Assem Allam, the Egyptian-born businessman and owner of Premier League club Hull City, tells the club's fans, whom he refers to as "hooligans", that they can "die as soon as they want" following protests against his plans to rename the club Hull Tigers. (ITV News)(Daily Mail)
In the New Hampshire's U.S. District Court, the former medical technician David Kwiatkowski is sentenced to 39 years in prison for infecting unknown numbers of patients in various states with hepatitis C through the reuse of his contaminated syringes. (FOX News)
A mass grave is discovered near Bamako holding the remains of 21 loyalist soldiers said to have gone missing last year during Mali's coup. (Al Jazeera)
A train derails in the Bangladesh district of Gaibandha as a result of sabotage resulting in at least 3 deaths. Over 60 people have been killed since an opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party announced a campaign against next months election. (Dawn)
A Hezbollah official Hassan al-Lakkis is assassinated outside his home in Hadath, south of the Lebanese capital Beirut with Hezbollah blaming Israel. (Daily Star)
Sixty are ill with fifteen others requiring treatment for smoke inhalation when a BART train makes an emergency stop in the Berkeley Hills Tunnel near the Rockridge station due to mechanical problems. (KRON)
Politics and elections
Xavier Bettel becomes the first openly gay prime minister in Luxembourg and the third openly gay prime minister in Europe as the country's first government without participation of the Christian Social People's Party since 1979 takes office; Bettel's deputy, Étienne Schneider, is also openly gay, making Luxembourg the first country in the world with the two highest-ranking leaders of government being openly gay. (Al Jazeera)
Unidentified militants attack a Defense Ministry compound in Sana'a, Yemen, killing at least 52 people and injuring 167 others. Most of the victims appear to be doctors and nurses, working at a hospital within the property. (Al Jazeera)(CNN)
Pope Francis, in his first major action on the still very pressing issue, gives his assent during meetings on reform of the Roman Curia to the creation of a permanent expert-member Pontifical Commission which would advise the Catholic Church on how to deal with cases of the sin and crime of sex abuse of minors by those in Church ministries (as of now, it would not be able to take corrective action against lax Bishops; dioceses and then the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are in charge of laicizing abusive clerics). (Catholic News Service)
A record level of smog is reported in Shanghai causing officials to issue the highest level health warning and delaying of hundreds of flights.(Reuters)
During the third Sunday of mass protests, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in Kiev seek the resignation of the government for refusing a deal on closer ties with the European Union. BBC News
Anti-government protesters topple the last surviving statue of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin in central Kiev. (CNN)
Iraqi Jewish artifacts that were rescued from Saddam Hussein's palace by a Jewish-American scholar and brought to the United States are scheduled to be returned to Iraq by the end of the summer in 2014, despite objections from American Jews citing instability in Iraq. (Los Angeles Times)
Three journalists are killed and one wounded in the Philippines within the span of two weeks raising concerns regarding the security situation in the country. (Al Jazeera)
The U.S. National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable internet advertisers to track consumers, such tools are known as cookies; specifically, Google cookies are being tracked in order to determine targets for hacking. (The Washington Post)
A revenge porn website is shutdown in San Diego after the owner, Kevin Christopher Bollaert, is accused of extorting money from one of its victims. (Los Angeles Times)
Police in Kiev abandon their posts after a sweep of the protesters ended in violence. (The New York Times)
Armed conflicts and attacks
An air strike intended to target an al Qaeda convoy in Al-Bayda province in central Yemen mistakenly attacks a wedding procession, killing 15 civilians. (Reuters)
Four former Icelandic bank bosses are jailed over concealing illegal activities within the bank Kaupthing. (BBC)
Mexico's Congress passes a bill that will allow foreign investment in its state-run oil company, Pemex. The measure still requires the approval of a majority of the country's federal entities. [citation needed]
Disasters and accidents
An ammonia cooling pump on the International Space Station malfunctions, requiring suspension of some non-critical systems. (CNN)
Beyoncé unexpectedly releases her fifth self-titled album without any prior announcement or promotion, ultimately changing the global release date of all future albums to Friday.[1]
The storm spreads to Egypt with some Cairo suburbs seeing snowfall. Local news reports claimed it was the capital's first snowfall in 112 years. Night temperatures are expected to drop as low as 2°C / 36°F. (The Daily Star)(Huffington Post)(Al-Ahram)
