Japan hangs a Chinese man convicted of the murder of a family

Japan on Thursday hanged a Chinese man convicted of the murder of a family of four whose bodies were found handcuffed and weighted down with dumbbells in a bay, the justice minister said.

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Quake strikes near Iran nuclear power plant

An earthquake struck Iran on Friday less than 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the country's only nuclear power plant, monitors said. The US Geological Survey said the 5.1 magnitude quake struck 44 kilometres (27 miles) from the southwestern city of Borazjan and at a depth of 38 kilometres. Its reported epicentre is 45 kilometres east of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, on the southwest Gulf coast.

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Blumenthal: Some GOP 'have very severe misgivings' about McConnell impeachment strategy

Richard Blumenthal stated he believes some Senate Republicans are concerned with McConnell working with the White House on Trump's impeachment trial.

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Baltimore On Pace to Break Homicide Rate Record in 2019

Baltimore may see the highest homicide rate ever recorded in the city by the end of 2019, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.Police had recorded 338 homicides as of Tuesday, four shy of the 342 seen in 2017 and 2015. The city saw 353 homicides in 1993, the most of any year on record.However, because the city had a larger population in the early 1990's, the homicide rate per 100,000 residents in 2019 is nearing the rate from 1993, despite the lower total. If Baltimore sees 342 or more homicides by the end of 2019, the homicide rate will reach 57 per 100,000, surpassing the 1993 rate."It’s a major concern for me, not just as a hopeful man but as a citizen of Baltimore who grew up in inner city Baltimore," Carmichael “Stokey” Cannady, a reformed drug dealer who became a community activist, told the AP. "I remember when a person had a conflict and would have a fight at best, now these young kids, at the age of 13, 14 years old, are finding handguns in their possession and they use them as toys."The homicide rate was declining before 2015. On April 12 of that year, 25-year-old Freddie Gray died while restrained in the back of a police van after officers arrested him on suspicion of illegally carrying a switchblade. The death sparked riots in the city after officers were accused of racism in the case. Gray was African-American.The state attorney for Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby, charged the officers involved with murder, and said she would attempt to give voice to rioters' chants of "no justice, no peace." The six officers charged were eventually acquitted, and in 2016 prosecutors dropped all remaining charges.The homicide rate in Baltimore has remained high since Gray's death. In 2019 the city appointed current Police Commissioner Michael Harrison to revamp the department."People can expect [the homicide rate] to go down, we are building capacity, but we need to have some type of effect on the poverty, the housing, the education, the addiction, the skills, the jobs and the lack thereof, together at the same time," Harrison told the AP. "All of that has to be addressed while prosecuting people who commit crimes and preventing other people from committing those crimes. Otherwise, it continues and then you ask the question, ‘When does it stop?’ without fixing the reason it starts."President Trump in July described the district in which the Freddie Gray incident took place as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess." Trump blasted the district's longtime representative Elijah Cummings, who died in October, for what the President said was Cummings's failure to address problems of crime in the district.Maryland's Republican governor Larry Hogan denounced Trump's remarks as "outrageous and inappropriate."

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Hundreds in Istanbul sign petitions against Erdogan's canal project

Hundreds of people in Istanbul have signed petitions in the past two days opposing a massive canal project championed by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, which they say will wreak environmental havoc in the city. The proposed 45-km (28-mile) Kanal Istanbul on the western fringes of Turkey's largest city would connect the Black Sea to the north and the Marmara Sea to the south. Erdogan says it will ease traffic and prevent accidents on the natural Bosphorus strait, one of the world's busiest waterways, which cuts through the city.

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Congolese woman, 41, dies after entering US border custody

A 41-year-old Congolese asylum seeker died Wednesday in U.S. government custody shortly after she entered a border station in South Texas, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday. CBP says the woman, who the agency did not identify, had arrived at an official port of entry in Laredo, Texas, early Tuesday afternoon. The woman came with paperwork that documented a “previous medical condition,” CBP said.

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Mexico says Spanish diplomats' cars blocked by Bolivia at La Paz embassy

Mexico's government said Bolivian police had impeded the departure of Spanish officials visiting the Mexican ambassador in La Paz on Friday, widening a spat over Bolivia's surveillance of its diplomatic facilities that has rumbled on for days.

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Russia Deploys Hypersonic Weapon, Potentially Renewing Arms Race

The new Russian weapon system flies at superfast speeds and can evade traditional missile defense systems. The United States is trying to catch up.

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The Patriarchy of Alcoholics Anonymous

Women who drink too much need help. But we don’t need to give up our power.

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Mexican Police Chief Arrested in Massacre of Mormon Family

The killings of three women and six children, members of a binational community that farms land in northern Mexico, reverberated worldwide.

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N.Y.P.D. Steps Up Patrols After Reports of 8 Anti-Semitic Incidents

Police presence will increase in three Brooklyn neighborhoods in response to a surge of reported hate crimes.

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Warren sees sharp drop in quarterly fundraising, 'a good chunk behind' last quarter, campaign says

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., may have found a lump of coal in her Christmas stocking, as her campaign's fundraising efforts reportedly had a sharp decline in the fourth quarter.

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Jesse Watters blasts ex-Bush lawyer for invoking KKK when attacking McConnell: 'Atrocious comparison'

Jesse Watters responded to a former George W. Bush administration chief ethics lawyer who invoked the Ku Klux Klan while attacking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

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