Star Wars: The Force Awakens has grossed $528.9 million worldwide, Disney CEO Bob Iger told Bloomberg. according to Box Office Mojo This is a new world record . The previous one set Jurassic World, which grossed $524.9 million in its opening weekend. The new episode of Star Wars also broke the North American box office record, grossing $247.9 million in its opening weekend.

Employees of one of the restaurants of the Sbarro chain in Moscow went on strike due to salary delays. It is reported by "Rain". According to one of the protesters, the employees of the restaurant on Butyrskaya Street have not been paid their salaries for the past six months. “They occasionally paid 10-15 thousand rubles,” she said. According to her, the management promised to pay part of the debt on December 21, but did not keep their word, which became the reason for the strike.

The Library of Ukrainian Literature in Moscow will be reformed. This was reported to RBC by the head of the Department of National Policy, Interregional Relations and Tourism of Moscow, Vladimir Chernikov. According to him, one of the options under consideration is the creation of a multimedia center based on the library. Ivan Pavlov, lawyer for library director Natalya Sharina, told RBC that, according to his information, the mayor's office is discussing the issue of liquidating the library.

Rescuers found the body of the second victim of a gas explosion in a residential building in Volgograd. This was stated to journalists by the representative of the local department of the RF IC Natalia Kunitskaya. According to her, the found remains were burned, and “it is not even possible to establish yet whether it is a man or a woman.” The body was found during the analysis of the rubble on the seventh floor of the house, reports .

The prosecutor's office asked to sentence Ivan Nepomnyashchikh, the person involved in the Bolotnaya case, to three and a half years in prison. During the debate, the prosecutor noted that the defendant refused to testify against himself, however, "the circumstances of the events on Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012 were established by verdicts in other cases." Nepomniachtchi's defense claims that his guilt has not been proven. The verdict will be announced on the morning of December 22.

YUKOS shareholders achieved in France the arrest of certain assets of the French companies Arianespace and Eutelsat. According to international arbitration specialist Julien Fouret, these could be payments for the supply of goods or services under contracts with Russian companies. The seizure of assets became known from the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal. The court decision also refers to attempts by YUKOS shareholders to seize certain assets of Air France.

Photo: Yuri Smityuk / TASS / Scanpix At the end of November, in Primorye, the Tiger Amur made friends with the goat Timur, who was brought to him to eat. Since then, the predator has not eaten his friend: they continue to communicate and walk together, and the media - to delve into their relationship. Medusa followed the evolution of friendship between the tiger and the goat through the headings of the news.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that more than 600 civilians were killed during Russian air strikes on Syrian territory. According to him, 150 of them are children. According to Cavusoglu, 200 people were killed in a bombing in the province of Idlib on December 20. Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Russia in most cases strikes not at the "Islamic State", but at the rebels opposing the country's President Bashar al-Assad.

Why Azerbaijani Manat lost half of its value in a day. Short Photo: Alexander Ryumin / TASS / Scanpix The Central Bank of Azerbaijan decided to abandon the hard attachment of the local manat to the dollar and released the local currency on free swimming. She immediately began to sink: During the day, Manat depreciated one and a half times.

The French television channel BFMTV showed a photo of a fake bomb from an Air France plane. The "explosive device" consists of cardboard boxes and a timer wrapped in black electrical tape. On December 20, an Air France plane flying to Paris from Mauritius made an emergency landing at the airport in the Kenyan city of Mombasa. One of the passengers found a suspicious object in the toilet, and the crew decided not to continue the flight.

In Penza, a Russian city southeast of Moscow, local communists have opened a “Stalin Center,” which will study the building of socialism in the USSR. First secretary of the Penza Communist Party Regional Committee Georgiy Kamnev met with local reporters to discuss the opening of the center. The opening coincides with the birthday of Joseph Stalin, which communists celebrate on December 21.

A resident of Maryland Nicky Adams published a photograph of a letter that 10-year-old daughter Belle wrote to her. The girl in him is indignant at the fact that her parents told her that Santa-Claus does not exist. A screenshot of publication with a letter. The post itself was later deleted The letter that Belle put under the door to the room to her parents says: “You can’t imagine what you have done. I really tried to believe ... I can’t believe you anymore. Is there an Easter hare?

Deciphering the dialogue of the novel Super and Ekaterina Kronhaus Photo: Anna Gruzdeva / "Open Library" On December 19, within the framework of the “December dialogues”, which is conducted by the “Open Library”, the discussion of journalists of Roman Super and Ekaterina Krongauz took place. Medusa presents a video from the Mayakovsky library, where this conversation took place, and its decoding.

Left Front activist Daria Polyudova, one of the organizers of the march for the federalization of Kuban, was sentenced to two years in a penal colony. This was announced by the head of the international human rights group “Agora” Pavel Chikov. The Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnodar found Polyudova guilty of calls for extremism and violation of the territorial integrity of Russia. The prosecutor's office demanded that Polyudova be imprisoned for three and a half years.

The story of the 21-year-old Yezidka, who managed to escape from the fighters of the IG: Time Photo: Eduardo Munoz / Reuters / Scanpix The Islamic State (prohibited in Russia) is conducting a campaign for “violent circulation” in Islam of the Yezidov - the Kurdish nation, mainly living in northern Iraq. The Yezids profess a religion close to Zoroastrianism, the IS militants consider them wrong.