1 dead after fight at North Carolina mall
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — One person was killed after an argument erupted at a crowded shopping mall in North Carolina on the afternoon before Christmas, police said Thursday.
Detectives from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department are investigating what the department called “an officer involved shooting” inside the Northlake Mall in Charlotte.
Police said in a statement that off-duty officers who were working at the mall arrived at the scene after the fight broke out. One “armed” person was shot and pronounced dead at the scene.
No officers were injured.
The police statement said that the situation was not considered “an active shooter situation,” an indication that no armed suspects were on the loose. An investigation is ongoing.
Pope contrasts Jesus’ birth, excess in Christmas Eve homily
VATICAN CITY (AP) — In his Christmas Eve homily Thursday, Pope Francis noted the simplicity of Jesus’ birth as he rebuked what he called societies’ intoxication with consumerism, pleasure, abundance and wealth.
Christians around the world joyfully prepared to recall the birth of Jesus. But in his only public Christmas Mass, in the splendor of St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope counter-weighted his joy with a lament for people’s excesses and what he described as a “culture of indifference, which not infrequently turns ruthless.”
Francis said Jesus “calls us to act soberly, in other words, in a way that is simple, balanced, consistent, capable of seeing and doing what is essential.”
Referring to Jesus’ birth in a Bethlehem stable, the pope said the child was “born into the poverty of this world; there was no room in the inn for him and his family.”
Francis also sounded a cry to right injustices. “In a world which all too often is merciless to the sinner and lenient to the sin, we need to cultivate a strong sense of justice,” he said.
Paris climate goals mean emissions need to drop below zero
STOCKHOLM (AP) — If governments are serious about the global warming targets they adopted in Paris, scientists say they have two options: eliminating fossil fuels immediately or finding ways to undo their damage to the climate system in the future.
The first is politically impossible — the world is still hooked on using oil, coal and natural gas — which leaves the option of a major cleanup of the atmosphere later this century.
Yet the landmark Paris Agreement, adopted by 195 countries on Dec. 12, makes no reference to that, which has left some observers wondering whether politicians understand the implications of the goals they signed up for.
“I would say it’s the single biggest issue that has to be resolved,” said Glen Peters of the Cicero climate research institute in Oslo, Norway.
Scientists refer to this envisioned cleanup job as negative emissions — removing more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than humans put in it.
Defying Fed hike, 30-year mortgage rate slips to 3.96 pct.
WASHINGTON (AP) — What Fed rate hike?
One week after the Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates slightly from record lows, the average on a 30-year fixed mortgage went the other way: It dipped to 3.96 percent this week from 3.97 percent last week, mortgage giant Freddie Mac said Thursday.
The drop is a reminder that the Fed has only an indirect effect on long-term mortgage rates, which more closely track the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury. And that yield, in turn, tends to stay down as long as inflation remains low and investors keep buying Treasurys. The 10-year Treasury yield has declined slightly since the Fed’s hike last week.
“The Fed raising short-term rates by itself doesn’t have a very profound effect on mortgage rates,” said Sean Becketti, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.
Back in the mid-2000s, when the Fed raised rates at 17 straight meetings, mortgage rates barely budged, Becketti noted.
Military ‘tracks’ storybook flight of St. Nick for 60th year
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Santa Claus is coming to town, and for the 60th consecutive year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command will continue its tradition of telling youngsters the location of Kris Kringle on his annual storybook world tour.
The so-called Santa Tracker’s hub is at Colorado’s Peterson Air Force base, where hundreds of volunteers will be answering calls from an estimated 125,000 children around the globe looking for Santa’s whereabouts.
In places like Alaska, however, remote NORAD identification technicians who monitor computer screens 24 hours a day for possible air incursions also spend Christmas Eve serving as official Santa “trackers.”
The technicians in Canada and the U.S. report “sightings” of a sleigh full of toys pulled by flying reindeer, said Tech. Sgt. John Gordinier, an Alaska NORAD spokesman.
“It’s one of the largest military community relations events we have,” Gordinier said.
