Portal:Current events/2024 December 23

December 23, 2024 (Monday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Somali Civil War
- Constitutional crisis in Somalia
  - Jubaland crisis
    - Violent clashes occur between the Ethiopia-backed Jubaland forces and the Somali Armed Forces in Dolow, Gedo Region, Somalia, with Jubaland forces later taking control of the town. (Garowe Online) (Hiiraan Online)
    - The mayor of Badhadhe District, Lower Juba, Hassan Nuur Cabdi, survives an ambush attack which killed at least five of his security personnel. (Idil News) (Hiiraan Online)
Syrian civil war
- Operation Dawn of Freedom
  - Manbij offensive
    - The pro-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces launch a counter-offensive on recently captured pro-Turkish faction positions in Manbij, Aleppo Governorate, Syria, and recapture several villages. (SOHR)
- Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi meets with de facto Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus to discuss the support of the Syrian transitional government. (Al Jazeera)
Haitian crisis
- Gang war in Haiti
  - 2024 Cité Soleil massacre
    - The death toll from the mass killing by a gang in Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, increases to 207, according to the United Nations. (Al Jazeera)
Israel–Hamas war
- Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh
  - For the first time, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz claims responsibility for the July 2024 assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran. (Reuters)
- Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, Attacks on protected zones and civilians in Gaza
  - At least seven people are killed in Israeli airstrikes on a safe zone in al-Mawasi, Gaza. Several other attacks across the Gaza Strip kill at least 43 others. (Al Jazeera)
Mexican drug war
- Seventeen people are killed in a string of attacks over the past 48 hours across the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. (El País)

Business and economy

Student loans in the United States, Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration
- The Biden administration officially withdraws two major legislative plans that would have granted student loan forgiveness to more than 30 million Americans. (Forbes) (CNBC)
Japanese automakers Nissan and Honda announce plans to for a merger by 2026, potentially forming the third-largest automotive company in the world. (Al Jazeera) (Nikkei Asia)

Disasters and accidents

2024 famine in Sudan
- The Government of Sudan suspends participation in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification hunger monitoring system, in advance of a new report about famine occurring in the nation. (Reuters)
Three people are killed and another is injured in severe storms in Rome, Italy, while two people go missing on the Gran Sasso d'Italia massif. (Roma Today) (Il Messaggero)
Weather of 2024
- The Santa Cruz Wharf of Santa Cruz, California, United States, partially collapses from high waves of a Pacific storm. (BBC News)

International relations

Panama–United States relations
- Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino rebuffs U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's recent threat to reimpose U.S. control over the Panama Canal, saying its shipping tolls aren't inflated and that Panamanian sovereignty over the waterway isn't negotiable. (Bloomberg)

Law and crime

2024 New York City Subway immolation
- A man is arrested after fatally burning a woman yesterday on a Subway train in New York City, United States. (Al Jazeera)
Capital punishment by the United States federal government
- U.S. President Joe Biden commutes the death sentences of 37 out of the 44 federal death row inmates to life imprisonment. The exceptions are Dylann Roof, Robert Gregory Bowers, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who received death sentences for terrorism or hate-motivated mass murder-related crimes, as well as all four prisoners on US Military death row. (CBS News)
Minas Gerais road crash
- The suspected truck driver that caused a multiple-vehicle collision and killed at least 41 people in Teófilo Otoni, Minas Gerais, Brazil, turns himself in to local authorities. (R7) (G1)
A man is arrested and charged with animal cruelty for shooting and killing 98 kangaroos on a military base in Singleton, New South Wales, Australia. (news.com.au)
Guatemalan police rescue at least 160 children and 40 women held by the Lev Tahor Jewish sect and accuse the group of child sexual abuse, forced marriage, and human trafficking. Members of Lev Tahor broke into the care center in Oratorio, Santa Rosa Department, where the children were being held on Sunday. (Al Jazeera) (The Times of Israel) (The Independent)

Politics and elections

Following the December 1 parliamentary elections in Romania, President Klaus Iohannis asks incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu to form a new coalition, majority Cabinet, comprising the PSD, PNL and UDMR parties. The Government is named and confirmed by the Chamber of Deputies (Romania), and takes office the same day. (France 24)
2024 French political crisis
- Following the collapse of the Barnier government, French President Emmanuel Macron announces a new center-right, minority coalition Government led by François Bayrou as new Prime Minister. (DW)
Second presidency of Donald Trump
- The United States House Committee on Ethics releases a report on former Florida representative and Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz, revealing that Gaetz paid women for sexual activity, committed statutory rape with a 17-year-old, possessed and used illegal drugs, accepted financial gifts beyond House limits, and assisted a woman in obtaining a passport. (BBC News)
- Joel Greenberg, a former IRS employee of Florida is sentenced to 11 years in prison on 6 federal charges for underage sex trafficking, wire fraud, stalking, identity theft, producing a fake ID card, and conspiring to defraud the US federal government, receiving a reduced sentence after testifying against eight other men including Gaetz, after initially facing 33 federal charges. (CNN)
The Greek government restores citizenship to 10 members of the former royal family, including the children and grandchildren of King Constantine II, following their agreement to adopt the surname "De Grece", renounce royal claims, and formally recognize Greece's status as a parliamentary democracy. (AP)

Science and technology

A team of scientists at the North-Eastern Federal University in Sakha Republic, Russia, unveil the highly preserved remains of a 50,000-year-old female juvenile woolly mammoth named Yana. The researchers say Yana was roughly about one-year-old when she died, likely from drowning, and was discovered in the Batagaika crater by locals. (BBC News)