Today is the 356th day of 2025. There are 9 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1995: As thousands cheer, Yasser Arafat’s wife lights the Christmas tree in Manger Square, ushering in Bethlehem’s first Christmas under Palestinian rule.

OTHER EVENTS

1793: Napoleon Bonaparte, aged 24, is promoted to brigadier general in recognition of his decisive part in the capture of Toulon from the British forces.

1984: New York City resident Bernhard Goetz shoots four black youth on a Manhattan subway, claiming they were about to rob him.

1985: Winnie Mandela, defying an expulsion order, is arrested by police who drag her from her home in Soweto, South Africa.

1991: The body of Lieutenant Colonel William R Higgins, an American hostage murdered by his captors, is found dumped on a highway in Lebanon.

1993: Alina Fernandez Revuelta, daughter of Cuban President Fidel Castro, leaves Cuba and is granted political asylum in the United States.

1996: In a “Christmas gesture”, Tupac Amaru rebels free 225 hostages from the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima, Peru, but keep 140.

2001: British Islamist militant Richard Reid attempts — by trying to ignite explosives hidden in the soles of his high-top basketball shoes — to blow up an airplane carrying him and 200 passengers but is restrained by some of the travellers; a United States court later sentences him to life without parole.

2003: The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston pays the 542 plaintiffs who agreed to a sexual abuse settlement; the archdiocese will sell church property to fund the portion of the US$85-million settlement not covered by insurers.

2005: An Istanbul court separately fines an author and a journalist for insulting the State — the latest convictions in Turkey under a law that European Union officials say limits freedom of expression and must be changed.

2007: Guatemalan Congressman-elect Marco Antonio Xicay of the conservative Patriotic Party is shot to death by unidentified attackers outside a popular resort in the country.

2009: American Airlines Flight 331 crashes at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica, after it overshoots the runway there in heavy rain, ploughs through the perimeter fencing, and crash-lands close to the sea with 148 passengers and six crew. Assailants gun down the mother, aunt, and siblings of a marine killed in a raid that took out one of Mexico’s most powerful cartel leaders — sending a chilling message to troops battling the drug war: You go after us, we wipe out your families.

2010: Barack Obama signs legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, the policy regarding the service of homosexuals in the military; it takes effect the following year.

2013: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch who crossed President Vladimir Putin and ended up in jail for a decade, says he plans to devote his life to securing the freedom of the country’s political prisoners.

2016: Ebola vaccine VSV-EBOV is found, in a study published in The Lancet,
to be 70-100 per cent effective, thereby becoming the world’s first proven vaccine against Ebola.

2022: “American life expectancy is now at its lowest in nearly two decades”, according to a new report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the biggest factors contributing to the fall to 76.4 years are COVID-19 and drug overdoses.

2023: A UN Security Council resolution votes 13-0 to speed up delivery of desperately needed aid for Gaza; Russia and the US abstain.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Thomas Higginson, US abolitionist (1823-1911); Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer (1858-1924); Gloria Escoffery, Jamaican artist, educator, poet, and journalist (1923-2002); Robin Gibb (1949-2012) and twin Maurice Gibb (1949-2003), Anglo-Australian founding members of the Bee Gees; Ralph Fiennes, British actor (1962- )

– AP/Jamaica Observer

Today in 2005 an Istanbul court separately fines an author and a journalist for insulting the State.