organisation said. The Countryside Alliance also said the rate of successful prosecutions associated with registered hunts was falling and raised concerns about the cost to the taxpayer of pursuing cases. Chief executive Tim Bonner said: “Our figures demonstrate unequivocally that the Hunting Act lies in tatters. The problem with the Act is that over the past two years all those prosecuted under the Act have had nothing to do with ‘hunts’. “The law that was supposed to have got rid of hunts is now being used as little more than a vehicle to harass them,” he added.

In pictures: Boxing Day Nigel Farage joins hundreds bargain hunters out in force of thousands of other dailymail.co.uk spectators as the traditional Boxing Day hunts get underway dailymail.co.uk

2016-12-26 08:08 Press Association www.dailymail.co.uk

41 /100 2.6 Michigan drunken-driving arrests, crashes on decline, and 5 other facts (0.01/15) The number of Michigan arrests for driving while drunk or high on drugs continues to decline, as do the number of crashes linked to substance abuse, according to the Michigan State Police's 2015 Drunken Driving Audit.

The annual report takes an in-depth look at drunken driving, with county-by-county data.

Below are some highlights from the State Police data. 1. The number of arrests and convictions for driving under the influence dropped 38 and 37 percent respectively between 2005 and 2015.

In 2015, 33,720 drivers were arrested and 34,333 were convicted for driving under the influence or related offenses. That compares to 54,235 arrests and 55,580 convictions in 2005.

Convictions include arrests that occurred in prior years that were adjudicated in 2005 or 2015.

One reason for the drop in the numbers: People are driving less. When arrest rates are calculated based on vehicle miles driven, the decline shrinks to 35 percent since 2005.

Another possible factor: There are 13 percent fewer police officers in Michigan today compared to 2005, according to state numbers. That means fewer road patrols and traffic stops.

2. The number of crashes involving a driver under the influence has dropped 30 percent.

There were 9,537 crashes for impaired driving in 2015 compared to 13,547 in 2005.

In those crashes, 7,982 people were injured in 2005 compared to 6,116 in 2015, a 23 percent decline.

3. The number of traffic fatalities related to alcohol and/or drugs has dropped 6 percent.

A total of 384 people died in 2015 in crashes linked to alcohol or drugs compared to 408 in 2015.

In 2015, that was 40 percent of all traffic fatalities compared to 36 percent in 2005.

4. Men comprise about three-quarters of drivers arrested for driving under the influence or related offenses.

Of the 33,720 people arrested in 2015 for driving while drunk or high, 24,746 -- 73 percent -- were men.

The ratio of men to women in regards to arrests has been fairly consistent over the past decade.

5. Crashes involving impaired drivers are much more likely to cause an injury or fatality.

In 2015, only 3.2 percent of all traffic accidents involved an impaired driver, according to state data.

But the percentage was three times as high -- 9 percent -- for crashes that caused an injury. And 39 percent of the 893 fatal crashes in 2015 involved an impaired driver, the state report shows. See our online database

Our database shows how each county ranks among Michigan's 83 counties in 2015 crashes and arrests linked to alcohol and/or drugs. The higher the number, the higher the rate of arrests or crashes.

To see a list of the counties in ranking order, click "all counties" and then click two to see the rank from No. 1 on down or click once to see the rank starting with No. 83.

The map included in this post is based on average number of arrests between 2011 and 2015 per 10,000 licensed drivers in the county. You can click on a county to get the underlying data, and you can drag the map away from the legend if needed.

Alcohol-related crashes, arrests by county

See number of drunken- driving arrests, crashes in your Michigan county mlive.com

2016-12-26 08:00 Julie Mack www.mlive.com

42 /100 1.0 Body found inside burned out home on Detroit's west side (0.01/15) DETROIT (WXYZ) - Detroit Police are investigating a possible crime scene on the west side of the city.

Shortly before 4 a.m. police were dispatched to a home along Indiana Avenue near Fullerton Avenue.

Police tell 7 Action News that a body was found inside a burned out home. At this time they’re not releasing other information, including whether the victim was a man or a woman.

A handful of investigators were working the crime scene for more than an hour early Monday morning.

Investigators were also spotted going in and out of a neighboring home.

This is a developing story. Body found inside Clinton Township apartment wxyz.com

2016-12-26 07:57 Matthew Smith www.wxyz.com

43 /100 (0.01/15) 95.1 Man stabbed to death in eastern Pennsylvania ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Police are investigating a fatal stabbing in eastern Pennsylvania.

The Lehigh County coroner says a man was stabbed to death at an intersection in Allentown. It happened around 2:20 a.m. Monday. The man was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The coroner’s office is not releasing the man’s name until his family is notified.

Freezing rain forecast in central, eastern Pennsylvania washingtontimes.com

2016-12-26 07:48 By www.washingtontimes.com

44 /100 0.6 Six decapitated heads found during Christmas Day violence in Mexico (0.01/15) Christmas Day saw no break in Mexico ’s plague of drug gang-related violence, as incidents reported across the worst- affected states included the gruesome discovery of six decapitated heads.

Red Christmas in Mexico: decapitations and a mass slaying article.wn.com 2016-12-26 07:14 Guerrero article.wn.com

45 /100 0.7 Four prisoners on the run after Christmas morning jailbreak in Tennessee in which six inmates fled through a hole behind a toilet Six men escaped a Tennessee prison through a hole behind the toilet on in the early hours of Christmas morning. A water leak behind a toilet caused a hole, and men were able to climb through and find their way outside of the Cocke County Jail Annex. While two men were captured later in the day, four are still on the run. The Cocke County Sheriff told WVLT : 'The inmates escaped after a water leak occurred behind a wall unit stainless steel toilet. 'Apparently the bolts holding the unit rusted out and there was prior damage to the concrete due to plumbing repairs. 'The inmates vandalized the lavatory removing it from the wall and gained access to a hole which led outside of the facility.' Inmate John Mark Spier was re-captured at a home in Cosby, Tennessee, where two men were charged with harboring a fugitive. Steven Lewis was captured after a foot chase in Carson Springs, WATE reports. The four men still on the run are: John Thomas Shehee, Harce Wade Allen, Eric S Click and David Wayne Frazier. Shehee, 28, was facing criminal charges for arson, criminal trespassing and property theft under $500. Allen, 28, was serving a 45-day jail sentence for violating his probation. Click, 29, was in jail awaiting trial for evading arrest, possession of schedule II substance, driving while suspended, violating probation and joy riding. Frazier, who is considered to be dangerous, was in jail awaiting trial for aggravated robbery and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.

2016-12-26 11:39 Kelly Mclaughlin www.dailymail.co.uk

46 /100 5.7 Predator 'killed woman he met on Tinder because she refused to have sex with him and dissolved her body in acid' A man has been accused of killing a woman he met on Tinder and dissolving her body in acid because she refused to have sex with him. Emmanuel Delani Valdez Bocanegra, 26, was quizzed by police when friends and family of his victim reported her missing in Leon, central Mexico. Gruesome remains of human bones were found in bin bags on his apartment balcony beside canisters of caustic soda and hydrochloric acid. Six kilos of human flesh retrieved from the bones have been DNA matched with the victim, Francia Ruth Ibarra, also 26. Her clothes were found hidden in a bag inside the apartment. The pair had met through the dating app Tinder and had then met several times over the few months before Ms Ibarra disappeared on December 3. She was supposed to meet a friend at the cinema that day but didn't show up. Her friends at the University of Guanajuato backtracked her social media postings and found she'd been dating Boncanegra, a former student. She had never introduced him to them and he reportedly avoided meeting her friends and family. Bocanegra reportedly killed her after she refused to have sex with him and dissolved her body to make it look like she had run away. Police tracked him to Mexico City where he was arrested.

2016-12-26 11:38 Charlie Moore www.dailymail.co.uk

47 /100 8.4 Limpopo abductor arrested after victim escapes Makhado – A 40-year-old man has been arrested after he allegedly abducted a young girl in Makhado in Limpopo, police said on Monday.

"The 10-year-old girl managed to slip away from her alleged abductor," said Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo.

She was originally taken from her parents' home on Saturday. She managed to run away on Sunday afternoon. She had been taken to Mapani, about 40km from her house.

Once she had freed herself, she approached community members who helped her, nabbed the man and called the police.

"The child was taken to hospital for medical attention and has since been released. "

Police are investigating the motive and further details behind the crime.

2016-12-26 11:35 www.news24.com

48 /100 11.7 Multiple killer, rapist, former Army cook Ronald Gray again facing death penalty FAYETTEVILLE, N. C. -- A former Fort Bragg soldier who killed four women and raped others more than 25 years ago is again headed for execution.

The Fayetteville Observer reports Ronald Gray last week lost a battle to keep in place a federal court’s order issued eight years ago blocking his execution.

The former Army cook’s execution would be the first by the U. S. military since 1961.

Gray was convicted and condemned in military court in 1988 for two murders and three rapes while stationed at Fort Bragg. He pleaded guilty in civilian courts to two more murders and five separate rapes.

Gray is being held at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Gray was scheduled to die in 2008 after President George W. Bush signed an execution order following a Pentagon probe, but the case had been tied up in court appeals ever since.

Only the president can give final approval to a military death sentence, the Oberver says. Gray is the only killer on the military’s death row whose execution has received that approval.

Gray’s appeals were based on his claims that military courts lacked jurisdiction to prosecute him.

2016-12-26 11:35 CBS/AP www.cbsnews.com

49 /100 2.2 Five-year-old girl battles incredibly rare and incurable condition that grinds her bones into DUST A little girl is battling an incredibly rare and incurable condition which grinds her bones into dust. Five-year-old Leigh Sowden, of Partington in Greater Manchester, was first diagnosed with Langerhans' cell histiocytosis (LCH) aged two when x-rays in May 2012 revealed parts of her bones had been completely eaten away by the disease. LCH causes blood cells to mutate and move through the body, leaving lesions in whichever part of the body they attack. The cancer-like disease has bombarded Leigh's bones in her pelvis, hips, feet and jaw until they had been 'ground down into a powder'. She was left unable to walk for two months and had to drag her legs behind her to move around - and when she suddenly developed a mysterious lump on her face, doctors discovered it was a cyst caused by her condition. Her mum Angela Sowden, 43, said: 'It was heart-breaking watching Leigh go from running about and playing to back to being like a six- month-old trying to learn how to crawl. It was awful. 'When doctors at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital did a biopsy of the lump they found out it was a cyst caused by LCH - and x- rays revealed the disease had spread through her whole body. 'Bones in her right foot had been eaten away so there was just a massive hole and her left hip bone was smaller and a completely different shape to the right where it had been broken down. 'The disease makes Leigh's own blood cells attack her bones and crack them apart causing cysts. 'The cysts erupt inside the bone and the pressure grinds them down until they are nothing but dust. 'After the bones have been crushed into a powder they are dissolved and absorbed by the cysts. 'I was absolutely devastated. I didn't even know what to think. You never want to hear that your child is ill but knowing there's nothing you can do to help makes it so much worse. 'You would never believe that you could put a healthy baby to bed and just a couple of hours later this nightmare would start.' Leigh had to undergo a year of intensive steroid treatment and chemotherapy and by the tot's third birthday her mum thought her little girl was finally on the mend as her LCH was in remission. But a fall at the swimming pool soon after revealed the worst - the disease had started to attack Leigh's brain. The tot was rushed to Royal Manchester Children's Hospital after the bump to her head put her in a coma-like state, prompting doctors to do a CT scan. The scan revealed a build-up of fluid in Leigh's skull caused by her condition which doctors said would have killed her in just days if it had gone unnoticed. Leigh was rushed into emergency brain surgery during which doctors drilled into her skull to release the pressure. And in a second operation a shunt - a thin tube which drains fluid away into the brain - was inserted into Leigh's head and will be there for life. But in the two years since Leigh has been rushed back to hospital for two further brain surgeries when the shunt became blocked. Angela, a single mum-of-four who is also mum to daughters Nicole, 19, Lauren, 16, and son Mason, two, said: 'I ran over when I saw Leigh slip on the poolside but I knew something was really wrong when she didn't even cry, she just lay there. 'As horrendous as it was seeing her like that, I'm actually glad she had the fall. It was like a god send. 'It is only because of the fall that they found the fluid on her brain. Before that she was fine and we never would have known. 'When Leigh went in for surgery I was distraught. I just couldn't believe it. The thought of her having brain surgery - it's any parents worst nightmare. 'To have to go through it so many times is traumatising. It has taken hold of the whole family. 'But Leigh just takes it all in her stride. She is so brave. She always has the biggest smile on her face.' Angela said the community in Partington have been 'absolutely amazing' and helped the family fundraise to take Leigh on a trip to Disneyland earlier this year. Angela said: 'My family don't live nearby so I have really relied on the community and they have been so supportive. 'Everyone helped with the fundraising for our trip to Disney. It means the world to Leigh. 'She is absolutely obsessed with Mickey and Mini Mouse. I can't wait to see her face when we get there, it will be priceless.'

2016-12-26 11:33 Isobel Frodsham www.dailymail.co.uk

50 /100 3.2 Homeless man set on fire in Berlin underground, police release CCTV images of suspects — RT News Berlin police have released images of the seven young men who are suspects in the attack, which happened at around 2am local time on Sunday at Schonleinstrasse station, a statement on the city’s police website says.

“ The seven youngsters or young men are suspected of having put a homeless person in danger through fire at the Schonleinstrasse subway station,” the announcement reads.

According to a press release, the alleged perpetrators fled the scene in a train following the incident. Law enforcement is now investigating the case as attempted murder.

“The action of the youngsters is considered an attempted murder,” police said.

Police added that passersby spotted the homeless man on fire and quickly extinguished the flames. A train driver at the station also rushed to help. The “clearly intoxicated” homeless person survived the attack without any injuries, police said.

“A search for the perpetrators is underway,” the police statement reads, with authorities now reaching out to the people in Berlin to help identify the attackers.

During the winter the Berlin subway system traditionally allows homeless people to spend the night inside stations when they are closed. The system was open round the clock at the time of the incident due to the Christmas holidays, Die Welt reports.

The incident comes on the heels of another attack in the Berlin subway which caused widespread outrage in Germany. Two weeks ago CCTV footage emerged showing a male kicking a young woman down the stairs, breaking her arm. The incident happened back in October, but it took weeks for the Berlin police to find the suspected attacker.

The alleged perpetrator was later detained by law enforcement and turned out to be a 27-year- old Bulgarian. Police are now investigating the man as the prime suspect, but are also checking his two brothers and another person, all of whom were allegedly next to him during the assault.

The Berlin subway saw a rise in violence in 2015, Berlin Morgenpost reports , citing official information. According to the figures, police registered 2,201 cases of violent incidents at stations and inside trains last year, compared to 2,070 in 2014.

2016-12-26 11:28 www.rt.com

51 /100 88.2 Suspect In Deadly Mount Vernon Nightclub Shooting Charged With Murder MOUNT VERNON, N. Y. (CBSNewYork) — The suspect in a deadly Christmas morning shooting at a nightclub in Mount Vernon that left one dead and five others injured now faces murder charges.

Authorities say the 36-year-old suspect fired off shots near the entrance of The Mansion club around 4:30 a.m. Christmas morning.

Mount Vernon Police Captain Edward Adinaro said the man was told to leave the premises before the incident.

Mount Vernon spokeswoman Maria Donovan said the early morning shooting resulted in the death of club co- owner Oneil Bandoo, who leaves behind a wife and children.

CBS2 reported that he had been out on bail since earlier this year when he was charged with an attempted murder in a completely separate case.

Authorities say the suspect remains in custody and no bail has been set.

2016-12-26 11:28 newyork.cbslocal.com

52 /100 2.5 Baby goes on transplant list at 10:15. At 10:55, a match (NEWSER) – Daniel McCabe is just 5 months old, but he's been fighting a rare liver disorder since he was born. On Dec. 13, things had become so dire that doctors placed him on the waiting list for a new liver and prepared to wait weeks, if not months, with his life in the balance. As it turns out, they waited less than an hour, reports NBC Chicago. Daniel went on the list at 10:15 a.m., and at 10:55 a.m., a doctor received the good news and walked into his room at Chicago's Lurie Children's Hospital to inform his mom. "I was just speechless," recounted Melody McCabe, per Fox 6 News. With good reason: The average wait for a liver is 149 days for adults and 86 days for kids. The infant from Waukesha, Wisconsin, had successful surgery the following evening is now recuperating.

