Sony Pictures Entertainment announced today a limited theatrical release of 'The Interview' beginning Thursday, putting back into the theatres the comedy that prompted an international incident with North Korea and outrage over its cancelled release.
	Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton said today that Seth Rogen's North Korea farce "will be in a number of theatres on Christmas Day." He said Sony also is continuing its efforts to release the film on more platforms and in more theatres.
	"While we hope this is only the first step of the film's release, we are proud to make it available to the public and to have stood up to those who attempted to suppress free speech," said Lynton.
	Moviegoers celebrated the abrupt change of fortune for a film that appeared doomed, as 'The Interview' began popping up in the listings of a handful of independent theatres today, including the Alamo Drafthouse in Texas and Atlanta's Plaza Theatre.
	"The people have spoken! Freedom has prevailed! Sony ...

Sony announces limited release for 'The Interview'

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A 114-year-old woman who challenged Facebook after the social media site wouldn't let her list her real age has died.
	Anna Stoehr, one of Minnesota's oldest residents, died on Sunday in her sleep after several days in hospice care, according to her son, Harlan Stoehr.
	She drew national attention this year after KARE-TV reported about her attempt to create a Facebook account. Because the site wouldn't let her enter a birth year before 1905, she said she was 99. The station reported that she wrote a letter to the company, saying: "I'm still here."
	Facebook sent her a bouquet of 114 flowers for her most recent birthday, her son said.
	Harlan Stoehr said his mother was sharp until the end. He joked that when he saw her a week ago, "it was like she was 112 again."
	Born in Iowa in 1900, Anna Stoehr's family moved to Wisconsin and South Dakota before settling in Ridgeway, Minnesota, in 1919. She lived in Minnesota the rest of her life, her son said.

114-year-old woman who challenged Facebook age policy dies

Police in Germany are looking for a missing pigeon, and any finder could be in line for a 10,000-euro (USD 12,250) reward.
	Duesseldorf police said today that the 6-year-old male homing pigeon, named AS 969, was stolen at some point on Saturday night from a locked aviary in the city's suburbs.
	They say the light gray bird is valued by its owner at 150,000 euros (USD 184,000) and police suspect the thief or thieves were "connoisseurs" as it was the most valuable in an aviary full of other homing pigeons.
	The owner offered a 10,000-euro reward for the bird's recovery.

German police hunt stolen pigeon worth USD 184,000

Pope Francis is urging Mideast Christians to remain in the land of Christ's birth, despite the "previously unimaginable" attacks against them by Muslim extremists.
	In a Christmas greeting released today, Francis said the mere presence of the tiny Christian community in the Middle East is more important than any service the church can provide there.
	He said he hopes to visit in person, but that for now he wants to write to provide words of comfort and solidarity.
	The pope condemned trafficking in weapons and demanded that Muslim religious leaders clearly condemn attacks against religious minorities and using religion to justify them.

Pope pens letter to comfort, encourage Mideast Christians

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev today warned that the country faces a risk of a "deep recession" if the government ditches its spending plans.
	Speaking at a meeting of his party, Medvedev said the government won't retreat from its strategic aims and social spending. Otherwise, he said Russia could plunge into a "deep recession."
	With oil prices sliding, Russia's energy-dependent economy is suffering and is widely predicted to fall into recession next year.
	One manifestation of that has been the sharp fall in the value of the ruble. The currency is the worst performing currency this year, along with the Ukrainian, hryvnia, having lost nearly half its value.
	In response to the falling ruble, the country's central bank has raised interest rates sharply in an attempt to stem the selling tide.
	Last week, it increased its key interest rate to a whopping 17 percent. Though it may shore up the ruble it's likely to hurt Russian businesses and households.
	Medvedev insisted the rate 

Russia's Medvedev in warning over 'deep recession'

Key North Korean websites were back online today after an hours-long shutdown that followed a US vow to respond to a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures that Washington blames on Pyongyang.
	The White House and the State Department declined to say whether the US government was responsible for the Internet shutdown in one of the least-wired and poorest countries in the world.
	Although North Korea is equipped for broadband Internet, only a small, approved segment of the population has any access to the World Wide Web.
	Few North Koreans have access to computers; those who do are typically able to connect only to a domestic Intranet.
	Though it denies responsibility for the Sony hack, Pyongyang has called it a "righteous deed" and made clear its fury over "The Interview," a comedy that depicts the assassination of the North's authoritarian leader, Kim Jong Un, the head of a 1.2 million-man army and the focus of an intense cult of personality.
	South Korean officials, speaking on ...

