Corax
Joe Biden commutes 37 of 40 federal death penalties to life sentences without the possibility of parole, has had a moratorium on federal executions and comments that he condemns the murderers and aches for the families but that he is more convinced than ever that federal death penalties must stop, Donald Trump indicated during the 2024 campaign that he will restart federal executions and expand the crimes eligible for the punishment – the death penalty remains for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Dylann Roof and Robert Bowers
World
The Biden administration lifts USD 10 million bounty on Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is said to have been pragmatic at a personal meeting in Damascus and has repeatedly promised to lead an inclusive government, al-Sharaa who was formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani was earlier presented by the US government's Rewards for Justice as the leader behind multiple terrorist attacks often targeting civilians such as the kidnapping of 300 Kurdish civilians and the massacre of 20 Druze villagers
US armed forces kill IS terrorist leader Abu Yusif in precision strike in the formerly Russian-controlled Syrian Dayr az Zawr Province, General Michael Erik Kurilla says ISIS has the intent to free over 8,000 operatives currently being held in Syrian facilities and that the US will not allow them to take advantage of the current situation
9 out of 10 drowning deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries according to a WHO report, 68% drop in drowning death rate between 2000 and 2021 in the European Region but only a 3% drop in Africa which has the highest regional rate with 5.6 deaths per 100 000 people, deaths during migration journeys not included in the report
US bans issuance of visas to about 20 people accused of undermining democracy in Georgia, does not name the individuals but says sitting ministers and members of parliament were among them as well as law enforcement and security officials, the move follows anti-Western Mikheil Kavelashvili's presidential election win
Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Norway freeze all pending asylum requests from Syrians after the fall of Assad, Austria where about 100,000 Syrians live says all asylum grants will be reviewed and that they will prepare an orderly repatriation and deportation programme
Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow along with his family and has been granted asylum for humanitarian reasons, according to a Kremlin source to the TASS news agency
Ukraine expands access to militarized satellite network Starshield from 500 to 3,000 terminals after SpaceX signs contract with the Pentagon, contract valid during 2025
Rebels storm the Syrian presidential palace and announce on state TV that President Bashar al-Assad is ousted, as the capital fell a Syrian airplane with unknown passengers left the Damascus airport and flew towards Assad's coastal region stronghold before making a U-turn and disappearing off the map, unclear if the plane was shot down or the transponder was switched off
Ukrainian trained Syrian rebel forces lead the assault on Aleppo along with among others Turkish backed former Al-Qaeda affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, only connection between the disparate Islamist groups is said to be hatred of the Russian-backed Assad regime, more than 20 villages and the Aleppo airport among what has been captured
Miscellaneous
Poland releases 1,000 tonnes of frozen unsalted butter from its strategic butter reserves to combat price hikes, the butter price has recently been a hot topic where over half of the population blame the government, the butter will be auctioned off with a 20-tonne minimum buy
Giorgia Meloni's government conferrs Italian citizenship on Argentina's President Javier Milei, awards the citizenship based on the right of blood principle jus sanguinis via his three Calabrian grandparents, left-wing critizism towards the decision where they say hundreds of thousands of migrant children born in the country should be prioritized instead of having to wait until adults to gain citizenship via right of soil jus soli, Milei last month gave the Italian prime minister a statuette of himself wielding a chainsaw symbolizing his determination to cut the size of the state
New Zealand Scrabble legend Nigel Richards wins the Spanish World Scrabble Championships despite not speaking Spanish, won the francophone world championships in 2015 and 2018 after memorizing the dictionary for nine weeks and has among many other titles won five English World Championships
Media
Albania blocks social network TikTok for at least a year starting 2025, Prime Minister Edi Rama says TikTok is the thug of the neighborhood and will be chased out
The prisoner CNN helped free from Syrian prison was the notorious torturer Salama Mohammad Salama with a long history of alleged war crimes, CNN comments that they have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity, fact-checkers Verify-Sy notes that the man's grooming and general physical health constitute an incongruous portrayal of someone allegedly held in solitary confinement in the dark for 90 days and that there is no record of anyone in the region with the name he provided
