As 2023 holidays dawn, face masks have settled in as an occasional feature of the American landscape (abcnews.go.com)
Israeli army says it has uncovered biggest Hamas tunnel yet (www.theguardian.com)
The Israeli army has said it has uncovered the biggest Hamas tunnel in the Gaza Strip so far, just a few hundred metres from a key border crossing....
Jungle between Colombia and Panama becomes highway for migrants from around the world (apnews.com)
Once nearly impenetrable for migrants heading north from Latin America, the jungle between Colombia and Panama this year became a speedy but still treacherous highway for hundreds of thousands of people from around the world....
Hamas and Israel reach 'tentative deal' on new truce and hostage swap (www.thenationalnews.com)
Under proposed deal, Hamas will release at least 50 hostages and Israel will free 300 Palestinians, sources tell The National
Americans fear they can't pay back their debts, credit cards (www.newsweek.com)
Hostage Deaths Fuel Israelis’ Doubts About Netanyahu (www.nytimes.com)
In the face of increasing pressure from the United States, Britain and Germany, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has doubled down on his opposition to what these allies see as the future of Gaza: an interim government overseen by the Palestinian Authority and an eventual Palestinian state existing alongside Israel....
Author receives German prize in scaled-down format after comparing Gaza to Nazi-era ghettos (apnews.com)
The comparison in a recent New Yorker article was viewed as controversial in Germany, where government authorities strongly support Israel as a form of remorse and responsibility after Adolf Hitler’s Germany murdered up to 6 million Jews in the Holocaust....
Jeff Bezos foresees a trillion people living in millions of space colonies. Here's what he's doing to get the ball rolling. (www.nbcnews.com)
Confederate memorial to be removed in coming days from Arlington National Cemetery (www.seattletimes.com)
A Confederate memorial is to be removed from Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia in the coming days, part of the push to remove symbols that commemorate the Confederacy from military-related facilities, a cemetery official said Saturday....
GOP senator says Biden ‘may not be’ impeachable since he wasn’t in office during accused actions (www.washingtontimes.com)
State supreme court dismisses Ohio’s effort to enforce abortion ban (www.theguardian.com)
Abortion clinics have asked judge to block ban after amendment to state constitution was passed enshrining right to procedure...
Trump tells rally immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ (www.theguardian.com)
The Right Is Passing Bills That Ban the Teaching of Empathy and Care in Schools (truthout.org)
NPR's Top Global Posts of 2023 (www.npr.org)
Some good stuff that you, like me, may have missed.
Doctors With Histories of Big Malpractice Settlements Now Work for Insurers (www.propublica.org)
Doctors working for health insurers can rule on 10,000 or more requests for care a year. At least a dozen were hired by major insurance companies after being disciplined by state medical boards or making multiple or outsized malpractice payments.
Ukrainian drone video provides a grim look at casualties as Russian troops advance toward Avdiivka (apnews.com)
A Ukrainian military drone unit near Stepove, a village just north of Avdiivka, where some of the most intense battles have taken place, shot the video this month....
Looking for new mods!
Hello everyone!...
South Korea's military says North Korea has fired a ballistic missile toward its eastern waters (apnews.com)
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t immediately say what type of missile it was or how far it flew....
Justice Neil Gorsuch took 10 minutes to approve Dobbs abortion opinion – report (www.theguardian.com)
New York Times reports conservative supreme court justice had no changes to 98-page draft of opinion that removed right to abortion...
Xcel fined $14K for storing radioactive water without permit at Monticello plant (bringmethenews.com)
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) said Xcel began to store the tritium-contaminated groundwater in aboveground storage tanks without obtaining a required permit from the state.
International court rules against Guatemala in a landmark Indigenous and environmental rights case (apnews.com)
The landmark verdict marks a monumental step in a four-decade struggle for Indigenous land rights and a long, bitter legal battle, which has at times spilled into the streets of northern Guatemala....
Britain's National Grid drops China-based supplier over cyber security fears - FT (www.reuters.com)
The decision came in April after the utility sought advice from the National Cyber Security Centre, a branch of the nation’s signals intelligence agency GCHQ, the newspaper quoted a Whitehall official as saying....
Hungry, thirsty and humiliated: Israel's mass arrest campaign sows fear in northern Gaza (apnews.com)
“We were treated like cattle, they even wrote numbers on our hands,” said Ibrahim Lubbad, a 30-year-old computer engineer arrested in Beit Lahiya on Dec. 7 with a dozen other family members and held overnight. “We could feel their hatred.”
Black Ohio woman criminally charged after miscarriage underscores the perils of pregnancy post-Roe (apnews.com)
The 33-year-old Watts, who had not shared the news of her pregnancy even with her family, made her first prenatal visit to a doctor’s office behind Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, a working-class city about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland....
Tornados left a swath of destruction in parts of Tennessee. A baby swept up in a twister was found alive on a downed tree (www.cnn.com)
By the time the tornado siren sounded one week ago, the roof of Sydney Moore’s mobile home in Clarksville, Tennessee, had been sheared off and her 4-month-old son Lord sucked up by the twister....