Key N Korean websites back online after shutdown

An international watchdog group says women and girls from Iraq's Yazidi minority have endured horrors while held captive by Islamic State extremists.
	In a report issued today, the London-based Amnesty International says IS fighters took them as slaves when they captured their town in northern Iraq, then forcibly married, "sold" or gave them as "gifts" in August to militants or their supporters. Some committed suicide, fearing to be raped.
	The report was based on interviews with over 40 former captives.
	In their summer onslaught, the IS group targeted indigenous religious minorities across the country's north, including Christians and followers of the Yazidi faith, forcing tens of thousands from their homes.
	The Yazidis are a centuries-old religious minority viewed as apostates by extremists in Iraq.

Iraqi Yazidi girls abducted by IS endured horror

The UN Security Council has placed North Korea's bleak human rights situation on its agenda, a groundbreaking step toward possibly holding the nuclear-armed but desperately poor country and leader Kim Jong Un accountable for alleged crimes against humanity.
	This appears to be the first time that any country's human rights situation has been scheduled for ongoing debate by the UN's most powerful body.
	China and Russia protested the move, the boldest effort yet to confront Pyongyang over the issue.
	An angry North Korea, now on the defensive against a US accusation of hacking, has said it would refuse to recognise yesterday's meeting.
	A UN-backed inquiry and the UN General Assembly have urged the 15-member council to refer North Korea's human rights situation to the International Criminal Court. The council was unlikely to take action yesterday.
	International pressure has built this year on Pyongyang after a UN-backed inquiry found grounds to believe that crimes against humanity ...

UN Security Council takes up N Korea's human rights

Cuba says it has a right to grant asylum to US fugitives, the clearest signal yet that the communist government has no intention of extraditing America's most-wanted woman despite the warming relations.
	New Jersey Gov Chris Christie urged President Barack Obama to demand the return of fugitive Joanne Chesimard. She was granted asylum by Fidel Castro after she escaped from the prison where she was serving a sentence for killing a New Jersey state trooper.
	Several other longtime fugitives live on the island. Asked if returning fugitives was open to negotiation, Cuba's head of North American affairs Josefina Vidal told The Associated Press yesterday that "every nation has sovereign and legitimate rights to grant political asylum to people it considers to have been persecuted ... That's a legitimate right.

Cuba: Asylum for fugitives is legitimate right

British singer Joe Cocker is dead at age 70.
	His London-based agent, Barrie Marshall, said Cocker died early today of lung cancer in Colorado, where he has lived for the past two decades.
	Cocker was known for a memorable Woodstock performance and cover of the Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends."
	The ballad "You Are So Beautiful," with Cocker's voice cracking on the final emotional note, was a Top Ten hit in 1975. He reached the top of the charts in the 1980s with the duet "Up Where We Belong," with Jennifer Warnes, that appeared in the movie "An Officer and a Gentlemen."
	Cocker also had hits with Randy Newman's song, "You Can Leave Your Hat On" and "When the Night Comes.

Joe Cocker dies at 70

Leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany have reached an agreement to call another round of Ukraine peace talks this week.
	Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Vladimir Putin of Russia, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel reached the deal during a conference call today.
	Poroshenko's office said the negotiations will be held in the Belarusian capital Minsk on Wednesday and Friday. Previous rounds of talks in September involving representatives of Ukraine, Russia, pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe produced a ceasefire deal, which has often been violated. Recent peace efforts have helped sharply reduce hostilities, and the conflicting parties are now discussing the pullout of heavy weapons.
	Kazakhstan's president says the conflict in eastern Ukraine is "nonsense" and is calling on Russia and Ukraine to find a way to resolve it.
	Nursultan Nazarbayev's comments, after a meeting ...

Leaders agree on Ukrainian peace talks this week

F-Squared will pay USD 35 million and admit wrongdoing to settle federal regulators' charges of defrauding investors with false advertising claims about financial performance.
	The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the settlement yesterday with the investment firm. The SEC said F-Squared Investments Inc., based in Wellesley, Massachusetts, is the largest US marketer of index products using exchange-traded funds.
	ETFs trade like stocks but mirror other assets such as stock indexes or commodities. They offer the ability to move in and out of markets and have become popular among retail investors in recent years.
	The SEC said F-Squared falsely advertised a successful seven-year track record for its "AlphaSector" index product, which was its biggest revenue source and turned the firm from posting losses to being highly profitable.