China's mission begins the descent phase to the moon that will likely make it one of only three countries to reach it. The landing is estimated to occur at 8:40 a.m. EST, December 14. (CNN)(Universe Today)
A carjacking resulted in the death of a Hoboken lawyer who was murdered in front of his wife while returning to his vehicle after shopping. (NBC New York)
The center-left candidate Michelle Bachelet is elected as president of Chile for the second time. She is the first leader in Chile to be elected to serve two terms since military rule ended in 1990. (BBC)
27-year-old Sebastian Kurz becomes Austria's youngest foreign minister. (BBC)
Several prominent Turkish businessmen and the sons of three cabinet ministers are arrested as part of an investigation into alleged bribery and corruption. (BBC)(Reuters)
Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi settles out of court a U.S. sex scandal libel lawsuit against the U.S.-based overseas alternative news source website Boxun. (BBC)
A United States EPA employee who committed fraud regarding his vacation pay is sentenced to 32 months in prison. John C. Beale had perpetrated a scam whereby he disappeared from work for years at a time saying he was a covert CIA agent. (FOX News)
Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale are convicted of the murder of British Army soldier Lee Rigby. (BBC)
Pelsender Didier, a 75-year-old Belgium national, who has been internationally wanted by Interpol since 2006 for sexually abusing two of his adopted daughters, is arrested in Vietnam’s Nha Trang beachside city. (Tuoi Tre News)
Berlin city-state officials says that a police investigation has traced vehicles stolen in recent years in Germany to Tajikistan, some 3,500 miles away. German authorities alleged that relatives and other people close to Tajikistan's president are driving stolen luxury cars from Germany, as a long-running criminal probe escalated into a diplomatic spat between two countries. (The Wall Street Journal)
Eighteen Iraqi military officers and soldiers are killed and more than 30 others injured after an attack in Rutbah, in Iraq's western Anbar province. Among those killed is the commander of the elite Iraqi 7th Division Major General Mohammed al-Karawi, as well as 4 other officers. (Reuters)(BBC)
The Pakistani army launches a military offensive against Taliban insurgents near the Afghan border. There are accusations that dozens of civilians are killed. (Reuters)
Russia sends 25 armored trucks and 50 other vehicles to Syria to help transport toxins that are to be destroyed under an international agreement to rid the nation of its chemical arsenal. (Reuters)
Former UK MP Denis MacShane is sentenced to six months in jail for expenses fraud after he admitted to submitting 19 false receipts totaling £12,900. (BBC)
In Tupelo, Mississippi two or three armed bank robbery suspects, fleeing police following a holdup at a Bancorp South, shoot dead one policeman and injure another. (NBC)
South Sudan's government says its military has recaptured the key town of Bor, days after it was seized by rebels. (Channel 4 News)
A Palestinian sniper kills a Bedouin laborer who was repairing the Israeli fence surrounding Gaza; following this, the Israeli Military attacked targets in Gaza with airstrikes and ground forces, killing at least one Palestinian three-year-old child and wounding several others.(The New York Times)(The Times of Israel)
American Express is ordered to pay US$75.7 million in restitution and fines to customers and federal regulators over billing people for services they never received. (Bloomberg)
Heavy winds and rain disrupt transportation and cut power in parts of France and the United Kingdom, bringing the death toll of the last two days of storms to 6. (Reuters)
Today is the deadline for U.S. residents to sign up without penalty for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. (Fox News)
Tetiana Chornovol, a Ukrainian civic activist and journalist, is dragged from her car and beaten by a group of men. Authorities say that this is the latest attack on government opponents. (CNN)
Syrian government forces and rebel fighters in a besieged Damascus suburb agree to a 48-hour truce that could result in food being allowed in for residents threatened with starvation. (Reuters)
A suicide bomber attacks a foreign military convoy on the eastern outskirts of the Afghan capital, Kabul, killing at least three foreign soldiers, police and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. (Reuters)
Authorities are investigating a reported heart attack of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Mexico's and the world's most-wanted man, suffered in November. (San Diego Red)
A bomb blast rips a trolleybus apart in Volgograd, Russia, killing at least 15 people in the second deadly attack in the southern city in less than 24 hours. (BBC)
An attack on an army base in south Yemen by gunmen with rifles and antitank rockets killed at least five government soldiers and three militants. Four soldiers also went missing. Globalpost
A fire was set in the stairway of a gay nightclub in Seattle on New Year's Eve which was quickly extinguished. An empty gasoline container was found at the top of the stairway. (Huffington Post)