European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) finds that the EU Commission's ad campaign on X breached the EU data protection laws as political views were processed to target the ads, the ad campaign was intended to sway opinion regarding Chat Control where EU wants to scan all electronic communications – keywords avoided by the campaign were for example #Qatargate, brexit, Christian and Vox
Rupert Murdoch loses bid to change his family trust to consolidate control of his media empire to his son Lachlan instead of dividing it equally among his four eldest children, reportedly wants his companies to continue acting as a conservative media force which Fox Corp CEO Lachlan is understood to be more aligned with, Murdoch's lawyer says they intend to appeal
US political commentator Candace Owens refused a visa to enter New Zealand because Australia banned her due to comments regarding the Holocaust and Muslims, has for instance expressed doubts regarding medical experimentation on Jews in concentration camps during World War II, planned doing a speaking tour discussing free speech and Christian faith
Australia bans social media ban for children under 16, X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Reddit but not YouTube included, the platforms bear sole responsibility for enforcement and risk fines of up to USD 33 million, 77% of Australians support the ban according to a recent YouGov poll
Politics
Elon Musk writes on X that only Alternative for Germany can save Germany – AfD co-leader Alice Weidel replies that he is perfectly right and asks him to have a look into her intervju on President Trump, how socialist Merkel ruined the country and how the Soviet European Union destroys the country's economic backbone
Canada's Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland resigns, says that she and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau whom she accuses of costly political gimmicks have been at odds in recent weeks and that she concluded based on him wanting her to switch cabinet positions that the only path forward is to resign, the resignation is considered unexpected and another setback for the Liberal Party that had already collapsed in the polls
73-year-old centrist Democratic Movement leader François Bayrou appointed as France's new prime minister, fourth person in the position during 2024, was acquitted in February after a seven-year-long case regarding fraudulent employment of parliamentary assistants by his party and was Macron's first justice minister in 2017 before being replaced after one month because of ethics concerns over the case
Afro-Swedish EU parliamentarian Alice Bah Kuhnke (MP) tells The Guardian she has learned to keep her ID close at hand as she frequently is stopped in and around the European Parliament and that other black parliamentarians have the same experience, the article author writes that the over-representation of white men in parliament have far-reaching consequences
Argentine President Javier Milei attends a convention of European patriots organized by the right-wing party Vox with Marine Le Pen among others present and has no plans to meet the king or Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez during a visit to Spain, calls socialism satanic and a cancer in a speech on the first day of the visit
Opinion
EU's health ministers agree on recommending bans on smoking and vaping in many outdoor areas including cafe patios and beaches, all countries voted in favour apart from Germany and Greece which abstained, EU Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi comments that the agreement is a crucial step towards the goal of a tobacco-free generation in Europe
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: Recent Supreme Court decisions make clear that numerous regulations are unconstitutional because they were not enacted by Congress, we will help Donald Trump identify such regulations so that he can immediately repeal them, this will also cause severe cuts to agencies and major cost savings
Jeff Bezos: Media fails to be seen as credible and is considered by most to be biased, it would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing decline in credibility but victim mentality does not help and I will not allow the Washington Post fade into irrelevance so changes are now needed for us to win this fight
Europe
Italy's former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini acquitted in a Sicily court of kidnapping where he risked six years in prison for preventing a migrant rescue ship with 160 migrants from docking in 2019, comments that he was being attacked by communist judges pushing a left-wing agenda and that he is proud of having defended his country, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni comments that Salvini has the solidarity of the entire government and Elon Musk posted on X during Thursday that it is crazy that Salvini is being tried for defending Italy
French authorities arrest 95 people in connection to an international child pornography ring, 36 of the arrested already known to the police for previous pedophilia crimes, all suspects are men between the ages of 18 and 74 except for one 16-year-old
At least 5 killed and 60 wounded after a 50-year-old Saudi doctor rammed his car into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany during Friday evening, viewed as a deliberate attack