“It’s one in a million, you know," surgeon Riccardo Superina tells the Chicago Sun-Times. "I can’t ever remember having something like this happen. We were prepared to wait a few months—in fact at one point I think the plan was to evaluate one of the parents for donations.” Only about 40 people have gotten a match in 40 minutes or less over the last five years. Not much is known about the donor in this case, other than he was a male in his 30s. One footnote: His liver was split in two and thus saved the lives of two patients. Daniel's parents expressed sorrow for the donor's family as well as profound thanks. "This is a Christmas we'll never forget," says dad Daniel McCabe. (Apple's Tim Cook offered Steve Jobs part of his liver.)

This story originally appeared on Newser:

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2016-12-26 11:22 John Johnson rssfeeds.usatoday.com

53 /100 3.1 Obama Enacts “Ministry of Truth” As Public Focuses on Holidays Late on Friday, with the US population embracing the upcoming holidays and oblivious of most news emerging from the administration, Obama quietly signed into law the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which authorizes $611 billion for the military in 2017.

In a statement, Obama said that :

Today, I have signed into law S. 2943, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017.” This Act authorizes fiscal year 2017 appropriations principally for the Department of Defense and for Department of Energy national security programs, provides vital benefits for military personnel and their families, and includes authorities to facilitate ongoing operations around the globe. It continues many critical authorizations necessary to ensure that we are able to sustain our momentum in countering the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and to reassure our European allies, as well as many new authorizations that, among other things, provide the Departments of Defense and Energy more flexibility in countering cyber-attacks and our adversaries’ use of unmanned aerial vehicles.”

Much of the balance of Obama’s statement blamed the GOP for Guantanamo’s continued operation and warned that “unless the Congress changes course, it will be judged harshly by history,” Obama said. Obama also said Congress failed to use the bill to reduce wasteful overhead (like perhaps massive F-35 cost overruns?) or modernize military health care, which he said would exacerbate budget pressures facing the military in the years ahead.

But while the passage of the NDAA – and the funding of the US military – was hardly a surprise, the biggest news is what was buried deep inside the provisions of the Defense Authortization Act.

Recall that as we reported in early June , “a bill to implement the U. S.’ very own de facto Ministry of Truth had been quietly introduced in Congress.

As with any legislation attempting to dodge the public spotlight the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 marks a further curtailment of press freedom and another avenue to stultify avenues of accurate information.

Introduced by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu, H. R. 5181 seeks a “whole- government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions” to counter “foreign disinformation and manipulation,” which they believe threaten the world’s “security and stability.”

Also called the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 (S. 2692), when introduced in March by Sen. Rob Portman, the legislation represents a dramatic return to Cold War-era government propaganda battles.

“These countries spend vast sums of money on advanced broadcast and digital media capabilities, targeted campaigns, funding of foreign political movements, and other efforts to influence key audiences and populations,” Portman explained, adding that while the U. S. spends a relatively small amount on its Voice of America, the Kremlin provides enormous funding for its news organization, RT.

“Surprisingly,” Portman continued, “there is currently no single U. S. governmental agency or department charged with the national level development, integration and synchronization of whole-of-government strategies to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation.”

Long before the “fake news” meme became a daily topic of extensive conversation on such discredited mainstream portals as CNN and WaPo, H. R. 5181 would task the Secretary of State with coordinating the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to “establish a Center for Information Analysis and Response,” which will pinpoint sources of disinformation, analyze data, and — in true dystopic manner — develop and disseminate “fact-based narratives” to counter effrontery propaganda.

In short, long before “fake news” became a major media topic, the US government was already planning its legally-backed crackdown on anything it would eventually label “fake news.”

Fast forward to December 8, when the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” passed in the Senate, quietly inserted inside the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report.

And now, following Friday’s Obama signing of the NDAA on Friday evening, the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act is now law.

Here is the full statement issued by the generously funded Senator Rob Portman (R- Ohio) on the singing into law of a bill that further chips away at press liberties in the US, and which sets the stage for future which hunts and website shutdowns, purely as a result of an accusation that any one media outlet or site is considered as a source of “disinformation and propaganda” and is shut down by the government.

President Signs Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill into Law

Portman-Murphy Bill Promotes Coordinated Strategy to Defend America, Allies Against Propaganda and Disinformation from Russia, China & Others U. S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) today announced that their Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act – legislation designed to help American allies counter foreign government propaganda from Russia, China, and other nations – has been signed into law as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report.

The bipartisan bill, which was introduced by Senators Portman and Murphy in March, will improve the ability of the United States to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation from our enemies by establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U. S. government.

To support these efforts, the bill also creates a grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government who are engaged in counter-propaganda related work.

This will better leverage existing expertise and empower our allies overseas to defend themselves from foreign manipulation.

It will also help foster a free and vibrant press and civil society overseas, which is critical to ensuring our allies have access to truthful information and inoculating people against foreign propaganda campaigns.

“Our enemies are using foreign propaganda and disinformation against us and our allies, and so far the U. S. government has been asleep at the wheel,” Portman said. “But today, the United States has taken a critical step towards confronting the extensive, and destabilizing, foreign propaganda and disinformation operations being waged against us by our enemies overseas.

“With this bill now law, we are finally signaling that enough is enough; the United States will no longer sit on the sidelines. We are going to confront this threat head-on. I am confident that, with the help of this bipartisan bill, the disinformation and propaganda used against us, our allies, and our interests will fail.”

“The use of propaganda to undermine democracy has hit a new low. But now we are finally in a position to confront this threat head on and get out the truth.”

“By building up independent, objective journalism in places like eastern Europe, we can start to fight back by exposing these fake narratives and empowering local communities to protect themselves,” said Murphy. “I’m proud that our bill was signed into law, and I look forward to working with Senator Portman to make sure these tools and new resources are effectively used to get out the truth.”

NOTE: The bipartisan Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act is organized around two main priorities to help achieve the goal of combatting the constantly evolving threat of foreign disinformation from our enemies: The first priority is developing a whole-of-government strategy for countering THE foreign propaganda and disinformation being wages against us and our allies by our enemies. The bill would increase the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors like Russia and China as well as non-state actors. The Center will be led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies. The Center will develop, integrate, and synchronize whole-of-government initiatives to expose and counter foreign disinformation operations by our enemies and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U. S. allies and interests. Second, the legislation seeks to leverage expertise from outside government to create more adaptive and responsive U. S. strategy options. The legislation establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies, media organizations, and other experts outside the U. S. government with experience in identifying and analyzing the latest trends in foreign government disinformation techniques. This fund will complement and support the Center’s role by integrating capabilities and expertise available outside the U. S. government into the strategy-making process. It will also empower a decentralized network of private sector experts and integrate their expertise into the strategy-making process.

And so, with the likes of WaPo having already primed the general public to equate “Russian Propaganda” with “fake news” (despite admitting after the fact their own report was essentially “fake “), while the US media has indoctrinated the public to assume that any information which is not in compliance with the official government narrative, or dares to criticize the establishment, is also “fake news” and thus falls under the “Russian propaganda” umbrella, the scene is now set for the US government to legally crack down on every media outlet that the government deems to be “foreign propaganda.”

Just like that, the US Ministry of Truth is officially born.

2016-12-26 11:13 - www.infowars.com

54 /100 2.0 In the Time of Trump, All We Have Is Each Other Protesters ban together near Trump Tower in New York City in the aftermath of the presidential election. (Photo: Mary Altaffer / AP)

This Christmas I mourn the long, slow death of our democracy that led to the political ascendancy of Donald Trump. I fear the euphoria of those who have embraced the atavistic lust for violence and bigotry stoked by him. These nativist forces, part of the continuum of white vigilante violence directed against people of color and radical dissidents throughout American history, are once again being groomed as instruments of mass intimidation and perhaps terror. I know that our civil and political institutions, poisoned by neoliberalism and captured by the corporate state, have neither the will nor the ability to protect us. We are on our own. It won’t be pleasant.

A week ago in New York I spoke with Ellen Schrecker , the country’s foremost historian of McCarthyism and the author of “ Many Are the Crimes : McCarthyism in America,” “ No Ivory Tower : McCarthyism & The Universities” and “ The Lost Soul of Higher Education : Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom, and the End of the American University.”

“What am I seeing?” she asked about the nation’s political and cultural condition. “Am I seeing a replay of the McCarthy era? To a large extent some of the parallels are stunning. You can look at a figure like [Sen. Joseph] McCarthy , who symbolized a much broader repressive movement. I would say Trump plays the same role today for what really is a right-wing reactionary movement that has taken over the American government.”

“There are a number of fairly superficial comparisons we can make,” Schrecker went on. “I think both McCarthy and Trump are somewhat abhorrent characters—perhaps there’s a little sociopath involved there. McCarthy was a genius at working the press. He understood how to get himself on the front pages. He knew the deadlines that specific reporters had. He knew how to feed them stories. I think the parallels there are pretty obvious. Trump is a genius with regard to the media.”

The Wisconsin senator was, as Trump is now, very opportunistic, she said. McCarthy, a Democrat before he became a Republican, “was just a little bit late” in exploiting the Red Scare , Schrecker said, latching on to it in 1950, “by which time the Un-American Activities Committee had been hounding Hollywood.”

Trump and his Christian fascist minions, sooner than most of us expect, will seek to shut down the small spaces left for free expression. Dissent will become difficult and sometimes dangerous. There will be an overt campaign of discrimination and hate crimes directed against a host of internal enemies, including undocumented workers, Muslims, African-Americans and dissidents. The Christian right will be given a license to roll back women’s rights, insert their magical thinking into school curriculums and terrorize Muslims and the GBLT community. The Trump administration will hand our Christian jihadists a platform to champion a repugnant religious chauvinism that fuses the symbols and language of the Christian religion with American capitalism, imperialism and white supremacy.

Repressive measures, I expect, will be implemented swiftly. Speed blinds a captive population to what is happening. Already anemic democratic traditions and institutions, including the legal system, the two major political parties and the press, will crumble under the assault. Trump will use the familiar tools that make possible the authoritarian state: mass incarceration, militarized police, crippling of the judicial system, demonization of opponents real and imagined, and obliteration of privacy and civil liberties, all foolishly promoted by the political elites on behalf of corporate power.

Schrecker said the rise of Trump has been in the making for four decades. Corporations funded and established institutions to close the cultural, social and political openings made in the 1960s, especially in universities, the press, labor and the arts. These corporate forces turned government into a destructive power. America was pillaged and cannibalized for profit. We now live in a deindustrialized wasteland. This scorched-earth assault created fertile ground for a demagogue.

The late Lewis Powell, a general counsel to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and later a Supreme Court justice, in 1971 wrote an eight-page memo outlining a campaign to counter what the document’s title described as an “Attack on American Free Enterprise System.” The memo established the Business Roundtable , which generated huge monetary resources and political clout to direct government policy and mold public opinion. The Powell report listed methods that corporations could use to silence those in “the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals” who were hostile to corporate interests.

Powell called for the establishment of lavishly funded think tanks and conservative institutes. He proposed that ideological assaults against government regulation and environmental protection be directed at a mass audience. He advocated placing corporate-friendly academics and neoliberal economists in universities and banishing from the public sphere those who challenged unfettered corporate power—especially Ralph Nader, whom Powell cited by name. Organizations were to be formed to monitor and pressure the media to report favorably on issues that furthered corporate interests. Pro-corporate judges were to be placed on the bench.

Academics were to be controlled by pressure from right-wing watch lists, co-opted university administrators and wealthy donors. Under the prolonged assault the universities, like the press, eventually became compliant, banal and monochromatic. “He spelled out a need for an alternative to academic knowledge,” Schrecker said of Powell. “He felt the academy had been undermined by the left. He wanted to establish an alternative source of expertise. What you’re getting in the 1970s is the development of things like the American Enterprise Institute [in existence since 1938] , The Heritage Foundation, a whole bunch of think tanks on the right who people in the media can go to and get expertise. But it’s politically motivated.”

“It was unbelievably successful,” she said of the campaign. “It’s pretty bad. What we’re seeing today is an assault on knowledge. What came out of this are the culture wars of the late 1980s and 1990s which created a set of stereotypes of professors as deconstructionist, raging feminists who hate men, cross-dressers, and, worse, who are out of touch with reality.”

The ideological attack was accompanied by corporate campaigns to defund public schools and universities, along with public broadcasting and the arts. The humanities were eviscerated. Vocational training, including the expansion of the study of finance and economics in universities, replaced disciplines that provided students with cultural and historical literacy, that allowed them to step outside of themselves to feel and express empathy for the other. Students were no longer taught how to think, but what to think. Civic education died. A grotesque kind of illiteracy—one exemplified by Trump—was celebrated. Success became solely about amassing wealth. The cult of the self, the essence of corporatism, became paramount.

Schrecker said that during the McCarthy era most of the Red baiting, blacklisting and censorship emanated from the government, especially J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hoover and McCarthy, along with Richard Nixon and Roy Cohn, left ruined lives and reputations in the wake of their vicious inquisitions. They effectively shut down freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Cohn, who was a prosecutor in the espionage case that sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair, was later Trump’s lawyer and close friend for 13 years. Cohn was disbarred in 1986, shortly before his death, for what a court called unethical, unprofessional and “particularly reprehensible” conduct.

“There are … many more private entities” involved in today’s anti-democratic campaign, Schrecker said. “It’s a bit of everything. That’s why it’s so dangerous. It’s not just Trump. Trump is clearly about to become very powerful. Nonetheless, there have been these forces, the climate deniers, the oil people, all of them are coming together at this particular point in time.”

We must begin again. Any hope for a restoration of civil society will come from small, local groups and community organizations. They will begin with the mundane tasks of holding back the expansion of charter schools, enforcing environmental regulations, building farmers markets, fighting for the minimum wage, giving sanctuary to undocumented workers, protesting hate crimes and electing people to local offices who will seek to mitigate the excesses of the state.

“We have to reconstitute a civil society,” Schrecker said. “Intermediary institutions like the academy and the media have been hollowed out. Certainly, journalism is on life support. We have to resuscitate organizations and institutions that have atrophied.”

“There is an attack on the American mind,” she said. “A lot of what we’re seeing with Trump is the product of 40 years of dumbing down.”

A crisis is traditionally used by authoritarian and totalitarian regimes to put a country in lockdown. An economic meltdown, a large domestic terrorist attack, widespread devastation from climate change or the orchestrated escalation of hostilities with another country, perhaps Iran or China, will see Trump and his rogue generals, billionaires and conspiracy theorists plunge the United States into dystopia.

War is the usual vehicle that demagogues use to justify internal repression and wield unchallenged power. If the federal government expands our wars to create new enemies, even local resistance will be impermissible. All dissent will be criminalized. Institutions, fearful and weak, will carry out purges of those few who speak out. Most of society, intimidated by a war psychosis, will be compliant to avoid being targeted. Resistance will often be tantamount to suicide.

The late Rev. Daniel Berrigan declared in a 2008 conversation with me that the American empire was in irrevocable decline. He said that in the face of this dissolution we must hold fast to the non-historical values of compassion, simplicity, love and justice. The rise and fall of civilizations, he noted, is part of the cyclical nature of history.

“The tragedy across the globe is that we are pulling down so many others,” he said. “We are not falling gracefully. Many, many people are paying with their lives for this.”

We must not become preoccupied with the short-term effects of resistance. Failure is inevitable for many of us. Tyrants have silenced voices of conscience in the past. They will do so again. We will endure by holding fast to our integrity, by building community and by spawning new institutions in the midst of the wreckage. We will sustain each other. Perhaps enough of us will endure to begin again.

