Pro-Palestinian protesters storm Australian Christmas Eve event

Pro-Palestinian protesters rushed the stage while children were performing at Melbourne’s Carols by Candlelight annual Christmas Eve event, the Guardian reported the following day.

There were reportedly two protesters involved in the incident as thousands of people in attendance looked on.

In a video of the occurrence published to the YouTube channel of news.com.au, an Australian news website owned by News Corp Australia, one of the protesters got up on a low wall in front of the orchestra, holding a Palestinian flag. 

In another video of the incident that went viral on social media, the second protester can be seen brandishing a flag over his head while a call of “free, free Palestine” can be heard.

Minneapolis youth football team wins national championship

A youth football team in Minneapolis is celebrating a national championship win.

The Phelps Falcons are based out of Phelps Park, which is about a block away from George Floyd Square. Twenty players made up of fifth, sixth, and seventh graders, are fresh off a plane ride back from Las Vegas, where they were invited to compete in a national youth football tournament.

"We didn't have the tournament planned already, but then we got a last-minute donor, and then we went to Vegas," said Cordell Givance, a 7th grader on the team.

The Phelps Activities Council brought in donations totaling $10,000. The non-profit is dedicated to changing the lives of young people in south Minneapolis through organized sports and activities.

Anti-Hamas billboard in Worcester vandalized, message reversed

A billboard with an anti-Hamas message in central Massachusetts was found vandalized Christmas morning with a statement about Israel.

The billboard on Route 290 west in Worcester originally read, "Let's be clear: Hamas is your problem too." It now says, "Let's be clear: Hamas is freeing Palestine" with an added footnote reading, "Israel murdered 25,000 people."

"Good versus evil, that's what it's all about, good versus evil," Rabbi Mendel Fogelman, the director of central Massachusetts Chabad, told WBZ-TV. "These are people who are promoting killing of Jews, that's what they're doing when they do stuff like that."

According to the Jewish Federation of central Massachusetts, the billboard was originally put up as part of a "JewBelong" campaign, a nationwide program meant to stop antisemitism.

Missouri school board that previously rescinded anti-racism resolution drops Black history classes

A conservative-led Missouri school board has voted to drop elective courses on Black history and literature, five months after the same board rescinded an anti-discrimination policy adopted in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd.

The Francis Howell School Board voted 5-2 Thursday night to stop offering Black History and Black Literature, courses that had been offered at the district's three high schools since 2021. A little over 100 students took the courses this semester in the predominantly white suburban area of St. Louis.

In July, the board revoked an anti-racism resolution and ordered copies removed from school buildings. The resolution was adopted in August 2020 amid the national turmoil after a police officer killed Floyd in Minneapolis.

The resolution pledged that the Francis Howell community would “speak firmly against any racism, discrimination, and senseless violence against people regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or ability.”

Millions Have Been Displaced in South Sudan, but Where Is the Outrage?

Never have I ever, grasped at the ground for proof that it was indeed beneath my feet.

Yet there I was, in the bone-crushing wake of my precious mother’s passing, needing confirmation that I was still standing right-side up. She named me Ebony, like the tree, and I was hugging my body, compacting, hoping to become as strong as the dense black Diospyros ebenum. I lowered my hands to my feet, my base, my root. My roots, and everywhere they’ve been.

The number of people reaching for their roots after fleeing Sudan to neighboring countries like South Sudan is 1.3 million. And South Sudan already holds 9.4 million people facing challenges due to ongoing flooding, food shortages, and declining humanitarian aid.

A mighty number of people are mysteriously silent as I, party of one, sit in my grief. When technology brings every corner of the world to light, how is it that we leave in the dark a country with a history of a kingdom once named “Land of Gold” by one of the most decorated and celebrated superpowers of the ancient world? A kingdom that reigned for centuries, whose leader conquered said superpower to become something, by definition, more powerful than a king?

Could I have guessed that at age 29 I would be capable of holding this ocean-size juxtaposition of solitude and anarchy? No. Yet, my mother did it at the age of two, in the very country I am describing. Fleeing what would become the 30-year war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, our family sought refuge in Khartoum, Sudan, a city once a part of the powerful Kingdom of Kush, which traded ebony and ivory and produced the 25th dynasty of pharaohs, one of the few lines not native to Egypt.

LOS ALTOS MIDDLE SCHOOL INVESTIGATES SWASTIKAS FOUND DRAWN ON LOCKERS, 1 BELONGING TO JEWISH STUDENT

The Los Altos School District is investigating an antisemitic event on the campus of Blach Intermediate School after several swastikas were found drawn on lockers in the boys locker room. One of those lockers belonged to a Jewish student.

"Our students aren't happy that this is the community in which, the school community in which they are in," Los Altos School District Superintendent Sandra McGonagle said.

At the beginning of the school day Friday, a student told administrators he found a swastika drawn on his locker with pen, four more were located on other lockers by staff.

After they were cleaned off, more of the hateful imagery appeared on lockers Monday morning. It is likely said to have been drawn by the same student.

Bulk carrier reportedly boarded in eastern Indian Ocean

A Malta-flagged, Bulgarian-owned bulk carrier was reportedly boarded on Thursday after being involved in an incident in the Arabian Sea off Yemen's Socotra Island, British maritime security company Ambrey said in an advisory note.

An Iranian-flagged fishing vessel in the area had switched off its AIS transponder six hours before the incident close to where the bulk carrier appeared to come adrift, Ambrey said.

"The Iran-flagged fishing vessel had previously been operating offshore Somalia," Ambrey added.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency also sent an advisory saying it had received a report of a distress call from a vessel being boarded by unknown persons east of Bossaso, Somalia. UKMTO map located the incident near the Arabian Sea off Yemen's Socotra Island, as the map showed.

EU Council decides to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova


The European Council has decided to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, Charles Michel, President of the EU Council, announced on X on Thursday.

The decision was called “a victory for Ukraine” by the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

“This is a victory for Ukraine. A victory for all of Europe. A victory that motivates, inspires, and strengthens,” Zelensky posted on X following the announcement.

“History is made by those who don’t get tired of fighting for freedom,” Zelensky said.

This is a breaking news story. More to come