Joshua Roberts / Reuters / Scanpix / Leta The head of the Pentagon James Mattis on December 21 announced the upcoming resignation . He made such a decision after US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw troops from Syria. The head of the defense department did not agree with this and, according to The New York Times, tried to convince the president to change his mind, but to no avail. Immediately after that, he announced the departure from the Pentagon since March 1 next year.

Keith Kass, 72, is selling tickets for his own funeral. 12 years ago, Kass was diagnosed with prostate cancer, in 2007 he launched a campaign to combat this disease (the proceeds from the funeral will go to its development). The number of tickets for the funeral, which will be held at the mansion, is limited, there are only 500 of them. They are divided into three types: gold, silver and bronze - worth 100, 50 and 25 pounds, respectively.

The noise accompanies the inhabitants of the cities around the clock. Was it always it was or has become recently? What noise level is harmful to health and how does it affect a person? We understand the pressing issues about the noise with Sony , which released wireless headphones with noise reduction. They allow you to listen to music without being distracted by extraneous sounds, we will tell you more about them at the end of the article. Became more noisy in the world?

What's happened? Why is the schedule just like that? The number of dead in 2018 will exceed the number of born more than ever in the 2010s; The migration growth (that is, the number of people who arrived in Russia minus the number of those who left the country) will decrease and will not cover the “natural decline”. At the same time, fewer people die annually in the country (and in 2018 it will die less again than in 2017), but the birth rate decreases even faster. Two reasons.

Why the publication of the archives of the KGB of the Latvian SSR will not lead to a split in society - historians explain National Archive of Latvia On December 20, the National Archive of Latvia began the publication of the CGB of the Latvian SSR. In total, more than 10 thousand scanned cards have been published.

In Bryansk, a jury acquitted 13 defendants in a food poppy smuggling case that had been ongoing since 2010. This was reported by the press service of the court. The defendants were charged with drug trafficking. “By the verdict of the jury, all the defendants are acquitted on all counts,” the court said. The court session was adjourned until January 15, 2019. The meeting will discuss the consequences of the jury's verdict.

Anne-Christine Poujoulat / AFP / Scanpix / Leta Science magazine has published a list of the main achievements of the year in the field of science. The list led an international study on the activity of genes in embryos cells. With the help of new technologies for irradiation of intact cells and their marking, scientists managed to investigate their interaction in time and space.

Earlier this week, a court in Moscow sided with Russia’s media censor and blocked a website operated by opposition politician Alexey Navalny, ruling that 2019.vote violated Russia’s privacy regulations and abused Google Analytics and Yandex Metrics.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Russian citizen Valery Ivanov, who died in December in a colony in the Lvov region of Ukraine, could have been killed. The head of the colony, according to the Foreign Ministry, explained Ivanov's death by injuries sustained due to a fall from a stepladder, but an autopsy, as it became known to diplomats, revealed a fracture of four ribs and a closed craniocerebral injury.

Francis J Dean / Rex / Vida Press Citizenship Citizenship, 2016 On December 20, the Denmark parliament approved a law that obliges the burgomaster to shake hands during the ceremony of obtaining citizenship. The new rule comes into force on January 1. According to parliamentarians, he is introduced because of Muslims who, for religious reasons, refuse to press their hands on the representatives of the other sex if they are not connected with them with blood ties.

On the website of Roskomnadzor there are scripts from the Sputnik and Yandex.Metrics companies that analyze user data without their consent, Habr users found out. In addition, the site has a special script that checks the user's computer for traffic-analyzing programs. It also does not ask permission for its work. Updated . Roskomnadzor said that a special script is part of the security system and does not collect user data.

PAU Barrena / AFP / Scanpix / Leta, several thousand supporters of the independence of Catalonia on December 21 staged a protest during a meeting of the Spanish government, which was transferred from Madrid to Barcelona. The demonstrators blocked dozens of roads in the region, protesting against the arrival of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Activists tried to break through to the place of the meeting, but were stopped by the police. There were clashes between the protesters and the police.

The Tverskoy Court of Moscow granted the petition of the investigation for the arrest in absentia of the founder of the Hermitage Capital fund, William Browder. It is reported by Interfax.

Actors Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal played their colleague Ryan Reynolds. Friends agreed to come to the party in themed Christmas sweaters - and, of course, no one except Reynolds did this. As you can see from his face in the photo from their meeting, such jokes bring a lot of joy to the performer of the role of Deadpool (ha ha, no!). The photo of a sad Reynolds and Jackman and Gyllenhaal laughing at him instantly became a meme.

One person died and another was seriously injured in a shooting near a restaurant in the center of Vienna on the afternoon of December 21, according to the Kronen Zeitung. The incident happened next to an establishment called Figlmüller. The attacker fled the scene of the crime. Law enforcement agencies are looking for him. The area around the scene has been cordoned off by police. A helicopter is involved in the operation to capture the criminal.