Portal:Current events/2015 December 8
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December 8, 2015 (Tuesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- 2015 San Bernardino attack investigation
- A $28,500 deposit was made to Syed Farook’s bank account two weeks before he and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the San Bernardino massacre, a source close to the investigation says. Investigators are exploring whether the transaction was a personal loan or something else. (SBS) (Fox News)
- According to the FBI, the couple that perpetrated the attack had long been radicalized, and had been practicing at a target range days before their murder spree. (New York Times)
- FBI agents found an empty GoPro package, shooting targets, and tools inside a car belonging to the mother of San Bernardino mass-shooter Syed Farook. (Daily Mail)
- Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)
- Iraqi officials say the country's forces have managed to retake large parts of the key city of Ramadi from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants. (Press TV)
- Military intervention against ISIL
- U.S. television network NBC has calculated that ISIS and its sympathizers killed 525 people in six attacks in six countries outside its alleged caliphate since October 10, 2015. (NBC)
- War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
- Several Taliban insurgents storm into Kandahar International Airport and engage Afghan security forces in a firefight. (Al Jazeera)
- Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
- Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, targeting Houthi rebels battling pro-government fighters, killed and wounded dozens in the port city of Mocha, according to Yemeni security officials. Around 35 fighters on both sides were killed in the battle over a key military base near the city of Taiz. (AP via Miami Herald)[permanent dead link]
- Syrian Civil War
- Russian military intervention
- For the first time, Russia strikes Islamic State targets in northern Syria with 3M-54 Klub (Kalibr) cruise missiles launched from a Kilo-class submarine in the Mediterranean, according to the Russian Minister of Defence, Sergey Shoygu. (RT)
- Rebels in Homs and the Syrian government agree to a local ceasefire that is to include the withdrawal of opposition fighters from the al-Waer neighborhood, the only area of the heavily damaged city still under rebel control. The evacuation is expected to start Wednesday. Residents are hoping to return in the next few days. (Daily Mail) (CBS News via Hawaii News Now)
- Russian military intervention
- Sinai insurgency
- Four Egyptian security personnel are killed and another four are injured by a roadside bomb near the border town Rafah in the Sinai Peninsula. Islamist militants are suspected to have remotely detonated the device as an armored vehicle drove by the town's center, near the border with the Gaza Strip and Israel, security sources told Ahram Online. (UPI) (Ahram Online) (Anadolu Agency)
Business and economy
- UK-based Anglo American plc (AAUKF) announces plans to slash 85k jobs and shed 60% of assets over the next several years; it will also halt dividend payments for the rest of 2015-16 and cut capital expenditures. The company cited depressed commodity prices for its actions. (CNNMoney)
- U.S. airplane manufacturer Boeing unveils the first Boeing 737 MAX airplane at its factory in Renton, Washington. (The Seattle Times) (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Disasters and accidents
- 2015–16 UK and Ireland windstorm season
- Storm Desmond
- The United Kingdom's Met Office issues two new severe weather warnings for wind and rain covering across much of Scotland and Northern England beginning 6 a.m. Wednesday. (The Daily Telegraph)
- Storm Desmond
Health and medicine
- The United States Food and Drug Administration approves marketing of a cooling cap system to reduce hair loss in female breast cancer patients during chemotherapy. The DigniCap scalp cooling system, a product first available in Sweden in the 1990s, produces near-freezing temperatures that make it harder for cancer-fighting drugs to reach and harm hair follicles. (AP via U.S. News and World Report) (FDA) (DigniCap)[permanent dead link]
International relations
- The United States agrees with Singapore on a first deployment of the U.S. P8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft in Singapore this month, in a fresh response to China over its pursuit of territorial claims in the South China Sea. (UPI) (Reuters)
- The prime ministers of Britain and France joined condemnation around the globe of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for a “total and complete ban” on Muslims entering the United States. (The Washington Post)
- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power says the United States is investigating reports that Iran launched a medium-range ballistic missile in November, and if confirmed, will bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council and seek appropriate action. (Reuters)
- Cross Border Xpress, a privately owned and operated airport terminal located in the Otay Mesa suburb of San Diego, California, United States, will open tomorrow with a connecting walkway to Tijuana International Airport in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. This facility, the final step of a project first proposed in the early 1990s, will be just the second cross-border airport in the world. U.S. Customs will operate a checkpoint on the bridge for those entering the country. (AP via USA Today) (AP Q&A via San Francisco Chronicle)[permanent dead link] (Los Angeles Times)
Law and crime
- South African athlete Oscar Pistorius is granted bail while he appeals his murder conviction. (The Telegraph)
Politics and elections
- The U.S. Supreme Court rules that a lawsuit challenging Maryland's congressional redistricting plan following the 2010 Census on grounds of unconstitutional gerrymandering may proceed. The suit, which alleges that congressional district boundaries were changed to make it easier for Democrats to win in seven of the state’s eight districts, had been rejected by both district and circuit courts due to lack of standing. (The Washington Post)
- Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump early Tuesday rejected criticism of his call to "shut the door" on Muslims entering the U.S. during a heated round of interviews in which he said he was not worried about being compared to Hitler. (The Hill)
Science and technology
- New research by a team of British archaeologists, published in the current issue of the journal Antiquity, revives an older theory of Herbert Henry Thomas that Stonehenge may have stood in Wales hundreds of years before it was dismantled and transported to Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire in South West England. (Discovery) (National Geographic) (The Antiquaries Journal)