F-Squared paying USD 35M to settle SEC charges on advertising

An angry North Korea, now on the defensive over a US accusation of hacking, is refusing to take part in a groundbreaking UN Security Council meeting today where the country's bleak human rights situation will be discussed for the first time.
	International pressure has built this year on Pyongyang after a sprawling UN-backed inquiry of alleged crimes against humanity and warned that young leader Kim Jong Un could be held accountable.
	And attention has focused on the North in recent days, as the Obama administration on Friday blamed it for the devastating hacking attack on Sony over the film "The Interview," which portrays Kim's assassination.
	Now the 15-member Security Council is being urged to refer North Korea's human rights situation to the International Criminal Court, seen as a court of last resort for atrocities.
	It's the boldest effort yet to confront Pyongyang over an issue it has openly disdained in the past.
	Instead of a showdown, North Korea says it will not attend ...

North Korea skipping UN Security Council meeting

Pope Francis issued a blistering critique today of the Vatican bureaucracy that serves him, denouncing how some people lust for power at all costs, live hypocritical double lives and suffer from "spiritual Alzheimer's" that has made them forget they're supposed to be joyful men of God.
	Francis' Christmas greeting to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See was no joyful exchange of holiday good wishes.
	Rather, it was a sobering catalog of 15 sins of the Curia that Francis said he hoped would be atoned for and cured in the New Year.
	He had some zingers: How the "terrorism of gossip" can "kill the reputation of our colleagues and brothers in cold blood."
	How cliques can "enslave their members and become a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body" and eventually kill it by "friendly fire." About how those living hypocritical double lives are "typical of mediocre and progressive spiritual emptiness that no academic degree can fill."
	"The Curia is called on to ...

Pope in blistering critique of Vatican bureaucrats

A 5-year-old boy and his 7-year-old brother were recovering in an Australian hospital today after surviving with their father for 10 days in the wilderness with little food and in weather conditions that ranged from stormy to scorching.
	Their ordeal began on December 11 when dad Steven Van Lonkhuyzen took a wrong turn during a family road trip and then got his four-wheel-drive vehicle bogged in mud. The family was rescued yesterday after farmer Tom Wagner went searching and found them in the remote Expedition National Park.
	"They were pretty hungry by the time I got to them, and pretty happy to see me," Wagner said.
	He said the younger boy, Timothy, kept asking him if he had any eggs, while the older one, Ethan, appeared dehydrated. He said the father had given the limited food he had to his sons, who themselves had gone with little or nothing to eat for a week.
	"Luckily it rained," he said. "Otherwise they would have perished."
	Queensland Police Acting Superintendent Mick ...

Australia family found after 10 days in wilderness

A woman was fatally shot today during a crackdown on protesters at a controversial Chinese-backed copper mine in northwestern Myanmar, activists and an opposition lawmaker said.
	Khin San Hlaing, a lawmaker from the National League for Democracy party, said the confrontation at the Letpadaung copper-mine project occurred as police and Chinese workers erected a fence on land that the villagers claimed as theirs.
	She said a woman in her 50s was fatally shot in the head, though it was not clear whether she was shot by police or mining company security personnel. Another woman was shot in the thigh, she said.
	Government and company authorities could not be reached immediately for comment. A receptionist who answered the phone at the Chinese company's head office in Beijing said that personnel who could comment on the incident could not be reached because it was after working hours.
	The massive project, a joint venture between a Myanmar military-controlled holding company and China's ...

