Baltimore could wrap up 2019 with its highest per-capita homicide rate on record as killings of adults and minors alike for drugs, retribution, money or no clear reason continue to add up and city officials appear unable to stop the violence. With just over 600,000 residents, Baltimore’s homicide rate would reach approximately 57 per 100,000 … Read more
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny said on Wednesday that the forcible military conscription of one of his allies to a remote air base in the Arctic amounted to kidnapping and illegal imprisonment. Ruslan Shaveddinov, a project manager at Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, was detained at his Moscow flat on Monday after the door was broken down, … Read more
Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer have hit the $200 million mark combined, and Bloomberg, at least, is just getting started. Read from Source
The Taliban ambushed a peace convoy in western Afghanistan and abducted 26 activists, members of a peace movement, a police spokesman said Wednesday. The insurgents staged the ambush in the district of Bala Buluk in Farah province on Tuesday. The Taliban forced the six-vehicle convoy to a halt, then got into the cars and drove … Read more
Pope Francis offered a Christmas message of hope Wednesday against darkness that cloaks conflicts and relationships in large parts of the world from the Middle East to the Americas to Africa. The traditional “Urbi et Orbi’’ (“to the city and to the world’’) Christmas message has become an occasion for popes to address suffering in … Read more
A man with a white beard robbed a bank and immediately threw the money in the air before wishing bystanders a merry Christmas, witnesses have said.David Wayne Oliver reportedly waited to be arrested in a Starbucks coffee shop after the robbery of the Academy Bank in Colorado Springs just two days before Christmas. Read from … Read more
Iran’s armed forces will hold a joint, four-day naval exercise with Russia and China in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, a spokesman said Wednesday. Visits to Iran by Russian and Chinese naval representatives have also stepped up in recent years. Iranian military spokesman Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi said the joint maneuvers, which are aimed … Read more
Hong Kong anti-government protesters marched through Christmas-decorated shopping centers on Wednesday, chanting pro-democracy slogans and forcing one mall to close early, as police fired tear gas to disperse crowds gathering on nearby streets. The protests have turned more confrontational over the festive season, though earlier in December they had been largely peaceful after pro-democracy candidates … Read more
A single woman in China has gone to court challenging rules that forbid unmarried women from freezing their eggs in the first case of its kind in the country. Teresa Xu said she was prompted to take legal action after a top hospital in Beijing declined to freeze her eggs last year, and instead told … Read more
Nigeria’s former national defence advisor, who was arrested in 2015 for allegedly stealing $2 billion, has been freed from jail after several court rulings ordering his release, a security official said Wednesday. Sambo Dasuki spent four years in prison despite multiple court orders to Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) domestic intelligence agency for his … Read more