© 2016 TruthDig

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning , What Every Person Should Know About War , and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

Preparing for the Storm

Trump's Disappearing 'Neutral Guy'

Sanders Says Trump's "Dangerous" Nuclear Arms Race Talk Must Be Challenged

Trump and National Neoliberalism

2016-12-26 11:04 Chris Hedges www.commondreams.org

55 /100 3.1 Experts warn ’17 to be year of ‘smart home’ hacking Will 2017 be the year your home becomes under attack from cyber criminals?

Experts expect the number of attacks on the Internet of Things (IoT) will likely increase in 2017. IoT includes devices like webcams, DVRs and connected thermostats that make life easier for homeowners, but are susceptible to cyber-intrusions. These gadgets add conveniences like locking your door or shutting off the lights all from a smartphone app, but they come with certain risks, experts warn.

Read more

2016-12-26 10:46 - www.infowars.com

56 /100 1.9 EU single market membership may hamper UK trade deals — RT Business "I don't think it makes sense for us to pretend we should remain in the single market and I think there are real question marks about whether it makes sense to remain in the customs union,” King said in an interview with BBC’s Radio 4.

The former banker said Britain’s exit from the European Union could undermine the government's ability to sign trade deals with countries outside the block.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and Trade Secretary Liam Fox recently said they wanted to agree on new trade agreements with non-EU countries as soon as possible after Brexit and have already started informal talks with some of them.

Britain would be better off economically completely out of the EU single market, King suggested. "Being out of what is a pretty unsuccessful European Union - particularly in the economic sense - gives us opportunities as well as obviously great political difficulties. "

Among the opportunities Brexit could provide, King named a chance to rework the system of agriculture subsidies, and to revise the relationship with the Republic of Ireland. The Irish border will be the only EU-UK land border after Brexit.

"I think the challenges we face mean it's not a bed of roses, no one should pretend that, but equally it is not the end of the world, and there are some real opportunities that arise from the fact of Brexit we might take," he said.

The former Bank of England’s head added the government should outline its policies on immigration "sooner rather than later" and that it would be a mistake to put the issue into the "basket" to be negotiated once Article 50 is triggered. Prime Minister May plans to trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty by the end of March, beginning the two-year withdrawal period.

2016-12-26 10:42 www.rt.com

57 /100 2.7 Union welcomes win for SAA pilot in defamation case Harty told Fin24 last week that he is relieved to have won the defamation case he brought against the SA Transport and Allied Workers' Union (Satawu) and two of its officials. Harty, a former chair of the SAA Pilots’ Association, has 39 years' experience and retired from SAA earlier this year when he turned 63. The Gauteng High Court issued a default judgment in Harty's favour on December 15, awarding him R450 000 in damages plus interest. The two Satawu officials and the union must also pay Harty's legal costs. The court action was not opposed. "The entire ordeal was simply distasteful and unbecoming of the national carrier in its inconspicuous silence and unsupportive manner towards senior captain Harty, who served the airline with distinction, alongside the integral role he played as chairperson of the Fedusa–affiliated Airline Pilots Association of SA (Alpa–SA), Fedusa general secretary Dennis George said in a statement. George said the ruling will force people to think carefully about what they post on social media and to act in a responsible manner at all times. "The matter not only unduly defamed the decorated image of senior captain Harty, but likewise brought the frail image of SAA into disrepute once again," emphasised George. "Fedusa vehemently condemned SAA management for doing nothing to help captain Harty during his harrowing ordeal, but instead allowed the hearsay matter to prolong without unearthing the critical evidence. "

READ: Pilots enter vote of no confidence in SAA board

George added that the ruling will also go a long way in addressing governance issues at SAA and other state-owned enterprises such as the SABC. “We have always had full confidence in senior captain Harty as a man of integrity, who put the interest of the national carrier first, and above everything else,” said George. Harty told Fin24 that about a year ago he was suddenly contacted by the Hawks and questioned about allegations made by Satawu. These included allegations that Harty and fellow SAA pilots were plotting to bring down a plane piloted by a black pilot. Harty pointed out that the union started making these false allegations about a week after a vote of no confidence was brought by 457 out of 472 SAA pilots against the airline's chairperson Dudu Myeni and the non-executive directors of the board. A second allegation made by Satawu was that an aircraft on its way from Hong Kong to Johannesburg was diverted to Durban to drop off some of Harty's family members. A third allegation made by the union was that a flight from Johannesburg to Hong Kong was made to fly via Durban due to high temperatures in Johannesburg, thus increasing the crew's working hours and, according to the union, putting passengers at risk. Harty said there was no such thing. Harty pointed out to Fin24 that SAA obviously did not think there was any substance in these allegations as he was never taken off duty nor interviewed by anyone at SAA about them. None of his fellow pilots were ever interviewed about it by SAA either.

Yet, Satawu continued to publish the false allegations on its website and on social media and referring to it in radio interviews, even claiming Harty should be tried for treason. "All these claims were untrue," emphasised Harty. "Throughout this saga I have had no support from SAA management at all. That is quite disappointing to me. " Fin24 contacted Satawu for comment, but has not received any feedback by the time of publication.

READ: Gordhan approves R5bn guarantee for SAA

Read Fin24's top stories trending on Twitter: Fin24’s top stories

2016-12-26 10:34 Carin Smith www.fin24.com

58 /100 97.9 Former Fort Bragg soldier convicted of murder and rape faces execution after eight-year delay A former Fort Bragg soldier who killed four women and raped several others is headed for execution eight years after he was first scheduled to die. Ronald Gray, who is held at a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, lost a battle to keep in place a 2008 federal court's order blocking his execution. Gray was convicted in 1988, and his death sentence will be the first for the U. S. military since 1961. The Army cook was convicted and sentenced to death in military court for two murders and three rapes while stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He also pleaded guilty in civilian courts to two more murders and five separate rapes, for which he received a total of eight life sentences. His murder victims included cab driver Kimberly Ann Ruggles, Army Private Laura Lee Vickery-Clay, Campbell University student Linda Jean Coats and soldier's wife Tammy Wilson, the Fayetteville Observer reported. The case was caught in appeals courts for two decades, and the Department of Justice launched an investigated before President George W. Bush signed an execution order in 2008. Only the president can approve a death sentence in the military courts, and Gray is currently the only military convict whose execution has been given the green light. But Gray appealed, and was granted a stay of execution. His attorneys tried to keep the court order in place, arguing the military courts didn't have the power to prosecute him. But Judge J. Thomas Marten said that there was no evidence of error or injustice and government lawyers said there was no basis to extend the stay of execution if Gray was not facing additional court proceedings. The judge ruled last week that the court order granted in 2008 was no longer in effect. Government lawyers acknowledged that Gray could petition for another stay of execution and 'pursue any remedies available in that court'. It remains unclear whether he will do so. Officials have not yet scheduled the execution - the first since 1961, when John Bennett was hanged for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl.

2016-12-26 10:30 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk

59 /100 59 /100 93.3 2 Killed, 4 Wounded in NY Nightclub Shooting Video New overnight the suspect in the deadly shooting at a mountain Vernon nightclub is now facing second degree murder charges 39 year old Errol Hillary. Will be arraigned this morning he's accused of opening fire at the mansion in Mount Vernon early Christmas morning telling the club's owner. I'm Neal band do police say he was shot just before 4:30 yesterday morning after security asked him asked Hillary to leave the club. Eyewitnesses say and that's when he started shooting. Next thing you know. Three shots didn't formal shots and then. You hill multiple shocked and these people running. Six people were hurt and then do was killed police say Hillary was angry about being thrown out of the party was not targeting anyone in particular. He was charged with attempted murder six months ago in the may shooting in the Bronx.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

2016-12-26 18:01 ABC News abcnews.go.com

60 /100 23.7 Man killed near Lakefront Airport in New Orleans A man was killed in the Seabrook area near Lakefront Airport on Monday (Dec. 26), New Orleans police said.

Police were investigating the homicide in the 7900 block of Lamb Street, the department said.

A man who lives on the street, and who asked not to be identified, said he did not hear any gunshots, but that another neighbor did.

The victim laid down on the grass next to a bush in front of a metal chainlink fence in front of a brick house. His slippers were inside the fence. Police had placed three evidence markers in the front yard inside the fence.

The neighbor said he did not know the victim well, but that someone had been living at the home for about eight years.

Several other residents said they have been living in the area for years and never had a homicide in that period.

No additional information was immediately available.

2016-12-26 10:27 Jed Lipinski www.nola.com

61 /100 1.4 Washtenaw County court news to follow in 2017 This year in Washtenaw County, the court system saw charges of murder, traffic fatalities, lying to a peace officer and attempted poisoning in several of its major cases.

Here's a look at court news from major incidents 2013 through 2016 that will continue into 2017.

2016-12-26 10:23 Lindsay Knake www.mlive.com

62 /100 0.3 GPS ankle bracelet company grows rapidly in Indianapolis INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A GPS ankle bracelet company is likely to grow rapidly in Indiana as authorities increasingly use tracking devices to increase compliance with pretrial release, probation or parole conditions among accused and convicted offenders.

The Indianapolis Star (http://indy.st/2ho9C5g ) reports more than 3,200 central Indiana residents are outfitted with GPS tracking devices.

Brian Barton is a former community corrections director and current executive director of Track Group, Marion County’s sole GPS tracking device provider.

He says the number of people ordered to wear the technology has nearly doubled in the Indianapolis area in the past year.

He also says the Salt Lake City-based company is expected to grow in the future because of Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett’s sweeping criminal justice reform proposal, which includes a variety of methods to reduce crime.

___

Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com 2016-12-26 10:20 By www.washingtontimes.com

63 /100 7.1 Myanmar says Muslim with links to government murdered in troubled Rakhine By Shwe Yee Saw Myint YANGON, Dec 26 (Reuters) - A man has been found dead with stab wounds in Myanmar's Rakhine State, in what the government said on Monday was the second murder in under a week of a Rohingya who cooperated with authorities as they crack down on suspected insurgents. Coordinated attacks on Oct. 9 killed nine police officers and sparked a military operation in northern Rakhine. The government of predominantly Buddhist Myanmar blamed Muslim Rohingyas supported by foreign militants. State media has reported at least 86 deaths and the United Nations says 34,000 people have fled to Bangladesh. The violence poses a challenge to Aung San Suu Kyi's government and has renewed international criticism that the Nobel laureate has done too little to help the Rohingya, who are denied citizenship in Myanmar. Residents and rights groups say soldiers have raped Rohingya women, burnt homes and killed civilians during the operation near the frontier with Bangladesh. The government denies the accusations, and has launched a social media campaign in an effort to demonstrate that security forces are acting properly in Rakhine. An administrator in Yae Twin Kyun village, named as Rawphi, was found dead with knife wounds on Sunday, Lieutenant Colonel Aung San Win of the local border guard police told Reuters. He said the killing of the 28-year-old Muslim might be "related to terrorism". Myanmar's state counsellor's office said on Monday evening on its Facebook page that the victim had been "cooperating with members of security forces in administration duties. " The case is the second murder in Rakhine where authorities have highlighted the victim's cooperation with the government, appearing to point the finger at Rohingya insurgents. On Friday, the state counsellor's office said a Muslim man was decapitated after he had denied stories of Myanmar military abuse when speaking to reporters. "He told media that there was no case of arson by the military and police forces, no rape and no unjust arrests," said a Facebook post accompanied by a picture of a headless body with English text that read: "truth teller beheaded". Neither the police nor the state counsellor's office have said who was responsible for the decapitation. A Rohingya community leader, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, told Reuters many Muslims were sceptical about the government's account of the beheading. A report by the International Crisis Group said insurgents calling themselves Harakah al-Yaqin were responsible for the attacks on Oct. 9 that sparked the crackdown. The group also have killed Rohingyas who threatened to inform on them to authorities, the ICG said. Reuters could not independently verify the government accounts as access for independent journalists to northern Rakhine has been prohibited since security forces locked down the area. (Reporting By Shwe Yee Saw Myint and Simon Lewis; Writing by Yimou Lee; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

2016-12-26 10:17 Reuters www.dailymail.co.uk

64 /100 4.6 74-year-old man charged with Park Manor shooting A 74-year-old man has been charged with shooting another man Saturday night in the Park Manor neighborhood on the South Side.

James B. Johnson faces one count of aggravated battery with the discharge of a firearm in connection with the 7:12 p.m. shooting, according to Chicago Police. He was arguing with a 53-year-old man in the 7300 block of South Michigan when he pulled out a gun and fired shots, grazing the man on his left hand, police said.

The man was taken to St. Bernard Hospital, where he was listed in good condition, police said. Johnson was taken into custody after the shooting and the weapon was recovered.

On Sunday, Judge Peggy Chiampas ordered Johnson held on a $10,000 bond, court records show. He was released on his own recognizance and is next scheduled to appear in court Dec. 30.

2016-12-26 10:10 Sun-Times chicago.suntimes.com

65 /100 6.0 Las Cruces man pleads guilty to drug trafficking charges ALBUQUERQUE, N. M. (AP) - A Las Cruces man has pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking charges.

Jimmy Alex Barela Jr. , 38, faces a sentence ranging from a mandatory 10 years up to life in prison after pleading guilty on Tuesday to possession of methamphetamine and heroin with intent to distribute.

Authorities say officers found nearly a pound of methamphetamine and one fifth of a pound of heroin in March when Barela ’s vehicle was stopped and a search was conducted at his home.

His sentencing date hasn’t yet been set.

2016-12-26 10:09 By www.washingtontimes.com

66 /100 2.1 Officer caught up in prostitution probe loses certification TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - A Tucson police officer caught up in an investigation into a prostitution ring has given up his certification to serve as an officer in Arizona.

The Arizona Daily Star reports (http://bit.ly/2hoRHzm) that the board that oversees police certifications has accepted a consent agreement with Oscar Ramos.

He was one of eight police employees who was fired or resigned after an investigation revealed they were customers of or had knowledge of illegal massage parlors.

Documents from the board say Ramos acknowledged he used “these services, knowing they offered sex acts in exchange for additional money.”

The board agreed to a three-month suspension of Officer Vincent Valenzuela’s certification.

Documents say an investigation revealed Valenzuela had a personal relationship with the alleged operator of a massage business that authorities say offered sexual acts.

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Information from: Arizona Daily Star, http://www.tucson.com

2016-12-26 10:08 By www.washingtontimes.com

67 /100 0.3 Parent caught 'teaching their child to drive after being almost twice over the legal alcohol limit on Christmas Day' A parent was caught allegedly giving their child a driving lesson while almost twice the legal alcohol limit.

The instructor blew a blood alcohol reading of 0.095 after they were pulled over in Perth at 5.02pm on Christmas Day.

WA Police publicly admonished the unnamed parent on its Twitter page, branding the alleged incident a 'parenting fail'.

A parent was caught allegedly giving their child a driving lesson while almost twice the legal alcohol limit

'Your kids are your world, look after them!' it wrote next to a photo of the test results accompanied by a handwritten explanation.

A parent instructing their child while drunk was the latest in a string of alleged incidents published on WA Police social media since the state's infamous holiday period double demerits came into effect.

On Christmas Eve a photo appeared to show a man being charged with driving while high on meth by officers wearing Santa hats and reindeer antlers.

'He's making a list, he's checking it twice, don't drive methed up its naughty not nice!' the post read.

On Christmas Eve a photo appeared to show a man being charged with driving while high on meth by officers wearing Santa hats and reindeer antlers

Another driver 'trying to catch Santa' allegedly drove 155km/h along a remote highway with two babies in the back seat

Earlier at 4.36am 21-year-old man was allegedly caught driving at 144km/h on the Mitchell Freeway and was slapped with 14 demerit points and a $1000 fine.

Another driver 'trying to catch Santa' allegedly drove 155km/h along a remote highway with two babies in the back seat.

Finally the police had a bit of fun crushing dozens of Emu Export beer cans confiscated from revellers in a park on Friday.

Officers lined them up and drove over them with a police car.

Police had a bit of fun crushing dozens of Emu Export beer cans confiscated from revellers in a park on Friday, lining them up and driving over them with a police car

2016-12-26 10:03 Nic White www.dailymail.co.uk

68 /100 2.4 These are the 5 craziest anti-robbery fights of 2016 These are the 5 craziest anti- robbery fights of 2016 was a year chock-full of fighting back. From cashiers throwing hammers at robbers with guns to a little kid testing out his real-life street-fighting moves on a thief at a video game store, the days of getting taken by an armed robber are numbered.

