TOP STORIES

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Tuesday, December 31

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FAILURE TO ACT: THE LOST DECADE We may look back on the years 2009 to 2019 as the “lost decade” — a time when the world awoke to the reality of climate change only to squander the chance to take the action needed to tackle it. Now, many scientists fear the targets required to avoid catastrophe are slipping out of reach. [HuffPost]

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HANUKKAH STABBINGS SUSPECT CHARGED WITH FEDERAL HATE CRIMES A handwritten journal containing references to Jews and anti-Semitism were found in the home of a man charged with federal hate crimes Monday in the stabbing of five people celebrating Hanukkah in a rabbi’s house north of New York City, authorities said. [AP]

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BIDEN 'OPEN' TO REPUBLICAN RUNNING MATE Explaining why he'd be open to having a Republican serve as his own vice president if he were the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden said: “You know, there’s some really decent Republicans that are out there still. But here’s the problem right now, of the well-known ones, they’ve got to step up, you know what I mean?” [HuffPost]

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THOUSANDS FLEE FROM FIRE ONTO BEACH Pictures of the red sky and falling embers are trickling onto social media as thousands of residents and tourists in the eastern Victoria town of Mallacoota, about 400 miles south of Sydney, seek refuge from the oncoming blaze and prepare to escape into the Tasman Sea if the fire comes closer. [HuffPost]

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GOV. EMPLOYEES FIRED OVER NAZI SALUTE More than 30 cadets and staff members at a corrections academy in West Virginia have been fired after a class photo surfaced on Dec. 5 showing them making a Nazi salute. The cadets made their gesture ― known as the “Hail Hitler” salute ― beneath a sign reading “Hail Byrd.” [HuffPost]

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ONLY ONE PERSON HAS SOLVED THIS ESCAPE ROOM Fittingly, the only person to ever finish an escape room built to find recruits for a Canadian spy agency is shrouded in secrecy.  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Escape Manor co-owner Steve Wilson said when HuffPost asked what became of the first escapee. [HuffPost]

WHAT'S BREWING

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IRAQ CONDEMNS U.S. AIR STRIKES Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi on Monday condemned U.S. air strikes on bases of Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, a move that could plunge Iraq further into the heart of a proxy conflict between the United States and Iran. [Reuters]

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PUTIN WEIGHS OPTIONS AFTER TWO DECADES IN POWER As Russian President Vladimir Putin marks 20 years in power, he boasts about his achievements but remains coy about his political future — a reticence that fuels wild speculation. Critics accuse Putin of rolling back post-Soviet freedoms to establish tight control over the political scene, marginalize the opposition and stifle critical media. [AP]

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DHS OFFICIAL LINKS SUSPECT'S CRIME TO IMMIGRANT HERITAGE High-ranking Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli claimed on Monday that a U.S. citizen accused of stabbing five Hasidic Jews at a Hanukkah celebration in New York lacked “American values” because the man’s father was an undocumented immigrant who gained legal status more than three decades ago. [HuffPost] 

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WHY BUTTIGIEG'S DEFENSE OF DONORS IS SO FUZZY Pete Buttigieg, like most of his fellow Democratic presidential contenders, has signed a voluntary campaign finance pledge that he will not take money from fossil fuel executives. But this apparently didn't count when it came to Craig Hall, the owner of the now-infamous “wine cave” in California’s Napa Valley that hosted a swanky fundraiser for Buttigieg. [HuffPost]

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7 NUMBERS SHOW HOW BAD CLIMATE CHANGE GOT THIS DECADE In the past decade, the climate crisis, and its fatal consequences, deepened further, as temperatures rose around the globe, ice caps melted, sea levels rose and record-breaking hurricanes, floods and wildfires devastated communities across the U.S. Here are seven figures that show just how dire the climate situation grew this decade. [HuffPost]

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THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST 'MEDICARE FOR ALL' IS SPENDING MILLIONS While proponents of single-payer health care like presidential hopefuls Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have had the chance to make their case on the debate stage, the opponents of the idea are vastly outspending them on the airwaves in early caucus and primary states. [HuffPost]

BEFORE YOU GO