Fatal shooting reported at Myanmar mine protest

Minimum and maximum temperatures in Fahrenheit, precipitation in inches and weather conditions as recorded for the previous day and forecast for the current and following day in each city as of 0700 GMT: ;MIN;MAX;COND;PRECIP;MIN;MAX;COND;MIN;MAX;COND Amsterdam;38;51;rn;0.00;48;55;rn;48;52;pc Athens;41;64;clr;0.00;43;54;pc;37;59;clr Atlanta;44;48;rn;0.00;43;52;rn;45;55;rn Auckland;64;73;rn;0.00;57;72;pc;61;70;rn Basra;50;68;pc;0.00;46;66;pc;43;68;pc
Bahrain;66;78;clr;0.00;66;73;pc;63;70;clr Bangkok;70;88;pc;0.00;66;86;pc;70;88;pc Barbados;76;85;pc;0.00;77;86;rn;77;86;rn Barcelona;44;59;clr;0.00;43;59;clr;46;61;clr Beijing;22;35;clr;0.00;18;46;pc;23;41;clr Beirut;54;69;rn;0.00;57;66;rn;57;64;pc
Belgrade;35;47;rn;0.00;57;66;rn;57;64;pc Berlin;37;44;rn;0.01;43;54;rn;48;54;rn
Bermuda;63;71;rn;0.00;43;54;rn;48;54;rn Bogota;50;67;rn;0.03;43;68;clr;43;72;clr Boston;30;36;sn;T;32;43;pc;41;46;rn
Brasilia;69;82;rn;0.12;68;77;rn;68;81;rn Brisbane;72;80;pc;0.00;68;81;rn;64;81;pc ...

Global Weather-Fahrenheit

The gunman who fatally ambushed two police officers in their squad car had a long criminal record, a hatred for police and the government, and an apparent history of mental instability that included an attempt to hang himself a year ago, authorities has said.
	Moments before opening fire, Ismaaiyl Brinsley approached people on the street in Brooklyn and asked them to follow him on Instagram, then told them, "Watch what I'm going to do," Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said yesterday.
	A portrait of the Brooklyn-born gunman emerged as big-city police departments and union leaders around the US warned officers to change their routines and insist on extra backup a day after Brinsley carried out what he portrayed online as retaliation for the slayings of black men at the hands of white police officers.
	Brinsley was black; the slain officers were Asian and Hispanic.
	The slayings come at a tense time. Police nationwide have been criticised for months for their tactics, following Eric ...

Killer of 2 NYC officers had long criminal history

Mexico's Roman Catholic Church is calling on the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto to make changes to its strategies for dealing with the crisis of violence and impunity that is shaking the country.
	Cardinal Norberto Rivera told reporters yesterday that such changes "are absolutely necessary" and he emphasised that Pope Francisco is monitoring events in Mexico with concern, and not just the disappearance of 43 students from a rural teachers college in southern Guerrero state.
	Mexican church leaders will meet with relatives of the missing students in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero today and will celebrate a Mass, according to church officials.
	The case of the missing students has ignited indignation across Mexico and abroad over the fact that the students disappeared at the hands of a corrupt local government in September and that federal authorities took 10 days to intervene. Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets, some calling for Pena Nieto to resign.
	Rivera said ..

Mexico's church calls for changes in government strategy

Health Minister Florence Duperval Guillaume was named as Haiti's interim prime minister following the resignation of her predecessor a week ago amid a stalemate over delayed legislative elections.
	Duperval Guillaume will hold the post for a maximum of 30 days, as established by the constitution, before a permanent choice is presented to parliament by President Michel Martelly, according to Enex Jean Charles, secretary general of Haiti's council of ministers, yesterday.
	The former prime minister, Laurent Lamothe, resigned a week ago amid the bitter political standoff over legislative elections.
	Martelly was supposed to call elections in 2011 for a majority of Senate seats, the entire Chamber of Deputies and local offices. But several opposition senators have used parliamentary procedure to prevent a vote authorizing the election while orchestrating a series of large protests in the capital to call for the president to resign.
	An independent commission formed to resolve the crisis ..

Interim prime minister named in politically fractious Haiti

With coalition warplanes circling overhead, Kurdish fighters pushed into the contested northern Iraqi town of Sinjar today, touching off heavy clashes with Islamic State militants who have controlled the area for months.
	The battle for Sinjar and the surrounding areas has become the latest focus in the campaign to take back territory lost to the Islamic State group during the militants' summer blitz that captured much of northern and western Iraq. IS also controls a large chunk of neighbouring Syria.
	Last week, Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters launched the operation to retake Sinjar. So far, they've managed to open up a passageway to Mount Sinjar, a long, rugged mountain that overlooks the town. That push allowed some of the thousands of Yazidis trapped on the mountain since the town's fall in August to evacuate.
	Today pershmerga fighters said they advanced into Sinjar itself. Loud explosions and intense gunbattles could be heard echoing from inside the town as US-led coalition ...

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