What do you get when you find a boxing match between two kangaroos in a front yard, a family of bears hanging out on a hammock, and a close encounter with a white shark? 2016's most epic animal encounters.

A sea lion band in Japan is learning to play a Christmas carol Otaru Aquarium in Japan is famous for these highly intelligent, musical instrument-playing sea lions. With the holidays around the corner, this rockin' sea lion band is adding a Christmas carol to its repertoire.

Drunken driver smashes into, and through, Russian airport A drunken driver in Russia crashed into an airport during a chase. But once the car was inside the airport, he kept going, crashing into everything in sight. The driver eventually drove himself out of the airport, where he was eventually arrested by some exhausted police officers.

Two nurses in a neonatal intensive care unit sang a beautiful "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to preemie Anya, who is seen wearing an adorable Santa hat. Although she can't yet be in her parents' arms, she is at least surrounded by the gentle touch and calming voices of these nurses.

Woman brutally beaten by mob of men after resisting groping creep A woman in India was subjected to disturbing brutality by a man who attempted to grope her in public. A group of men gathered around the woman and escalated the violence alongside the groper while the woman's young daughter watched it unfold.

'Vagazzle' your Christmas tree and wolf up your crotch with these holiday gifts Getting ready for Secret Santa this year? Wolf crotch underwear, vagina-designed ornaments, and pills that make you poop glitter are some of the most inappropriate gifts available for purchase this holiday season.

Truck driver smashes 41 cars after being dumped by wife Police in Bangkok, Thailand, tried to pull over a truck driver for being in a bus lane, but the driver refused to stop, instead spurring a chase through the city. Forty-one cars were smashed when the trucker plowed through oncoming traffic. It ended with the police shooting out the vehicle's tires.

Wasted truck driver pulled over after swerving like a maniac Recently released footage shows Minnesota police pulling over a truck driver who was wildly swerving around the highway, ignoring all traffic signs. When exiting his vehicle, the driver could barely stand and had two large bottles of vodka in his truck. His blood alcohol content was 3½ times the legal limit.

A bus driver in Fresno told one of his passengers to stop smoking his e-cigarette while aboard. The man obliged, putting it in his pocket, where it proceeded to explode. This is one of 66 reports the FDA has received about exploding e-cigarettes.

2016-12-26 10:00 nypost.com

69 /100 2.3 In this 'weird, lost corner of America,' the beach of your dreams awaits in the remotest national park Dec. 26, 2016

Reporting from National Park of American Samoa

Even for a Saturday in the South Pacific, this was a sleepy morning.

On American Samoa’s main island of Tutuila and its neighbor, Ofu, villages were still, beaches empty.

On the west coast of nearby Ta’u, a battered little fishing boat sidled up to the wharf, and a pale stranger stepped off, looking half-queasy and half-euphoric, a bagged octopus in his left hand.

That was me on Day 6 at America’s most far-flung national park. Probably fewer than 300 of them found their way to the park’s greatest asset, a beach on Ofu with creamy sands, volcanic boulders, serrated mountain ridges and turquoise shallows — but I’m getting ahead of myself.

This park gets so few visitors for many reasons, including the 11 hours of flying time from California, the exasperating transportation links among the islands, the territory’s scant infrastructure and its mosquitoes, some of which transmit dengue fever and Zika virus.

Although the park does have rangers, trails and a few miles of road, there are no campgrounds or lodgings, no snack bar, no shuttle buses, no entrance gate, no admission fee — few of the conventions that Americans imagine when they hear the words “national park.”

“It’s probably the most remote culture you can visit that’s still in the U. S.,” park superintendent Scott Burch told me on my visit in October 2015. “It’s the only paleotropical rain forest in the U. S. “My first couple of hikes around here — it was just a wonderland of things I’d never seen.”

I found Burch at the park service’s modest visitor center in downtown Pago Pago, the center of commerce on Tutuila, population about 55,000.

I was eager to meet them all, especially after it became clear that Pago (pronounced Pango Pango) isn’t nearly as pretty as its name.

Although Tutuila gets regular flights from Honolulu and Apia (the capital of independent Samoa, its own country about 75 miles northwest) and one or two cruise ships a month, tourism peaked decades ago.

As you scan the roadside while you rumble along the main drag in a bus, it’s tough to know which buildings were scarred by the tsunami of 2009 and which have been fading for decades.

There are fuel shortages, water-quality questions, Internet outages, many stray dogs and few hotels or restaurants.

The scent of tuna hangs in the air. (Or it did. In mid-December, one of the island’s two tuna- processing plants closed indefinitely.)

But once you’re on country roads, hearing the flying foxes shriek in the treetops, things get better.

Outside the park at Tisa’s Barefoot Bar on the southern coast of Tutuila, proprietors Tisa Fa’amuli and Candyman joined me on the deck for a drink and snack while stray coconuts tumbled in the tide.

It’s why village chiefs still wield enormous power, why village men stage annual longboat races, why global brand names are rare, why islanders maintain family graves in their front yards, why 90% of families speak Samoan in their homes.

And Samoan discipline and physical toughness might be why the islands send so many recruits to the U. S. Army and the NFL.

The Samoan way has definitely made life more interesting for the park service. Because Samoan custom forbids real-estate sales to outsiders, the only way the NPS could set up shop here in 1993, five years after Congress authorized creation of the park, was to negotiate 50-year leases with several local villages.

The deal gives villagers $600,000 a year in revenue, which makes this the only full-fledged national park that’s basically a rental. In all, the NPS spends about $2 million a year to run the park.

On the next leg of my trip, a 60-mile hop to the island of Ofu on Polynesian Airlines, I saw why the park service had been eager to gain a toehold here.

As our Twin Otter swooped, I could see coral gardens lining the beach and a 1,000-foot-high ridge of solid rain forest looming above. The airstrip was wedged in between.

“It’s this weird lost corner of America,” Terry Skaggs told me on the phone from his home in Rock Island, Ill.

Skaggs has visited Ofu more than 20 times since 1999 and does pro bono website work for the Vaoto Lodge. I called him before my visit to get advice. He had warned me about Pago and the general state of transportation and communication.

But when it came to Ofu, he said, “The minute I stepped off that plane I knew I was in love.”

Fifty paces from the landing strip stood the eight-room, cinder-block Vaoto Lodge, my home for the next two nights, and innkeeper Deborah Malae, whose family built the place.

Malae had saved my trip by snagging me a seat on the flight to Ofu. (Polynesian Airlines’ phone number and email address were no help.) Now she showed me my room ($80 a night) and pointed me toward the beach, a 10-minute walk.

Ofu looked like a movie set abandoned by its cast. There are a couple of villages with a combined population of about 200, a handful of vehicles, a few miles of road, no scuba facilities and probably more abandoned homes than occupied ones. Black boulders pepper the shoreline.

And Ofu Beach — well, this was the reason I flew 5,000 miles. It’s the beach at the end of the world — the loneliest, most evocative, tantalizing stretch of shoreline I’ve ever seen.

I would love to tell you I saw Ofu Beach under perfect blue skies, but the truth is that I caught it under two days of almost solid cloud cover with intermittent rain. I hardly minded.

I spent just about every minute I could in that warm, gentle water with a snorkel and mask, chasing after Blue Devils and Neon Damselfish.

I didn’t recognize any crown-of-thorns starfish, but when I spotted the angular silhouettes of a few frigate birds gliding overhead as if dinosaur days had never ended, I figured the next arrival might be a stegosaurus stomping out of the jungle.

I walked the length of the beach and back, about two miles. Sure enough, nobody but me.

“When I was small, I wanted to get off-island. Then I went,” park ranger John Sua told me later that day.

After a little while in Hawaii, he decided that “this is all going too fast.” He came back and got a job with the park service. We did the trip across the bridge, then hiked to Oge Beach, watched a plucky band of crabs fend off repeated attacks by a moray eel and spotted a 4-foot-long blacktip reef shark lurking in the shallows.

I could easily have filled another day or two exploring Ofu, but the island of Ta’u and my itinerary were calling.

It’s a famous place, if you’re an anthropologist.

Ta’u is where Margaret Mead did her controversial research on adolescent island girls for her 1928 book “Coming of Age in Samoa.”

The population nowadays is probably south of 200. Many abandoned homes. No bank. No hospital. No hotels despite the six flights weekly between the island’s Fiti’uta Airport and Pago Pago.

If a visitor should want to come, the park service keeps a list of residents willing to host homestays.

I was happy to see the wharf at Ta’u after 90 minutes at sea, clinging to the slick deck of the 18- foot vessel.

Sure enough, there was Moki Malae, grinning kindly with a few of her relatives. They greeted me, took custody of the squishy cargo and drove me to the other end of the island, where Eseta Kese, a homestay hostess, set me up in a spare bedroom.

She took me walking into national park territory on the Si’u Point Trail near Saua, said to be the birthplace of Polynesian culture 3,000 years ago, also said by many Samoans to be haunted.

A mile or two from where we walked, Lata Mountain rises 3,170 feet. When there’s enough water, the mountainside’s Laufuti Falls sends down a 1,000-foot shower.

But this week there was too much water — I couldn’t see the cliffs and the ground was so muddy, I gave up on hiking to the waterfall.

Still, those two days I spent on sleepy little Ta’u were plenty busy.

Ted Leiato, a supervisor for the American Samoa Power Authority, showed me a solar installation and taught me how to taste cacao fruit off the tree.

Moki Malae saved a seat for me at church, where I saw and heard dozens of children, all clad in white, sing a tune that sounded like “Down by the Riverside” in Samoan.

For Sunday lunch, Kese laid out a spread of taro, breadfruit, red snapper, parrotfish and, yes, coconut crab.

We ate with Leiato and a few other utility workers. It was an epic meal, yielding a vast pile of shattered crab shells. Then we watched NFL football on a big-screen TV.

In 2016, this, too, is the Samoan way.

The National Park Service roster of 413 parks, monuments, historic sites, historical parks, memorials, recreation areas, rivers, parkways, seashores, lake shores, battlefields, military parks, reserves and trails includes more far-flung islands than most Americans realize.

Among the full-fledged parks on islands:

Some other far-flung NPS units:

Credits: Sean Greene

2016-12-26 10:00 Christopher Reynolds www.latimes.com

70 /100 1.5 Santa Monica synagogue smeared with feces and food during Hanukkah It was an unsettling start to Hanukkah for a synagogue in Santa Monica, California.

Rabbi Boruch Rabinowitz arrived at the Living Torah Center Chabad shortly before 8 a.m. on Sunday — the first day of Hanukkah — to find the entrance of his synagogue had been smeared with feces and rice, according to the Los Angeles Times. The act of vandalism is thought to have been carried out Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

Synagogue officials believe the vandalism was a targeted act. Though it didn't feature any explicitly anti-Semitic messages or symbols, it was reportedly found "in close proximity to a menorah display. "

"This seems kind of intentional," assistant Rabbi Dovid Tenenbaum told the Los Angeles Times. "With a religious artifact in the window, we have to assume so. "

Describing the scene to the Los Angeles Daily News , Tenenbaum talked of feces spread over the doors, window and bricks in front of the window, as well as wedged into the window frame.

"It seems like someone either took their left over meal that they had gotten, rubbed it on the windows and threw it at the door," he told the outlet. "Then I'm not sure if... it was human or animal poop, if you don't mind me saying that, stuck onto the wall on the window and in the corner of the window" at the synagogue's entrance.

Police were called to the scene and took a vandalism report, but found there was nothing immediately indicative of a hate crime, according to the Daily News .

RELATED: Here are 11 good things that happened in 2016:

The Living Torah Center has reportedly experienced anti-Semitic incidents in the recent past, the Los Angeles Times reported. About a month ago, a man stood up during a service and yelled "Heil, Hitler" while he appeared to mime shooting a rifle, then ran away. Other past incidents include a letter bearing a swastika and the message "Get out of here, you Jews"; graffiti scrawled on a sukkah; and a cross etched into the synagogue's front window.

Tenenbaum told the Times the synagogue is planning to install security cameras.

The vandalism was a "very disturbing" sight, Tenenbaum told the Daily News — but he also expressed gratitude that it happened during Hanukkah.

"Thank God, it's Hanukkah today and one of the symbolisms of Hanukkah is light, to spread darkness in the world. ... Hopefully, the light of the menorah can light up the world and dispel all the darkness," he said.

More from Mic.com : Carrie Fisher is reportedly in stable condition after medical emergency 'Star Wars' cast, celebrities tweet support for Carrie Fisher after heart attack 8 books to read for the 8 nights of Hanukkah

2016-12-26 09:58 AOL Staff www.aol.com

71 /100 1.2 Drexel Condemns Professor As “Utterly Reprehensible” For Calling For “White Genocide,” Orders Him To Meeting RELATED – Professor At Drexel University Tweets: “All I Want For Christmas Is White Genocide”

Excerpted From Philly.com : Drexel University officials had an otherwise quiet Christmas holiday weekend loudly interrupted Sunday night, thanks to a professor who took to Twitter to let loose some extremist views.

“All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide,” associate professor of politics and global studies George Ciccariello-Maher wrote on Christmas Eve.

Drexel issued this official statement Sunday night:

Read the whole thing

Excerpted From The Daily Caller : Drexel University said in a statement Sunday afternoon: “While the University recognizes the right of its faculty to freely express their thoughts and opinions in public debate, Professor Ciccariello-Maher’s comments are utterly reprehensible, deeply disturbing, and do not in any way reflect the values of the University.”

“The University is taking this situation very seriously. We contacted Ciccariello-Maher today to arrange a meeting to discuss this matter in detail,” the statement continued on to say. Ciccariello-Maher did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ciccariello-Maher also tweeted in Sept. 2016 a purported exchange between him and his son: “Son: If I was a slave, I’d bake a cake & put a potion in it & the white people would steal it Me: What would the potion do? Him: Kill them,” Ciccariello-Maher wrote.

The Drexel professor has authored three books, and according to his biography he has written for The Huffington Post, The Nation, Salon, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Read the whole thing

2016-12-26 16:30 Lynne Marton www.patdollard.com

72 /100 1.2 History Suggests Left’s #CalExit Secession Movement is Doomed As John Myers notes in the : “Since 1849, more than 200 efforts have imagined a political do-over to the idea of California as a single, sprawling American state. Every attempt has failed.” The closest anyone has come would appear to be the effort to create the State of Jefferson, which is still ongoing in parts of Northern California. The initial push came in the early 1940s, but was cut short by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which united the state and the nation. More recently, several northern counties have seen efforts by residents to revive the Jefferson idea as a response to a Democrat-dominated state government that seems completely out of touch with the needs of the inland and rural parts of the Golden State. However, there have also been spectacular failures, such as the “Six Californias” movement of 2015, which for the 2016 ballot and faced fierce opposition from state leaders (because they feared, among other reasons, it would help Republicans in the presidential election). Jeff Horseman of the Riverside County-based a few of the other recent flops: Thus #CalExit has a steep hill to climb, and may survive more as a kind of protest movement — than an actual political program. Segregation, rather than secession, seems to be the preferred model of California Democrats, who are following in by vowing not to enforce federal law or recognize federal authority in areas such as immigration.