Germany changes its Basic Law to protect the Federal Constitutional Court from the growing right-wing Alternative for Germany, fixes the number of judges as well as terms and maximum age and gives the Upper House the power to appoint judges if the Lower House can't reach 2/3 majority, Social Democrat Interior Minister Nancy Faeser says that the law ensures that democracy enemies don't have a gateway to the judicial system
Thousands of people feared dead after cyclone Chido with winds above 220 kilometers per hour hit France's territory of Mayotte outside Madagascar, locals compare the damage to nuclear war, 100,000 illegal immigrants live in the territory which is the poorest place in the EU
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz loses no-confidence vote with 207 votes where 367 were needed, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier now to decide whether to dissolve parliament where a snap election must be held within 60 days, polls indicating right-wing shift as Christian Democratic Union which have promised a fundamental change in migration policy tops the polls with 33% ahead of right-wing Alternative for Germany with 17%
North America
Ontario town Emo seeks judicial review after being ordered to pay USD 15,000 to Borderland Pride for not observing Pride Month, Mayor Harold McQuaker who was ordered to take sensitivity training comments that they don't fly flags for straight people either, Borderland Pride says they unequivocally condemn this mayor and council and that they will vigorously defend the rights of all 2SLGBTQIA+ people
FAA extends New Jersey's drone ban to parts of New York, New York governor, Kathy Hochul says the overflight ban includes critical infrastructure sites and that the action is purely precautionary as there are no threats to the sites, US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson says there is no public safety threat relating to the reported drone sightings and the government has said most sightings appear to be of either airplanes or helicopters
Joe Biden forgives USD 4.28 billion in student debt for 54,900 borrowers who work in public service, has forgiven record amounts of student debt with nearly USD 180 billion for 4.9 million people
The White House hid Joe Biden's mental decline from Day 1 of his presidency, shielded him from the public and rearranged his schedule after scatterbrained performances, removed reports about the public's opinion of his job performance and hired a voice coach to try to improve his faint tone, according to a Wall Street Journal report
US eradicates the invasive Asian giant hornet five years after it was found in the country, the 5-cm-long hornet can kill an entire hive of honeybees in 90 minutes, the Entomological Society of America started calling the species Northern giant hornet in 2022 to avoid evoking fear or discrimination
US Bureau of Prisons pays USD 115 million to 103 women who were sexually abused by staff at Federal Correctional Institution Dublin in California, the assault at the women's institution, which was known internally as the rape club, was pervasive and widely documented, seven former Dublin employees including the warden and the chaplain have been criminally convicted of sexual crimes and more than 20 other employees are under investigation, the prison was permanently closed earlier in December
Latin America
Argentina's President Javier Milei vows to install nuclear reactors to power artificial intelligence servers, says that nuclear energy is the only source that is sufficiently efficient, abundant and rapidly scalable to cope with the development of our civilization, the country currently has three nuclear power plants in operation providing 9% of the energy consumed
Millions without power in Cuba after electrical grid collaps during Wednesday morning, follows string of countrywide blackouts, Energy Minister Vicente de la O'Levy says he expects the system to be back online by Thursday, shortages of food, medicine, water and electricity have lead to record-breaking numbers of Cubans fleeing the country in the past three years
Jair Bolsonaro will soon be charged with attempted coup, according to sources within the Brazilian police force, last week several military officers, including a brigadier general, were arrested on suspicion of plotting to assassinate Lula da Silva in connection with the alleged 2023 coup attempt
Asia
India intensifies border surveillance after reports that Bangladesh has deployed Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones in the area, the development follows intelligence reports indicating increased terrorist activity along the border after the August fall of the Bangladesh government
Martial law declared in South Korea by President Yoon Suk Yeol, recinded 6 hours later after vote by parliament, Yoon claims the political opposition is engaged in anti-state activities and sympathizes with North Korea and that all forces opposing the state must be eliminated
Four members of Pakistan's security services killed as thousands of former Prime Minister Imran Khan's supporters break through government barricades in Islamabad, the protesters demand his release from jail and government resignation over rigged elections, Khan sentenced for graft and revealing offical secrets and faces more than 150 other criminal cases, the clashes follow a court decision to ban rallies in the city, arrests of more than 4,000 Khan supporters and suspended mobile and internet services
