In Japan, a US Army soldier serving at a US military base in Okinawa Prefecture was sentenced to five years in prison. He was found guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a girl under 16 years old. The South China Morning Post writes about this. As the court found, 25-year-old Brennon Washington, who was stationed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, met the victim girl in a park in the village of Yomitan.

US President-elect Donald Trump's team is considering several ways to prevent Iran from developing its own nuclear weapons. One of the scenarios involves launching preventive airstrikes against targets on Iranian territory. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) writes about this, citing sources. Some members of the Trump transition administration are considering preemptive strikes as Iran weakens in the Middle East, they said.

American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was a participant in the prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries, together with colleagues from The Wall Street Journal, published an investigation into the most elite special department of the FSB. This department is behind the arrests of foreigners for the sake of exchange, as well as repressions against Russians. The investigation is devoted to the work of the Department of Counterintelligence Operations (DCRO FSB).

In the US state of Massachusetts, police rescued a man who, while running away from them, jumped into a chimney and got stuck there. Local television station WJAR reported on this story. The day before, in the city of Fall River, police conducted a search in one of the private houses. At some point, two men who were inside climbed onto the roof of the house.

Russian app developers will no longer be able to make money from them using the Google Play app store. From December 26, the company will block all payments for the purchase of Russian applications and purchases within them. Google sent corresponding notifications to Russian development companies. A screenshot of one of them was published by the Habr portal.

Some Russian banks began to inflate mortgage rates by 100%. Credit institutions offer such conditions to those borrowers who take out a combined mortgage, where one part of the loan is issued at a preferential rate and the other at a market rate. Deputy Minister of Finance Ivan Chebeskov told the Izvestia newspaper about this.

In the United States, an ex-policeman bought a warehouse that previously belonged to music producer and singer Brian Lauren, and found 12 audio cassettes there with recordings of unreleased songs by the King of Pop Michael Jackson. The Hollywood Reporter writes about this. The tapes contain 12 tracks that were likely recorded between 1989 and 1991, former California Highway Patrol officer Gregg Musgrove said. There are also three song snippets and conversations between Jackson and Lauren.

American scientists have calculated that over 34 years, almost half of the world's rivers have decreased the volume of water that flows through them. The decrease in flow in some rivers reaches 5-10 percent, environmentalists have found. The results of the study are reported by CNN, a fragment of which is available in the journal Science. Scientists have mapped the flow of water through the world's 2.9 million rivers from 1984 to 2018. To do this, they used satellite data and computer modeling.

A Florida woman, in a telephone conversation with employees of her health insurance company, made a reference to the words on the bullets of the killer UnitedHealthcare CEO: “Detain, deny, overthrow.” The woman was detained and placed under arrest, ABC News reported . Briana Boston, 42, of Lakeland, called Blue Cross Blue Shield on Dec. 10, which denied a claim for payment for medical services provided to a woman at a local clinic.

The winners of the annual Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, which recognize the funniest photographs of wild animals from around the world, have been announced in London. 44 photographs made it to the finals of the competition, 19 of them received prizes. Winners include a squirrel stuck in a tree, a dancing mantis and kissing owls. The funny side of wildlife is in the photo gallery "Cold". The pictures show a smoking squirrel and penguins going to showdown.

Governor of the Kurgan region Vadim Shumkov blamed consumer society for the fact that Russians do not want to have children. To increase the birth rate in the country, it is necessary to “refashion” the information agenda, the head of the region believes. Shumkov stated this during a direct line, he was quoted by RBC. Shumkov believes that money should not influence a family’s desire to have children.

State Duma deputy Nikolai Arefiev said that the real level of inflation is hidden in Russia. At the same time, the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, acts based on the real inflation indicator and therefore constantly raises the key rate. The Russian parliamentarian spoke about this in an interview with NSN.

The German Federal Administrative Court approved the decision to seize the house of 84-year-old Gabriele Liske and her 61-year-old son Thomas in favor of the “Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany.” The house was owned by two Jewish women, but in 1939 the Nazi regime forced them to sell the property; they were later killed in a concentration camp. The newspaper Spiegel reports this.

The animation division of Warner Bros. Pictures will produce a new feature-length cartoon “Tom and Jerry”. The story of a cat and a mouse, which began 84 years ago, will be restarted, Deadline reported . This is supposed to be the 18th Tom and Jerry feature film. However, 15 of the previous 17 were not released into cinemas. The last animated film was released in 2022 directly on streaming platforms.

Russian banks spend on average up to two weeks for settlements with credit institutions of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Payment processing times have increased dramatically due to new US sanctions. RBC writes about this. The average payment processing time in January-November from Russia to the UAE increased by 29% compared to the same period last year, calculated Vadim Filatov, co-owner and deputy director of the PEK transport company.