2016-12-26 09:47 by feedproxy.google.com

73 /100 3.3 Cafeteria manager jailed for insulting Turkey's Erdogan, lawyer says By Humeyra Pamuk ISTANBUL, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Turkish authorities have arrested the cafeteria manager of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper for insulting the president after he said he would not serve tea to Tayyip Erdogan, one of the manager's lawyers told Reuters on Monday. Senol Buran, who runs the cafeteria at the Istanbul office of Cumhuriyet, was taken into custody after police raided his home late on Saturday, lawyer Ozgur Urfa said. The newspaper is among the few still critical of the government. Insulting the president is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison in Turkey. Lawyers for Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade, have filed more than 1,800 cases against people including cartoonists, a former Miss Turkey winner and schoolchildren on accusations of insulting him. Following a failed coup in July, Erdogan said he would drop the outstanding suits, in a one-off gesture of national unity. Buran is jailed pending trial and the court date, if any, has not yet been announced. The Justice Ministry would need to approve the launch of a court case. Buran was detained after a police officer providing security for the newspaper said he heard him use a derogatory term to describe Erdogan and say he would refuse to serve the president tea if he ever visited the cafeteria, his lawyer said. According to court documents obtained by Reuters, Buran has denied using an insulting term, while confirming that he had said he would refuse to serve the president tea. He also said he had a dispute with the police officer two years ago. The judge at an Istanbul court on Sunday ordered Buran's arrest pending trial, citing "strong suspicion of crime committed" and saying the suspect might otherwise put pressure on witnesses, the documents showed. The Cumhuriyet has confirmed that Buran was arrested. Ten Cumhuriyet staff including its top editor and senior executives were jailed in November pending trial on suspicion of crimes on behalf of Kurdish militants and U. S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused of instigating the failed July 15 coup. The newspaper's previous editor, Can Dundar, was jailed last year for publishing state secrets involving Turkey's support for Syrian rebels. He was later released and is now overseas. Since the July coup, more than 110,000 people have been sacked or suspended and 40,000 jailed pending trial. Western allies and rights groups say they fear Erdogan is using the coup attempt to crush dissent. Turkish authorities last week froze assets of 54 journalists who have been under investigation and some already jailed over suspected links to what Ankara calls the "Gulenist Terror Organisation", according to Hurriyet newspaper. Gulen has said the charges against him are false and has condemned the coup. (Editing by David Dolan and Ruth Pitchford)

2016-12-26 09:41 Reuters www.dailymail.co.uk

74 /100 2.2 Mom arrested for drunk driving handed son sippy cup filled with wine when pulled over An Ohio woman who was arrested for drunk driving handed her five-year-old son a sippy cup filled with wine when police pulled her over. Elizabeth Louise Floyd, 27, was stopped in Loveland, Ohio, on Friday after police received reports that she was driving erratically. She is now charged with operating a vehicle while impaired, as well as child endangerment. Police say they stopped Floyd after getting a call on Friday about a vehicle crossing the double yellow line and hitting a curb. Floyd was pulled over for a marked lanes violation and stopped on Riverside Drive in Loveland, about 20 miles outside Cincinnati, Ohio, FOX reported. She later admitted to passing over the wine to her son, who was found with the sippy cup, according to an affidavit. Floyd failed a field sobriety test and was later found with a blood alcohol level of 0.169 - more than double the limit of 0.08. She is scheduled for a January 11 court appearance. A message left Saturday for her attorney was not returned. Floyd has been arrested for traffic violations before, according to public records.

2016-12-26 09:38 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk

75 /100 2.3 Teenager's parents report their own 18-year-old DAUGHTER for drink-driving after she gave her friend a lift home from a night out A teenager was reported to the police for drink driving by her own parents after she gave a friend a lift home while three times the legal limit. Shannon Downie, 18, returned to her home in Westhill, Aberdeenshire, via a taxi after a night out but then gave a friend a lift home in her Ford Fiesta despite drinking. Her parents saw her leaving and called the police, who pulled her over and arrested her for drink driving. According to the Daily Record , Downie pleaded guilty to the offence at Aberdeen Sheriff Court and was banned from driving for a year and also fined £400. The court heard her parents called police because they were ‘disgusted’ at her actions, while Downie herself offered no explanation for the ‘ridiculous decision’ and her solicitor told the court she was ‘ashamed’. According to the Record, Judge Secretary Michael Matheson said: ‘It is disappointing that some are continuing to ignore the law and put themselves, and others, at risk. ‘Drink-driving is completely unacceptable. If you get caught you face a minimum one-year ban, a criminal record, points on your licence and a substantial fine.’ College student Downie will have her ban reduced by three months if she completes a drink-driving course. The incident on December 2 comes as 388 people have been caught drink-driving during a month-long Police Scotland crackdown. Assistant Chief Constable Bernard Higgins said: ‘Our message is simple - if you're going to drink, do not risk driving. Police Scotland does not tolerate this kind of behaviour and will stop anyone they suspect of driving under the influence of alcohol. ‘The consequences are severe; they include an automatic ban, a potential fine and even the possibility of a prison sentence as well as being the potential to kill or seriously injure yourself or others. ‘Thirty four of those drivers caught were found to be over the limit when stopped by police between 6am and 10am. ‘Don't risk it - if there's a possibility that you're still over the limit the morning after, don't drive and make other arrangements.’

2016-12-26 09:29 Joseph Curtis www.dailymail.co.uk

76 /100 76 /100 1.3 Palestinian protesters dressed as Father Christmas are tear gassed by Israeli troops Palestinian protesters dressed as Father Christmas were tear gassed by the Israeli Army as fights broke out in Bethlehem yesterday. Violence flared up in the West Bank city revered as the birthplace of Jesus as demonstrators attempted to reach nearby Jerusalem. Palestinians said they wanted to visit holy sites there but without permits they were stopped at Israel's West Bank separation barrier. Video footage showed Israeli security forces blocking the demonstrators at the Bethlehem checkpoint where the scuffles erupted. One man in a Santa outfit was seen throwing a tear gas grenade back at Israelis and another was lying on the floor after inhaling the gas. No-one was killed. One demonstrator, Fareed al Atrash, said: 'We are here today in order to reach Jerusalem for religious rituals. 'We want to reach the Palestinian capital Jerusalem and we want to say that this land is a Palestinian land and it is our right to reach our lands.' The organiser of the demonstration, Monther Amirah, said in Arabic: 'We are in this protest to say that the occupation and the terrorism are two faces of the same coin and we want to say to the whole world that the Palestinians are facing organised terrorism from the occupation and that we will continue to resist this Nazi occupation.' At least 231 Palestinians have been killed in violence in Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip since October 2015. Israel says at least 156 of them were assailants in lone attacks often targeting security forces and using rudimentary weapons including kitchen knives. Others died during clashes and protests. The street assaults killed at least 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans over the same period. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians want that territory, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip for a future state. Peace talks between the sides broke down in 2014. Today's scenes in Bethlehem offered stark contrast as Christmas preparations were in full swing with marching bands and clergy processing through the streets.

2016-12-26 09:20 Charlie Moore www.dailymail.co.uk

77 /100 0.0 Kyron Horman's stepmother arrested for 'driving stolen vehicle after boyfriend obtained restraining order' Legal woes continue to mount for the stepmother of an Oregon boy who has been missing for six years. Terri Horman was arrested on Friday in Northern California for allegedly driving a stolen car, KGW-TV reported. Horman was stopped by police and taken into custody after she was caught in Belvedere, a wealthy suburb of San Francisco, just before 1:30pm on Friday. Police initially spotted the car which Horman was driving and pulled it over after noticing a mechanical violation, according to KPTV. When officers ran a search of the car's license plates, they learned that the car had been reported stolen out of Sacramento. She was charged with taking a vehicle without the owner's consent and booked into Marin County Jail. She posted $25,000 bail and was released. Horman is the stepmom of seven-year-old Kyron Horman, the Portland, Oregon, boy whose case gained nationwide fame six years ago. Terri Horman, who now goes by her maiden name Moulton, was the last person to see Kyron Horman alive before he disappeared from his school in June 2010. While police never called her a person of interest in the case, she was the subject of public suspicions in the boy's disappearance, including the boy's father who has since divorced her. Earlier this month, Horman was hit with a restraining order taken out on her by her boyfriend, after she allegedly threatened him with a knife. Horman, 46, moved to Northern California last year to escape the 'haters' who think she killed Kyron, and that's where she met and started dating Joseph Cristobal. Scroll down for video Cristobal, a Sacramento adult caregiver, filed a restraining order against his live-in girlfriend on November 28, when she held a knife up to him and threatened him and his family. 'She was trying to put a knife – a kitchen knife to my face and then she was telling me that if I talked to law enforcement that something is going to happen to me or my family,' he told KGW. He told the news station that he now fears for his life. 'I don't even know what she's capable of,' he added. Cristobal also said that he didn't know about his girlfriend's connection to the Horman case until recently and that he is suspicious of her. 'She has two phones. One that she calls a burner phone and one that she normally uses for her personal stuff,' he said. No charges have been filed in the incident, but Horman was a no-show at a December 16 court hearing in Sacramento, according to KGW. That same day, Horman also didn't show up in court for another matter stemming from an issue with her former male roommate in Marysville, California. Earlier this month, it was revealed that Horman allegedly stole her roommate's gun and then failed to show up in court to face the charges of grand theft firearm. Her roommate in California reported his handgun missing in August 2015, accusing the woman of taking it from his safe without permission. When Sacramento police went to interview Horman, they said she had the missing firearm in her possession. Horman was arrested and booked into the Yuba County Jail in early July 2016 on a misdemeanor charge of grand theft of a fireman after she failed to show up in court for her arraignment in November 2015. She was released on bail the same day and later pleaded not guilty to the theft charge. Kyron's biological mother, Desiree Young, has long Horman for her son’s disappearance. In the wake of her arrest in California, Young told KGW the gun charge ‘further reinforces the idea that we have the right person. ‘I think that her time is running out and I think that she knows that. We are getting closer and closer to her and I think that she should be scared,’ Young said. The woman also suggested that Horman might harm someone else before she is finally held accountable for whatever happened to her son. Horman gave her first interview about Kyron's disappearance to ABC's Good Morning America in January, lamenting that her life was turned upside down in the wake of the tragedy. 'I saw him walking down to his room. My vision of him is the back of his head almost at the door,' Horman recalled, speaking of Kyron. 'That's what I see when I sit here and think about him – that's my last thought.' Shortly after 8am on June 4, 2010, Horman dropped off Kyron at Skyline Elementary School for the science fair. She took photos of her stepson in front of his project and then left to run some errands with her daughter, Kiara. That was the last time she saw the bespectacled 7-year-old boy with a gap-toothed smile. At 2.30pm that day, when Terri and her then-husband Kaine Horman, headed to the bus stop to meet Kyron from school, they learned from the bus driver that the second-grader was not there. Horman then called Kyron's elementary school and was told that he wasn't there either, even though his jacket and book bag still hung on a hook in a classroom. By that point, the boy had been unaccounted for six hours. Several weeks later, Terri Horman failed a polygraph test - an outcome she has blamed on her emotional state. Nearly two months after Kyron had gone missing, Horman's husband, Kaine, left her with their daughter after the couple had an explosive argument. Their divorce was finalized in 2013. In court filings, Kaine Horman said he believes Terri 'is involved' in Kyron's disappearance CNN reported. In the Good Morning America interview, Horman said she believes Kyron is still alive, and she wants police to keep looking for him until he is found. -

2016-12-26 09:17 Ariel Zilber www.dailymail.co.uk

78 /100 1.9 Plenty of space for a spot of naked horseriding! Estate where Lady Godiva once lived goes on sale for £3million - complete with ten bedrooms, a tennis court and even its own CHURCH The former home of notorious nudist Lady Godiva has been put on the market for £3million. The legendary Saxon princess lived in the property in Belbroughton, near Coventry, 1,000 years ago before the Norman invasion of 1066. And homebuyers who want to follow suit with the famous former owner will have plenty of privacy for riding, naked or clothed, in the property's 34 acres of land. The manor house from Lady Godiva's time is long gone and the current property, Bell Hall, which is the third incarnation on the site, is largely Victorian. It is now an impressive period home for anyone with a large family or who likes entertaining, on the market with estate agents Fisher German. Lady Godiva rode through the streets of Coventry naked, covered only by her long hair, so her husband would abolish the heavy taxes imposed on his tenants. Her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia, had promised to restore the manor to the monks of Worcester after his death but when he died in 1057 Godiva requested permission to stay there for the rest of her life and paid rent to the monks. The house is believed to have been seized from her by the Danes before the Norman Conquest. It then passed between a number of people, including the Earl of Dudley and the Duke of Buckingham. Humphrey Perrott owned the manor in 1592 and it passed by marriage to the Perrott-Noels, who built the present hall in the mid-1800s. Their stained glass family crest is still visible in the picture window above the principal staircase. Within the grounds, the property also has a beautiful Grade II listed Norman chapel. It has some 17th century additions, including mullioned windows, and has pews and an altar still in place. The main house sits on top of a hill with stunning views across its 34 acres of land and beyond. It was built on an Elizabethan footprint with Georgian and Jacobean architectural influences, with impressive stonework including an ornately carved coat of arms over the main entrance doors. Throughout the property, which offers 11,819sq ft of accommodation, are period features such as ornate cornicing, mouldings and panelled window shutters. It has a grand reception hall, large dining, drawing and sitting rooms, a morning room, kitchen and breakfast room, study, billiards room and storerooms, as well as six bedrooms and five bathrooms, with a second floor that could provide another two bedrooms. Outside is a traditional courtyard with garaging and stables. The coach house with clock tower has a self-contained two-bedroom apartment for staff or guests. In the grounds is an all-weather tennis court, an indoor swimming pool in a separate building, which is currently unfinished, and two walled gardens, as well as the impressive Norman chapel. Tom Dennes, from Fisher German, said: 'It's a very grand house. This is the third incarnation on the site and is largely Victorian, a typical grand gentleman's residence. 'It's substantial but it's not like a great barn of a house, it's a very comfortable family home. You wouldn't have lots of rooms you never use. 'The house sits on the brow of a hill and has lovely views across the land. All the rooms are very elegant, the house has been done well but you could make more refurbishments - on the top floor you could add three more bedrooms if needed. 'The entrance hall is one of the most impressive I have been into. It's very dramatic with this huge fireplace. 'The Victorians liked highly decorative rooms and throughout the house are oak floors, original cornicing, high ceilings and lots of ornate mouldings. 'It's a very good party house with sliding doors connecting the two main rooms. The owners had their daughter's wedding there in the summer with 120 guests. 'It's got some great outbuildings too. There's a lovely Victorian stable block that has been partly restored and a self-contained apartment above it. 'And it could suit someone with a car collection as there is space to store 4-6 cars in an impressive display garage supported by further garaging for 4 vehicles for day to day use. 'There are two lovely walled kitchen gardens and a Grade II* listed Norman chapel. 'It's perfectly usable, it has an altar and pews, so you could use it for your own services or intimate concerts. 'A medieval chapel is not something you would normally get with an estate. It is a lovely quirky, unusual feature to have and it's the first thing you see as you come up the drive. 'It's a super setting, very private, and it has just got everything.'