Africa
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan offers Sudanese Armed Forces' General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan to mediate civil war negotiations with the allegedly UAE-backed rebels, the offer follows Erdoğan successfully negiotiating an agreement between Ethiopia and Somalia, widespread hunger and disease in the country with nearly 15 million Sudanese having fled their homes
Somalia and Ethiopia appreciative towards Turkey for helping to sign peace deal, dispute between the countries since the beginning of 2024 when Ethiopia reached an agreement with Somaliland to use its Red Sea port of Berbera, the deal presented at a media summit in the Turkish capital Ankara conducted by Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan along with Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed
Burkina Faso's ruling military leader Ibrahim Traoré dismisses Prime Minister Apollinaire Joachim Kyelem de Tambela and dissolves the government, Kyelem de Tambela was formerly the head of all three governments since the military coup in October 2022
Kismayo Mayor Omar Abdullahi Mohamed accuses Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of treason and the president's images is removed from public buildings in Jubaland, the accusation follows Somalia requesting Interpol to issue a Red Notice for Jubaland President Ahmed Madobe on accusations of conspiring with foreign entities and undermining national security and Jubaland issuing an arrest warrant for Mohamud on accusations of treason and incitement to rebellion, underlying the dispute are long-standing disagreements where the semi-autonomous Jubaland has resisted centralization
Economy
World coal use projected to reach new record levels during 2024 according to the International Energy Agency, China alone uses more than half the world's coal and is expected to reach a record 4.9 billion tonnes, emerging economies such as India and Indonesia also contribute to the increase which offsets decreases in the EU and the US
US federal appeals court blocks Nasdaq's 2021 boardroom diversity rules as the Securities and Exchange Commission did not have the authority to approve them, the rules required companies to yearly report the diversity of their corporate directors and explain if there was not at least one woman, person of color or LGBTQ member on their boards, Nasdaq comments that they maintain that the rule simplified and standardized disclosure requirements to the benefit of both corporates and investors
Argentina eliminates its fiscal deficit for the first time in 123 years thanks to President Javier Milei's aggressive economic reforms and austerity measures where among other things several government agencies were dissolved, inflation rate at 4-year low 2.4% in November
Unions threaten Volkswagen with continued strikes in 2025 if a deal is not done, 100,000 employees across Germany stopped work for two hours during Monday and 38,000 employees demonstrated in front of the headquarters in Wolfsburg – the company wants to save EUR 10 billion by closing German plants, slashing thousands of jobs and cutting pay by 10%
China bans US exports of gallium, germanium, antimony among other key high-tech materials with potential military applications in response to Washington's expanded list of Chinese companies subject to computer chip export controls, Beijing's Foreign Ministry comments that they lodge stern protests regarding the malicious suppression of China's technological progress and firmly opposes the illegal unilateral sanctions
Technology
Switzerland unveils the world's steepest cable car, connects Stechelberg with Mürren in a 4-minute journey climbing 775 meters over 1194 meters of track, the route is fully autonomous and each of the two cars can carry 85 passengers
Federal lawsuit against Google-backed company Character.AI after the bot exposed a 9-year-old girl to hypersexualized content and told a 17-year-old boy that self-harm felt good which changed both children's behaviour, the 17-year-old was also complaining about limited screen time to which the bot replied that it is not surprised when children kill abusive parents and that it has no hope for his parents, ongoing case also for Character.AI where a 14-year-old committed suicide after the chatbot encouraged him to do so
German defense company Helsing announces that the final versions of the HX-2 AI kamikaze attack drone are coming off the production line with 4000 to be delivered to Ukraine, the electrically powered drone which has a top speed of 220 kph and a maximum range of 100 km can be loaded with a variety of warheads depending on target and search and engage targets without a signal or continuous data connection
Science
Ground squirrels observed hunting and eating vole in California, could be driven by an explosion in vole numbers with roughly seven times more voles than the 10-year average reported, squirrels are in general flexible regarding food and eat insects as well as hatchling birds but have never been seen hunting adult mammals before