2016-12-26 09:08 Rebecca Taylor www.dailymail.co.uk

79 /100 0.9 U. N. Security Council condemns Israeli settlements after the U. S. sits out the vote – and Trump vows 'things will be different' after he's in office In a striking rupture with past practice, the United States allowed the U. N. Security Council on Friday to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a 'flagrant violation' of international law. In doing so, the outgoing Obama administration brushed aside Donald Trump's demands that the U. S. exercise its veto and provided a climax to years of icy relations with Israel's leadership. The decision to abstain from the council's 14-0 vote is one of the biggest American rebukes of its longstanding ally in recent memory. And it could have significant ramifications for the Jewish state, potentially hindering Israel's negotiating position in future peace talks. Given the world's widespread opposition to settlements, the action will be almost impossible for anyone, including Trump, to reverse. Nevertheless, Trump vowed via Twitter: 'As to the U. N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.' Scroll down for video The resolution said Israel's settlements in lands the Palestinians want to include in their future state have 'no legal validity.' It demanded a halt to such activities for the sake of 'salvaging the two-state solution.' Loud applause erupted in the council chamber after U. S. Ambassador Samantha Power permitted the resolution to pass. Friday's condemnation, a day after Egypt suddenly postponed a scheduled showdown, capped days of frantic diplomacy in capitals around the world. American officials indicated they would have been prepared to let the resolution pass, despite blocking such proposals for years. Israeli officials said they were aware of such plans and turned to Trump for support. The U. S. president-elect sent a tweet urging President Barack Obama to block the U. N. effort. Egypt then pulled its resolution, with U. S. officials citing fierce Israeli pressure as the reason. Israeli officials then accused Obama of colluding with the Palestinians in a 'shameful move' against the Jewish state. Washington denied the charge. Most of the world is opposed to Israel's construction of Jewish settlements in lands it seized in the 1967 Mideast War. The primary holdout at the U. N. has been the United States, which sees settlements as illegitimate but has traditionally used its veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council to block such resolutions on the grounds that Israeli-Palestinian disputes should be addressed through negotiation. Underscoring that unity, Friday's resolution was proposed by nations in four different parts of the world: Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela. It is the first resolution on settlements to pass in 36 years, Malaysia's U. N. Ambassador Ramlan Bin Ibrahim said. Explaining the U. S. vote, Power quoted a 1982 statement from then-U. S. President Ronald Reagan, which declared that Washington 'will not support the use of any additional land for the purpose of settlements.' 'That has been the policy of every administration, Republican and Democrat, since before President Reagan and all the way through to the present day,' Power said. Settlement activity, she added, 'harms the viability of a negotiated two- state outcome and erodes prospects for peace and stability in the region.' She noted that until Friday, Obama was the only president in the last half-century that did not have a Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict pass on his watch. 'One would think that it would be a routine vote,' Power said. But she acknowledged that, in reality, the vote was 'not straightforward' because it occurred at the United Nations, a body that has singled out Israel for criticism for decades. In some ways, the American abstention served as a direct reflection of the intense distrust between Obama and Netanyahu. It followed months of intensely secret deliberations in Washington, including what one official said was an unannounced meeting earlier this month between Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, and a spate of fresh Israeli settlement announcements that have wrought a mixture of exasperation and anger from American officials. Before the vote, an Israeli official said Obama and Kerry 'secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel's back, which would be a tail wind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory.' The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to be quoted by name. Israel knew the U. S. was coordinating an 'ambush' with the Palestinians, said another Israeli official, who similarly demanded anonymity. A senior Obama administration official fired back, saying Egypt championed the resolution 'from the start' and crediting 'other Security Council members, not the United States,' for the renewed push on Friday. Trump has signaled he will be far more sympathetic to Israel's stances on the two territories, where some Israelis live. His campaign platform made no mention of the establishment of a Palestinian state, a core policy objective of Democratic and Republican presidents over the past two decades. He also has vowed to move the U. S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would anger Palestinians and lack international support. Trump's pick for ambassador to Israel, Jewish- American lawyer David Friedman, is a donor and vocal supporter of the settlements. Israeli diplomats believe they were misled by the U. S. during a meeting last week between high- ranking Israeli and Obama administration officials in which the U. S. side offered reassurances about its efforts to support Israel but declined to explicitly state that the U. S. would veto such a resolution if it came up. The Israelis told their counterparts that 'friends don't take friends to the Security Council,' an official said. The resolution is little different in tone or substance from Obama's view, with the exception of its language on the legality of settlements. Washington has long avoided calling the activity illegal, in part to maintain diplomatic wiggle room for a negotiated solution that would allow Israel to incorporate some of the larger settlement blocs. While the resolution doesn't impose sanctions on Israel, it enshrines the world's disapproval of the settlements. A reversal would require a follow-up vote that avoids a veto from the U. S., Britain, China, France or Russia — a highly unlikely scenario given the current stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In Washington, Republicans were already threatening consequences. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who heads the Senate appropriations panel in charge of U. S. payments to the global body, said he would 'form a bipartisan coalition to suspend or significantly reduce' such funding if the resolution passed. He said countries receiving U. S. aid also could be penalized for backing the effort. In a Hanukkah message Friday, Obama didn't mention the matter. He referenced Israel once, noting that Jews there and around the world would soon 'gather to light their Hanukkah menorahs, display them proudly in the window and recall the miracles of both ancient times and the present day.'

2016-12-26 09:07 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk

80 /100 1.4 Trump weighs in on UN vote, nuke arsenal NBC News' Hallie Jackson reports on the Trump team's response to the UN settlement vote, Trump's Friday tweet about an arms race and Jason Miller's decision not to take a WH job.

2016-12-26 08:05 MSNBC Live www.msnbc.com

81 /100 81 /100 2.5 No 72 virgins in heaven for you pal: Jihadi dad who turned his young daughter into a suicide bomber and blew her up in a Damascus police station is dead

A jihadi father who used his seven-year-old daughter as a suicide bomber in Syria has now met his own death. Abu Nimr al-Suri was shown on a video kissing his daughter goodbye before sending her into a Syrian police station, where she was blown up by a remote detonator. Russia Today's Middle East correspondent Lizzie Phelan has tweeted a photograph of Abu Nimr in his traditional death shroud. She said he had also been involved in the murder of Syrian TV actor Mohamad Rafea, 30, who was kidnapped and killed in 2012. Many Islamist extremist fighters believe the Koran promises 'martyrs' 72 virgins in heaven if they die during a jihad, or holy war. Islamic scholars say this is a misreading of one of the shuras in the Koran. Earlier this month a appalling video emerged showing the ranting extremist holding the girls in his arms as he brainwashes them. Footage showed him lecturing her and her nine-year-old daughter about how to carry out suicide bomb attacks before they are embraced by a woman in a burka, believed to be their mother. A short time later the seven-year-old walked into a police station in Syria's capital, Damascus, before being killed in an explosion. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday gunmen opened fire on Abu Nimr, whose real name was Abdul Rahman Shaddad, in the Teshreen neighbourhood on the outskirts of capital Damascus. A short time later, on December 16, the seven-year-old girl calmly walked into a Damascus police station before being killed in a bomb blast that also injured three officers. In one video, the mother repeatedly hugs the seven-year-old, named as Islam, and the older girl, named as Fatima. A man behind the camera asks the woman why she is sending her daughters to jihad when they are so young. She replied: 'No-one is young when it comes to jihad as every Muslim is supposed to participate in jihad.' He then prays for Allah to accept the sacrifice the woman is making In the second video Abu Nimr asks one of the girls what she is 'going to do today' before she replies that she is going to carry out a suicide bombing in Damascus. In an apparent reference to the recent bus evacuation of rebel fighters and residents from Aleppo, Abu Nimr asks one of the children: 'Shouldn’t you leave fighting to the men? Or did all of them flee in the green buses?' He later added: 'You are not going to be afraid because you are going to the Heavens, right?'. The girl on the left replied simply: 'Yes'. Both children then said Allah Akbar on their father’s request before he started saying prayers. The explosion in the bustling Midan neighbourhood of the Syrian capital wounded three police officers, said the Al-Watan daily, which is close to the government. A police source told Al-Watan the little girl had appeared lost and asked to use the toilet when the explosives went off. Although rebel groups have fired rockets and mortar rounds into the capital, explosions inside the city itself are rare. Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP 'one woman' was killed in the blast, but it remained unclear whether she was a suicide bomber or a bystander. In early 2012, a suicide bomber killed 26 people when he blew himself up in Midan. More than 310,000 people have died since Syria's conflict broke out in 2011. The attack happened in the Syrian capital, President Bashar al-Assad's stronghold of Damascus.

2016-12-26 09:04 Chris Summers www.dailymail.co.uk

82 /100 0.0 Russian Aim to Improve Nuclear Forces Logical Amid US Alarming Policy - Lawmaker Russian steps toward improving nuclear technology is a logical step in light of Washington's disquieting move to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that may threaten global security, French lawmaker and member of the legislative defense committee Nicolas Dhuicq told Sputnik. ...

2016-12-26 08:56 system article.wn.com

83 /100 83 /100 0.9 Italian president attends the funeral of Berlin Christmas market massacre victim as her heartbroken family lay her to rest Relatives carried Fabrizia di Lorenzo's coffin during the service at Sulmona Cathedral, in Sulmona, Abruzzo, Italy today. She was one of 12 people killed by ISIS fanatic Anis Amri on Monday, December 19, when he ploughed his truck into busy stalls on Breitscheidplatz Square in Germany. Her family and close relatives were the only ones allowed inside the intimate ceremony, but locals lined the streets and applauded as her coffin was carried to the cathedral. President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella and Interior Minister Marco Minnit attended, and embraced the family, according to ANSA. Her body was returned to Italy on Christmas Eve after her parents and brother flew to Berlin to bring her home. Ms Lorenzo, 31, was a transport specialist working in Berlin, and the mayor of her home town of Sulmona, Annamaria Casini, confirmed a day of mourning as 'a sign of respect and participation in the profound grief of the family and the community Sulmona'. In an agonising plea for help, her cousin tweeted in the aftermath of the tragedy: 'My cousin (Fabrizia Di Lorenzo) not replying to us since yesterday night. 'Someone found her phone and metro pass on the site.' Police confirmed a mobile phone found at the crime scene was registered to her. Ms Lorenzo's last tweet came on December 5, when she shared a scene from award winning film, The Best Of Youth. Her many social media posts suggest she was both liberal and supportive of refugees in a country which has been divided over the migrant crisis and the more recent burqa ban. In March she shared an interview with Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman who argued a spike in immigration is not related to an increase in terrorism. She also directed her 246 followers to research which showed the majority of Muslims living in Islamic countries held negative views towards ISIS. Stefan Wolff, the CEO of the company where she worked, said that he had taken news of the atrocity hard. 'As a German citizen I feel scared about the situation in Berlin, where an attack can happen at a Christmas market,' he told MailOnline. 'Any incident that hurts people is very bad.' 'We are a very international company, with employees from 20 nations,' Wolff added. 'Anybody who works here is highly skilled and driven to be excellent. But they are also open and friendly as well.' As an employee of the company, Di Lorenzo would have been 'not an average consultant who always knows better – but someone who listens carefully and is very open and friendly.' Ms Lorenzo graduated from the University of Bologna with a degree in International Relations and Diplomacy in 2012. She began working in Germany in November 2013, according to her LinkedIn profile, as a customer services coach for electronics company Bosch. Just over a year later she joined supply chain management company 4Flow, where she worked as a transport specialist.

2016-12-26 08:54 Gareth Davies www.dailymail.co.uk

84 /100 0.4 Insane Clown Posse fan faces prison after he 'chopped his friend's pinky off with machete' An Insane Clown Posse fan in Wisconsin faces more than 12 years in prison after he chopped off a friend's pinky and drank her blood in a 'ritualistic memorial' for a fallen Juggalo. Jonathan Schrap, 24 of Wisconsin, pleaded no contest Thursday to second- degree reckless injury over the August 27 incident at his house in Suamico, just north of Green Bay. He faces up to 12 years in prison and $25,000 in fines at his February 24 sentencing. In August, Schrap and a group of friends, including local rapper 'Bloody Ruckus,' were celebrating the life of a fellow Juggalo who had died a year before. The group's only female, 27-year-old Shelby Neuens, told cops they had been talking about blood-drinking cult rituals — and reportedly volunteered to let Schrap drink her blood. With her consent, Schrap — who proudly displays tattoos showing his devotion to the Insane Clown Posse — made a one-inch cut on her right forearm with a machete. 'She was bleeding profusely,' the criminal complaint states. 'Jon filled up a shot glass with her blood and drank her blood.' Yet the group wanted more, and soon began to think about severing a finger. Neuens — who told police she did not use drugs or alcohol before the event — volunteered her pinky. Schrap took a couple strikes with the machete, taking the 'pinky clean off' on the second one — 'all the way to the palm,' the criminal complaint states. 'Jon then placed the finger in his freezer where he said he would cook it and eat it later,' the criminal complaint says. 'The group then attempted to stop the bleeding by using a car cigarette lighter which failed. They then used a blowtorch.' Neuens' boyfriend later saw the injuries, and his mother made her go to the emergency room. Cops were called to Saint Mary's Hospital, where staff thought Neuens had been initiated in some sort of cult. The 27-year-old insisted the ritual was voluntary and didn't want anyone to be charged. Police arrested Schrap and his childhood friend Nick Laabs, who had been at the party. Laabs was released after questioning. 'Bloody Ruckus,' whose real name is Preston Hyde, apparently managed to escape and has not been charged with a crime.

2016-12-26 08:52 Dailymail.com www.dailymail.co.uk

85 /100 85 /100 3.8 8 sentences by Muskegon County Circuit Court's William Marietti The following people were sentenced on Monday, Dec. 19, 2016:

Colton Raymond-Edward Collins, 27, of Muskegon, to six months in jail for two counts of possessing less than 25 grams of a controlled substance, fleeing and eluding police, habitual offender second, $1,234 court costs/fees.

Marvin McGough, 50, of Muskegon, to 12 months in jail for assault/resist/obstruction of a police officer, assault and battery, habitual offender third conviction, $1,148 court costs/fees.

Mitchell Hoose Braddock, 30, of Ionia, to 14 months - 10 years for possessing a weapon in prison, habitual offender fourth, $198 court costs/fees.

Eddie Bradford III, 32, of Muskegon Heights, to 88 days in jail for assault/resist/obstruction of a police officer, habitual offender second, $1,098 court costs/fees.

Samuel Gallarzo, 41, of Muskegon, to 12 months for domestic violence third, habitual offender third, $1,098 court costs/fees.

Darion Emonte Hunter, 18, of Muskegon, to 45 days for assault/resist/obstruction of a police officer, $1,158 court costs/fees.

Christopher John Czarnik, 44, of Muskegon, to 7 - 25 years in prison for child sexually abusive commercial activity, habitual offender fourth conviction, $198 court costs/fees.

William White, 68, of North Muskegon, to 80 days for public utility fraud over $500, $3,436 in restitution and court costs/fees.

2016-12-26 08:41 Stephen Kloosterman www.mlive.com

86 /100 0.0 Our secret weapon against the populist right in 2017 is hope F or Christmas, I took delivery of a puppy. It was chosen in November and the kids wanted to call it Bender, after the robot in the Simpsons-stable cartoon Futurama. I said that even if we didn’t live in the gay village of Vauxhall, I wouldn’t have a dog called Bender. “Why not?” my son asked. I explained that because as well as being a robot, Bender is a derogatory word meaning homosexual. “You’re homophobic,” he said, to which I replied: “I’m not homophobic, but other people are.” “So, why do you care?” he said.

At which point I dropped arguing in favour of democracy, and suggested we all put a name into a hat, giving each of us one right of veto. I’d forgotten that there were three of them and only two of us, so after all our vetoes were deployed, the dog was still called Bender. So I did what any normal person would do: moved the goalposts and said the dog had to keep the name his first family had given him, otherwise he’d get confused. That name was Romeo, which we could all live with. Unfortunately I’d also forgotten that my daughter is called Harper, so now it looks like we have an unholy obsession with the Beckham family. The first person to notice that laughed for approximately 45 minutes.

We weren’t even out of 2016 and I had already forgotten the first two laws of Brexit: just because a decision is very important doesn’t mean democracy will deliver the right answer; and once the wrong course has been embarked upon, positive thinking won’t help – things will be permanently worse for the rest of your life or, in Romeo’s case, 15 years.

At a celebratory party thrown for Nigel Farage , he gave a speech that made me want to go back to bed and not wake up until I’d emigrated: “For those that are here that aren’t particularly happy with what’s happened in 2016, I’ve got some really bad news for you – it’s going to get a bloody sight worse next year.”

It’s hard to see, from a UK point of view, anything happening in 2017 that is as destructive and diminishing as leaving the EU, unless we have another referendum on whether or not to bring back the death penalty. Yet it is likely, indeed almost certain, that 2017 will contain some political misery – either there will be a snap election, and the Labour party will be massacred, and this will be taken as proof not that Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t say enough, but that liberal values have been vanquished, and people who cling on to them need to stop fighting and adjust to a new reality. Alternatively, there won’t be a general election, and we’ll have to watch agape as a prime minister nobody voted for, with a majority you could fit in an UberXL, marches into negotiations of the most profound national consequence, with a plan she will not even divulge to the Queen.

Farage is right, in other words, and this sentence is so alien to my muscle memory, I went through seven typos to get there: those of us who hated 2016 are going to loathe 2017.

However, my next year’s self will have some advantage over this year’s, which is experience. I’m not going to waste any more time, not one more morning, on despair. After the referendum, I spent the whole summer in a limbo of futility, but what’s the point arguing with people who have no respect for facts, who have no consistency, who change their story halfway through (we can be just like Norway, they said, until suddenly Norway was the most outrageous compromise; we can save huge amounts of money by leaving the EU, they said, until suddenly it was the most expensive decision ever, but somehow it was still worth it)? What’s the point engaging on political terrain where a man can call Mexicans rapists and educated people will still vote for him? The fact is, we re-engage because we have to: the alternative would be nihilism, which is not a realistic position to take up late in life. I accept that; I don’t intend to waste any more time figuring that out. The other way I tried to escape political misery was by persuading myself things weren’t as bad as they seemed; there is cause for optimism on the progressive side, ideas that are starting to come together, groups that are starting to cooperate, allies appearing from unexpected places. But the politicians ascending on a wave of division and hostility are exactly as bad as they seem: Farage as xenophobic, Johnson as self-serving, May as incompetent, Gove as narcissistic. But we will not find common ground by moving closer to any of these post-Brexit victors, we will just make the job of spreading suspicion and narrow-mindedness easier for them.

I never accepted the idea of public opinion as a solid mass that moves as one and arrives at a new view of which it cannot be disabused. Yet I sometimes relaxed into that interpretation – that the people had spoken on immigration, or on the institutions of the EU, and that new reality had to be incorporated. This is simply not the case: people responded to the strongest argument, or rather, the one most trenchantly put.

The only way to beat it is to make a case that is both substantively stronger and relayed with more conviction. Which feeds into my final lesson from 2016, which is to respond to the new normal by asking for more, not less: I don’t just want human, employee, civil and consumer rights protected as we leave the EU and have to build our own frameworks, I want better ones. I don’t just want to protect the welfare state, I want a new concept of security that takes in the realities of modern precariousness. All those problems that Ukip leverages in the generation of anxiety – housing shortages, overstretched public services, low wages – are real: the best solutions will be the ones that sound audaciously distant from the status quo.

So 2016, in its best possible light, looks like the training montage in Rocky, the bit where we lost a few teeth, but learned how to take knocks; 2017 can be where that experience starts to count.

2016-12-26 08:39 Zoe Williams www.theguardian.com

87 /100 1.9 Hungarian PM urges Brussels to change after Berlin attack — RT News “It is unprecedented that, in the heart of Europe, Christians were murdered at Christmas,” Orban said in an interview with Hungarian online newspaper veol.hu.

A 24-year-old Tunisian, Anis Amri, drove a truck into Christmas market stalls next to Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in a December 19 terrorist attack that left 12 people dead and 56 others injured.

The Islamic State terror group (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack and later released a video of the suspect pledging allegiance to their leader. “It’s clear that, in the case of migration, nothing can remain the way it was before. Brussels needs to change, migrants who entered Europe illegally must be deported, the borders need to be protected and the inflow of migrants has to be eliminated,” Orban said.

Amri arrived in Europe for the first time on a refugee raft that landed on the island of Lampedusa in 2011. He told police he was a minor, though he was 19 at that time, and was assigned to a foster home and school in Catania. Italy provides unaccompanied migrant minors with protection and benefits. Armi behaved aggressively in his new home and eventually tried to set fire to his school. He was arrested for the arson attack in 2011, the same year he had arrived, and was sentenced to four years behind bars.

He was released in 2015 and was supposed to be deported, but Tunisian authorities refused to take him back.

Unable to go home, Amri went to Germany in July of 2015 and applied for asylum in April of 2016, registering at different refugee centers and using a number of fake names. In July, Amri was caught with fake Italian ID documents in a routine check on a coach in Friedrichshafen. He was then moved to a prison in Ravensburg, but was soon released again.

German intelligence had been tracking him until the authorities called off the surveillance in September.

Orban said that the Berlin attack has once again proved that the integration of non-European migrants into Europe has “obviously been a failure.”

The PM said that, as a result,

“This shakes the confidence and self-esteem of the Western world. The economic slowdown, crime, terrorism, migration, indecision and insincere speech all adds up, and Western leaders won’t provide the answers,” Orban added.

Looking to 2017, Orban wished that more Western capitals would “revolt” against the political status quo and overthrow leaders “who refused to listen to the people” by political means.

“A year ago, no one would have believed that the UK would withdraw from the European Union (EU), or that Americans would reject the Clinton clan,” the prime minister noted. “This will continue in 2017, which will be the year of revolt for European democracy.”

At the same time, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has defended the EU’s open door policies.

“Terror only takes us if we allow it,” Jean-Claude Juncker told German Funke Mediengruppe this weekend. It “would be wrong to put all refugees under suspicion.”

Declaring that “the basic values for which the European Union stands remain unchanged,” Juncker said that the EU “must offer refuge to people who flee from war zones and from terror.”

“Our values, our way of living together in freedom, coexistence and openness are the best weapons against terror,” he added.

2016-12-26 08:38 www.rt.com

88 /100 0.8 Cat playfully slaps puppy along face as he tries to rest on a bed This is the charming moment a small cat annoys a puppy lying underneath a blanket and tries to slap it with its paw. As the dog attempts to rest, the cat sneaks up and slaps it around the face. The dog responds by trying to nip the cat. Eventually, after being tormented for more than 30 seconds, the dog is forced to retreat beneath the covers. The video has been viewed more than 15,000 times since going online

2016-12-26 08:30 Darren Boyle www.dailymail.co.uk

89 /100 1.2 Inside Burma's Chin tribe where women wear huge earrings and face tattoos as part of a tradition 'to make them so ugly they wouldn't be kidnapped' High in the mountains of Myanmar lives the Chin tribe whose women still bear the scars of a barbaric ancient tradition. When they were aged 12 to 14, these women had their faces tattooed in a painstaking process that took days to complete. According to legend, the tradition started to make the women so ugly that they wouldn't be kidnapped for an ancient king who wanted concubines. The custom then continued until the 1960s when it was stamped out by the government but the older women still live with their scars. They also wear enormous earrings which stretch their skin. With a variety of styles and designs the detailed markings have a deep rooted cultural significance to the largely Christian community. Photographer and cyber security expert, Teh Han Lin took the intimate pictures on a recent trip to Myanmar. He said: 'When I planned to visit Myanmar I was researching about tribes there and I found out about the Chin tribe.' There have been numerous theories into the origin of the face tattoos and why it only applies to women. One of the most widely accepted reasons behind the face tattoos is that it was done to make the women look unattractive, thus preventing them from being kidnapped or forced to become a concubine. Since then the tradition has taken a life of its own and is regarded as an important cultural practice among the Chin people. Up until the 1960's girls born into the varying Chin tribes which are the Munn, Dai and Mkang were expected to get their faces tattooed between the ages of 12 and 14. The practice of face tattoos began to die out as a result of the Myanmar government stamping out the age old tradition as they believed it to be barbaric. Teh Han said: 'There were mixed feelings towards the ban, some were welcoming of the ban and some were against it. For those who were against it they were still practicing the face tattoos.' Now in the remote town only the elderly women have the traditional tattoos, as the custom is increasingly seen as outdated by the younger generations. Both the Mkang and Dai have similar designs for the tattoos, which includes squares filled in with tiny dots, the women from the Dai sub-group tend to go for a dark blue whereas Mkang women go for a more blue-green colour. 'The Munn's tattoo style involves straight lines from the forehead to neck with circles between the straight lines and small dots on the forehead and chin. The colour is lighter and mainly black,' Teh Han added. During his time spent with the tribe they shared the secret behind how they managed to make such intricate designs with very crude instruments. He said: 'The tattoos are done using thorns with a mixture of ox bile, plants and animal fat. The process is extremely painful, especially the tender eyelid area and it normally takes one day to finish, it can be extended to two days depending on the complexity. The recovery itself may take at least two weeks.'

2016-12-26 08:26 Charlie Moore www.dailymail.co.uk

90 /100 1.7 Serbia arrests three after 77 migrants found hidden in vehicles BELGRADE, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Serbian authorities arrested three men on suspicion of people trafficking after 77 migrants were found hidden in cargo vehicles, the defence ministry said on Monday. Serbia was a pinchpoint for migrant flows last year, when hundreds of thousands of people fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East and Asia journeyed up through the Balkans to reach the European Union. That route was effectively closed off in March, but since then Serbian authorities estimate a further 110,000 migrants have passed through the country, many crossing its now sealed border with Hungary illegally. On Monday members of a military and police task force detained two men in central Serbia attempting to smuggle 36 migrants from Afghanistan and Mali in the back of a large van, the ministry said. In a separate incident in the same region, 41 migrants were found in the cargo compartment of a truck with German registration plates after its Serbian driver was stopped. According to the U. N. refugee agency, around 7,000 migrants are stranded in camps in Serbia, many having paid smugglers to get there from Turkey via Macedonia or Bulgaria. Since its creation in July, the task force - which patrols the borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria - has prevented around 18,000 migrants from entering the country and arrested 114 traffickers, the ministry said. (Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; editing by John Stonestreet)

2016-12-26 08:22 Reuters www.dailymail.co.uk

91 /100 3.3 In a city already on edge, Detroit police raid on blind pig ignites 1967 riot This is the second of a three-part series looking at the role of William Walter Scott III in instigating the 1967 Detroit riot. These articles originally appeared on the Bridge magazine website as: He started the Detroit riot. His son wrestles with the carnage

There is not a street in Detroit today that resembles the 12th Street of 1967 in the stretch near the blind pig where the riot started that year..

Fifty years ago, the mile- and-a-half section of 12th Street north of West Grand Boulevard was a densely packed commercial strip of markets, pharmacies, party stores, bakeries, shoe stores, beauty parlors and photo studios. With two and three-story buildings along both sides, and a constant flow of people and traffic,12th looked like a typical Detroit shopping district when the city had 1.5 million or more residents.

Read Part One:

Many blacks living on the side streets off 12th (now known as Rosa Parks Boulevard) were upwardly mobile and already middle class. But the stretch of 12th north of Virginia Park on Detroit's west side had developed into a frenetic strip of legal and illegal adult entertainment: bars, prostitutes, pimps, pawn shops, gambling, drugs, after-hours drinking, crime and cops.

The neighborhood personified the city’s rapidly changing geography after World War II. Up through the 1940s, the area had been largely Jewish, but as Jews began moving northwest, and African Americans took their place on side streets dense with apartment buildings and solid multi-family homes.

Urban-renewal projects destroyed the downtown black ghetto in the 1950s and new laws cut into housing segregation, prompting even more African Americans to flood into the 12th Street neighborhood, though store owners remained mostly white.

“Twelfth Street was like a jungle or an unsolvable maze,” William Water Scott III would later write in his memoir, titled “Hurt, Baby, Hurt,” three years after the 1967 Detroit riot.

It was a “Hollywood strip” filled with “shady-looking characters” hanging out on corners.

“It was hard to predict what was going to happen next — I mean one night somebody might get shot or cut up and next night everybody on the street could be happy and cool; plain drunk.”

For much of the summer of 1967, Scott, whose nickname was Bill, earned $25 a night as doorman at his dad’s club, letting people in and trying to keep police out. The club was dark and smoky, with a bar, pool table, gambling room, kitchen and a dance floor with loud music from a juke box. ”Everyone was dancing, laughing, having a nitty-gritty-funky good time,” Scott recalled. Blind pigs like the one Bill's father, William Scott, operated were long an institution in Detroit’s black neighborhoods. They served blacks when African Americans were barred from downtown restaurants and bars before World War II. After the color line was broken in mainstream establishments, blind pigs continued to play a major cultural role in black Detroit, historian Sidney Fine wrote, and raids by white cops were often seen as having “racial and symbolic significance.”

Police raided William Scott’s club twice in 1966 and again in June 1967, when the vice squad arrested 28 people on misdemeanors. The DPD tried to stage other busts but couldn’t get an undercover cop past the door. Once, they burst in only to find a children’s Halloween party in progress.

As summer unfolded in 1967, police confrontations with black residents added to racial tension in Detroit. Rumors of impending unrest raged across the city amid scattered disorders in African- American neighborhoods across the country, including a small, two-day disturbance on Kercheval Avenue on Detroit’s east side in 1966. By late July 1967, violence had torn through 33 American cities, most notably Newark, where six days of violence left 26 people dead.

Detroit was still on edge from the fatal shooting in June of a black Vietnam veteran. The man had dared to take his pregnant wife to Rouge Park, then surrounded by an all-white neighborhood. Whites taunted the couple with racial slurs, pelted them with bottles and suggested they might rape the woman. Someone shot the veteran; his wife was not assaulted but would suffer a miscarriage, according to the Michigan Chronicle.

Then, on July 1, a black prostitute was fatally shot at 12th and Hazelwood. Police variously said the assailant was a pimp or a prospective customer, but rumors circulated in the black community that an off-duty white officer had killed her after she allegedly slashed him with a knife.

Bill Scott said he was at the blind pig during the police raid in June and an officer hit him in the head. He wrote that he chose to “Uncle Tom my way out” that night and play nice with police, but he fumed. The next time, he vowed, he would fight back, “hopefully to kill him if need be.”

On the early morning of July 23, 1967, Scott wasn’t working the door; his job search had finally borne fruit, and he had found a good position in an auto factory. But he writes that he drove up to the club in time “to see this honky cop swing a sledgehammer into the plate glass door.”

After Scott whipped up the crowd, threw the bottle and watched the last paddy wagon drive away, he said he entered the club to find the interior in shambles. The jukebox and wine bottles were broken; even the typewriter he used for his writing had been smashed.

He said he returned to the street and threw a litter basket through the window of a drug store, triggering an alarm and jacking up the adrenalized atmosphere on 12th Street. “I had to destroy something,” he writes.

People slowly entered the drugstore. “I wasn’t even thinking about looting at the time it all started,” Scott writes. “My interest was to strike out at something that was more powerful and more legitimate than me; at the time this was the white store owners.”

He joined others in breaking windows, and mounted a box to play traffic cop, directing drivers along the increasingly unruly street. There were no real police in sight. At one point, a “young diddy-bopper” stopped him on the street and said, “I am so glad you started this thing.”

Scott said he was staggered by the comment, as his actions began to sink in. He felt sick to his stomach, but soon recovered, believing that whatever the motivation of the looters, they shared a lack of respect for the law, “the law that had abused them and their right to live,” he writes. “Yes, I started a riot, although it was going to happen some other time. Nevertheless, I had made it possible for cats to get those material things they desired when there was a larger human fight on hand.”

The outline for the beginning of the riot that Scott describes in his book is generally supported by official city reports and studies by historians and other experts. But while Scott is the only person to claim he started the disorder, no official or researcher ever confirmed he was the instigator.

In “Violence in the Model City,” Fine, the U-M professor, took note of Bill Scott’s account and also wrote that police identified another young man, dubbed “Greensleeves” for his green shirt and pants, who screamed at police and urged bystanders to fight back. Fine wrote that Greensleeves, Scott “and, no doubt, others, helped to communicate” their outrage to the crowd, “which probably saw the blind pig raid in the context of long-standing grievances.”

By 9 o’clock that Sunday morning, police reappeared on 12th Street. And Bill Scott went home to sleep.

Related:

Scott awoke Sunday afternoon to find smoke in the house, which was on a nearby residential section of 12th Street. A neighboring home was on fire, and his father figured the flames would spread before the Fire Department could arrive. Firefighters showed up, though, and extinguished the blaze, but it rekindled, destroying their house and most of their block.

12th Street was a chaotic scene, with sirens, fires and stunned people running back and forth, fearing for their lives. Scott went to stay with a friend.

The next morning, with widespread confusion across the city, Scott looked for a newspaper. He walked more than a mile, to the usually busy corner of Grand River and West Grand Boulevard, but the streets were deserted, with buildings burned and looted. He watched as two young men climbed through the broken window of a drugstore when suddenly a line of squad cars drove up. Scott told the police he was only watching, but they cuffed him and took him downtown.

Charged with illegally entering the store, Scott spent the next 15 days in a gulag of crowded, sweltering, stinking lockups, from the oily confines of precinct garages to stifling buses with shut windows in the July sun to the Belle Isle bath house, as Detroit Police sought innovative ways to store thousands of arrestees. He was finally released after charges were dropped.

Taking the bus back to 12th Street, Scott got off at Seward and walked past the hollowed-out neighborhood of loose bricks, broken glass and boarded-up buildings.

Days of looting, arson and sniping had left 43 people dead; 1,189 injured; more than 7,000 arrested; 2,509 businesses and homes looted or burned, and metro Detroiters rattled to their cores.

“The further I walked down Twelfth, the more I became aware of the destruction around me, which made me feel less of a man for being part of it,” he writes.

“A man doesn’t destroy his home; he protects it at all cost. This I hadn’t done; I let another man come and force me to destroy my own. This put me at his mercy. I became a boy once more. He could control me completely.” Bill Scott spoke to his father, who was laying low, fearing retaliation from police for what had happened outside his club. Bill returned to the factory where he had found work, but was fired for missing two weeks with no explanation. His car had been towed, and he couldn’t afford to get it back. He was filled with hatred, he wrote. The thought of killing police constantly crossed his mind.

A month later, Bill Scott paid the $1.80 Greyhound bus fare and moved to Ann Arbor, “never to return,” he wrote, “until?”

That is how his book ends. But not his journey.

Tomorrow: Bill Scott's son struggles with the legacy left by his father and grandfather

Bridge magazine contributor Bill McGraw worked at the Detroit Free Press for 32 years as a reporter, editor and columnist. He was cofounder of Deadline Detroit.

2016-12-26 08:17 Bill McGraw rssfeeds.freep.com

92 /100 4.3 Longtime Des Moines church treasurer charged with theft DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - A woman who’d watched over the money of a Des Moines church for the past 15 years has been accused of stealing from it.

Court records say 69-year-old Carol Padgett is charged with seven felony counts of theft. She’s accused of taking up to $70,000 from Unity Lutheran Church over the past seven years. Her attorney didn’t immediately return a call Monday from The Associated Press.

The church’s attorney says an anonymous donor has made a contribution to the church to help keep its doors open.

2016-12-26 08:12 By www.washingtontimes.com

93 /100 3.9 Japan, US Set To Sign Pact To Limit US Base Worker Immunity Japan and the US have agreed in principle on guidelines for limiting immunity from Japanese prosecution for civilian workers at American military bases, following a murder case this year on a southern...

2016-12-26 08:11 system article.wn.com

94 /100 94 /100 0.0 Protest like your basic rights depend on it – because power is taken, never given I nitially, I didn’t plan to attend the Women’s March on Washington, slated for the day after the inauguration.

Though a long-time feminist activist and a passionate proponent of nonviolent resistance, I had a long list of reasons I didn’t want to protest on 21 January. At first, I blamed the aftershocks of the terror I felt after realizing that a significant amount of voters willfully chose to affirm hateful rhetoric, xenophobia, corruption and sexually predatory behavior.

Then, I reasoned that my concerns about the march’s shaky inception , initial lack of diverse leadership and a permit were not only a hindrance, but a potential deal breaker.

My mom had other ideas.

She called on a recent Monday at sunrise. “Get ready for a trip to Washington, DC. We’re going to that women’s march,” she said. Mom was a seasoned activist who marched with Dr Martin Luther King in 1963, survived the Orangeburg Massacre and participated in lunch counter sit-ins during segregation. “The election results illustrate how far we need to go. Let’s get to work.”

She’s right. Although the arc of change may be long, I’ve witnessed first-hand how amplifying shared values can build momentum, shift culture and even influence policy over time. Carrying the banner leading 2004’s million-person March for Women’s Lives was my own rite of passage. Eclipsed only by the exhilaration of marrying my soulmate, the march was one of the greatest days of my life. Even though I participated in activism with family and friends since childhood, working as Planned Parenthood’s national youth organizer for the event defined my trajectory for over a decade. Most importantly, the 2004 march taught me that my voice was powerful and that exercising my hard-won right to free expression and assembly was a birthright my ancestors fought and died for.

That’s why, even though another march to protest similar issues 12 years later may make it look like we haven’t made progress, that isn’t the case. We’re playing a much longer game. As Coretta Scott King said when she spoke years ago at my college: “Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.” Every time I hear speculation that Trump’s administration will be like the second Bush administration on steroids, I remember that I participated in the formation of a broad coalition of gender justice and civil liberties organizations that mobilized over a million people to oppose attacks on reproductive healthcare and equal rights during a hostile political and cultural climate.

And in the years following that 2004 march, emergency contraception became legal over the counter, more reproductive health and rights organizations integrated intersectional frameworks (with admittedly more work to do), and the Affordable Care Act expanded access to preventative care and contraceptive coverage with no copay. Moreover, we’ve had a pro-choice president for the past eight years, and a trailblazing popular vote winner who famously proclaimed that “women’s rights are human rights”.

And all this happened just in my lifetime. Our foremothers – and my own mother – have been working for decades to set up our recent triumphs. Journalist Ida B Wells insisted on marching with her state in the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade, despite the Congressional Women’s Unit’s request that black women march in a segregated group.

Joining the likes of Wells is everyone from the women-led Rosenstrasse Protest in 1940s Berlin to the anti-lynching movement that set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement, to the movement for black lives founded by three black women, to the demonstration at Standing Rock. History has repeatedly shown that dissent through direct action matters – especially for those of us non- billionaires who lack the highest levels of political and financial influence.

Marching won’t guarantee instantaneous change. But history has shown us that power is taken, never given, so resistance is critical if we don’t want our freedom eroded.

My ancestors left us roadmaps for this fight. That why I’ll be descending on the Capitol with thousands of women and our allies on 21 January. The march’s leadership has become more diverse , and they recently secured a permit which would theoretically provide more safety and access for marchers who are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement.

I’ll be standing for equality, and adding my voice to the chorus calling for accountability, confronting power imbalances and abuse and condemning hate.

Most of all, I hope the reverberation of our voices and those of the people marching in 107 cities worldwide will inspire bystanders to own their power and rise with us. It’s time to earn our generation’s freedom.

2016-12-26 08:00 Jamia Wilson www.theguardian.com

95 /100 1.0 Bring on the street vendors: They'll make L. A. a better walking city City officials are at long last moving forward with plans to make street vending lawful in Los Angeles. It’s simply perverse to make criminals out of the entrepreneurial poor, so this advance in economic liberty is worthwhile as an end in itself. But there’s a side benefit for all of us: More vendors could make L. A. a better walking city.

Almost 35 years after Missing Persons sang that “nobody walks in L. A.,” then qualified, “only a nobody walks in L. A.,” public transit has expanded, and city dwellers pay top dollar to live in walkable neighborhoods.

Globetrotting economist Tyler Cowen even declared Los Angeles the best walking city in America. “First, in Los Angeles the weather is almost always very good for walking,” he wrote, adding, “How many cities have great walks where you can be on the beach and/or see the mountains? Or where you can stop for first-rate ethnic food almost anywhere?”

But — and I say this as someone who regularly travels miles on foot — walking in L. A. still has a serious shortcoming.

In “Walkable City,” Jeff Speck argues that a good walk “has to satisfy four main conditions. It must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting.”

Walks in L. A. are certainly useful in the sense that they’re healthy. In most neighborhoods, they are safer than driving, though infrastructure improvements and additional painted crosswalks could make them more so. The aforementioned climate makes them comfortable in all seasons.

But is walking here interesting? Not uniformly.

We’ve got the Venice boardwalk, plus lively parts of Hollywood and downtown, where certain bits are too interesting for my taste. We also have many stretches — Santa Monica Boulevard comes to mind — of long blocks with empty sidewalks. They’re the pedestrian’s analog to driving on an arrow-straight highway across a desert, utterly lacking in what Jane Jacobs identified as core to thriving cityscapes.

“The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place,” she wrote, “and in any one place is always replete with new improvisations. ... Lowly, unpurposeful, and random as they appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city’s wealth of public life must grow.”

Street vendors already have added visual novelty and “contacts” to otherwise monotonous avenues.

Street vendors could similarly enliven boring stretches in Pico-Robertson, Mid-City and Mid- Wilshire. Eastsiders surely can conjure their own list of walking routes that lack diversion.

For now, we lack details on how decriminalized street-vending will play out. Policymakers charged with writing rules for what legality looks like are trying to accommodate competing interest groups: existing vendors, brick-and-mortar store owners, neighborhood groups. New entrants will be in competition for spots in already crowded areas with the most foot traffic.

Perhaps regulators could simultaneously reduce conflict and improve the cityscape by charging a fee for vendor permits in highly trafficked areas, and no fee for entrepreneurs who sell their wares on sidewalks, where their presence itself is a kind of urban renewal.

Most of Los Angeles will never resemble the West Village or the Latin Quarter. But encouraging commerce in the form of street vendors is a cheap way to make walks here not only useful, safe and comfortable, but also interesting.

"You wash the pain. You feed the pain. You get dressed with the pain. " (Callaghan O'Hare / Los Angeles Times)

Increasing numbers of migrants from outside Latin America are traversing a circuitous and dangerous path up the spine of South America, Central America and Mexico in hopes of reaching the U. S., a new migrant route that is straining countries along the way and presenting new challenges for securing America’s southern border. (Video by Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Toy shopping around Christmas, a 78-year-old climbs Mt. Baldy 750 times , mothers who have lost multiple children to homicide , and an immigration pipeline into America.

Toy shopping around Christmas, a 78-year-old climbs Mt. Baldy 750 times , mothers who have lost multiple children to homicide , and an immigration pipeline into America.

2016-12-26 08:00 Conor Friedersdorf www.latimes.com

96 /100 2.1 British futurist in charge of US cryogenic facility reveals plans to freeze his own head A British ‘futurist’ in charge of one of the world’s largest cryogenic facilities has compared himself to Leonardo Da Vinci, saying it is just a matter of time before science advances to the point where preserved bodies can be revived after death.

Dr Max More, who was born in Bristol and went to Oxford University, also revealed he has plans to preserve just his head in the future, saying “the rest of my body is replaceable”.

He is the President and CEO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation, in Scottsdale, Arizona – a facility which began storing bodies in 1982.

Earlier this year, a 14-year-old girl who died of cancer became the youngest Briton to be cryogenically frozen in the hope she can be “woken up” and cured in the future after winning a landmark court case.

The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, arrived at the only other crypto-preservation facility in the US, the Cryonics Institute in Michigan, at the end of October. She is their 143rd patient.

“It’s an unusual job to be running a cryonics organisation,” said Dr More earlier this year in a documentary by Galactic Public Archives.

Read more.

2016-12-26 07:46 | Infowars.com - www.infowars.com

97 /100 2.7 Israel ministers approve bill to remove online 'incitement' Israeli ministers have approved a bill that would allow a court to order sites such as Facebook and YouTube to remove material found to be "incitement," which they say contributes to Palestinian violence. A panel of ministers approved the legislation on Sunday and it will now be taken up by the country's parliament. Government watchdogs have expressed concern such a law could be abused and harm free speech. The legislation, known as the "Facebook bill" in Israel, would allow the government to petition a court to have online material it considers incitement removed. It would be removed in cases where it poses "a real risk to the security of a person, the public or the state," Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said in a statement. Israel has previously held discussions with Facebook officials to stop what it calls online incitement. In September, Shaked said that the social network giant had removed 95 percent of the posts Israel had referred to it. Shaked said Sunday that in 2016, 71 percent of the 1,755 requests Israel filed to internet companies requesting they remove content were fully complied with. She noted the ongoing collaboration with the internet companies, but stressed that it was "important this cooperation will be obligatory". Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who also pushed for the bill, accused Facebook and other internet companies of not removing "inciting content" every time police ask them, or not doing so swiftly enough "despite the fact that incitement leads to terror. " "The new law is essential in order to give us the tools to immediately act to remove content that could lead to acts of terror and murder," Erdan said on Sunday. But the possibility for error was seen in September, when Facebook apologised after temporarily disabling accounts linked to two Palestinian news sites critical of Israel. The move drew concern over the potential for online censorship. The Israel Democracy Institute think-tank said the bill was "unprecedented" in its current form when compared to similar legislation in other countries. It said it would be difficult to enforce and would "facilitate a disproportionate amount of censorship. " "The Facebook bill needs to be substantially revised so as to create a series of tools that can effectively cope with the serious problem of incitement on the internet," the institute's Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler said in a position paper to the ministers. Palestinians say they fear the Israeli campaign will lead to censorship of legitimate information and suspect the closures in September were linked to it. Israeli and American victims of Palestinian attacks filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Facebook in July over allegations it was used by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas to organise violence.

2016-12-26 07:45 Afp www.dailymail.co.uk

98 /100 3.2 2 escape uninjured after 'hard landing' in Stellenbosch Durban – A helicopter crashed in the Western Cape on Monday after a hard landing, Netcare911 said.

Netcare911 spokesperson Chris Botha said the helicopter fell to its side along Broadway Boulevard, near the De Zalze Golf Estate in Stellenbosch.

Neither of the two occupants were injured.

2016-12-26 07:43 www.news24.com

99 /100 1.3 Fragile new Ukraine truce holds for third day A new indefinite truce in Ukraine held by a thread for a third day Monday as both pro-Russian insurgents and Kiev reported clashes near a prized railroad hub but no deaths.

Ukraine and Russia -- two ex-Soviet neighbours that are now sworn foes -- agreed to the armistice Wednesday with the help of mediation from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

The rebels signed on to the ceasefire Friday after some deliberation.

Yet mortar and artillery fire has continued unabated without claiming any lives.

"Our positions came under attack 33 times since early Sunday," the Ukranian military said in a statement.

The insurgents' website said their side had come under fire from Ukrainian grenade launchers 62 times in the past day.

Such weapons have been banned by a February 2015 peace agreement that both sides have long ignored.

Kiev and its Western allies view the eastern separatists as Russian proxies who have been fighting for 31 months to destabilise the Ukrainian government and keep it dependent on the Kremlin's whims.

Moscow denies interfering in the conflict but international monitors have seen tanks and other heavy military equipment enter the Ukrainian war zone from Russia throughout the war.

March 2014 saw Russia annex Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in apparent retaliation for Kiev's ouster of the Moscow-backed president the preceding month.

The latest truce came shortly after a week-long battle for control of positions near Debaltseve -- a railway hub that links the pro-Russian regions of Lugasnk and Donetsk.

Details are disputed but Kiev appears to have won back control of most regions around the town after an initial rebel assault.

Kiev lost eight soldiers in the battles while the rebels stuck their custom of not disclosing their deaths.

- Battles before truce -

Ukranian General Anatoliy Petrenko -- charged with military contacts with his counterpart from Moscow -- told the Ukrainska Pravda website that he had asked the militias to stop their assault on Kiev-held villages near Debaltseve more than 800 times.

"They agreed on 415 occasions," Petrenko was quotes as saying

Debaltseve itself has been under separatist control since an immense January 2015 battle prompted Germany and France to step in and force all sides to agree to a peace deal the following month.

But the war in the European Union's back yard has raged on and now claimed nearly 10,000 lives.

Some analysts and officials feel this truce may last longer than the others because of its indefinite nature.

Nearly all the ceasefires agreed by the two sides had earlier been fixed to specific events such as the start of the school year or religious holidays.

An end to Ukrainian fighting would come as great relief to EU leaders who are grappling with an upsurge in populist parties and Britain’s slow and painful exit from the bloc.

2016-12-26 07:40 www.digitaljournal.com

100 /100 2.8 Two men shot in the face with a shotgun in home raid - as police hunt fugitives Two men were shot in the face with a shotgun during a terrifying home invasion on the Gold Coast. Three people allegedly stormed a rural home on Old Wharf Road in Pimpama at about 5.15pm on Monday and shot the pair inside. A man in his 50s received wounds to his face and groin while another, in his 20s, had injuries to his face, police said. Scroll down for video They were rushed to hospital and are both in a stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries. One man was arrested nearby and police are hunting another man and a woman who fled in a gold Toyota Land Cruiser. It was not known what sparked the shooting.

2016-12-26 07:31 Nic White www.dailymail.co.uk

Total 100 articles.

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Created at 2016-12-26 18:02