United States: A rainy New Year's Eve in New York has some Times Square revellers ponying up to keep dry, while police are scrapping plans to deploy a drone to keep watch over the crowd for the first time. The damp, but mild weather saw people paying up to US$10 for the kind of plastic ponchos that sell for less than US$2 at Walmart. Larissa Duke, of Ontario, Canada, went for a more frugal option. The 22-year-old college student wrapped herself in a garbage bag and placed the top of an umbrella on her head to stay dry. Umbrellas were banned from the celebration, so Duke had to discard the shaft of the umbrella at a security checkpoint. This year, the temperature will be 7-10C, but rain is expected to linger.
Bangladesh: The day after winning a record fourth term in power, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina trumpeted her accomplishments and dismissed opposition claims that the vote was rigged. Hasina's ruling alliance won virtually every parliamentary seat in the general election, according to official results, giving her a third consecutive term despite opposition allegations of intimidation. Hasina earlier served a single term. The coalition led by Hasina's Awami League party won 288 out of 300 seats — 96 per cent — the Election Commission Secretary Helal Uddin Ahmed said. The opposition alliance led by prominent lawyer Kamal Hossain won only seven seats.
United States: Elizabeth Smart says people with a history of child abuse and sexual violence like the one who helped kidnapped her should be housed as far away from schools as possible. Smart issued the statement after learning that the woman who helped abduct her when she was a teenager is living in a Salt Lake City apartment a couple of blocks from a school. Utah's sex-offender registry lists 73-year-old Wanda Barzee as living near Parkview Elementary School while she's on federal supervised release. Barzee pleaded guilty to helping her husband abduct Smart at knifepoint in 2002 when she was 14. Sex offenders in Utah are prohibited from going on school grounds.
Vatican City: The Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, and his deputy resigned abruptly amid an overhaul of the Vatican's communications operations and a crisis period in Pope Francis' papacy. The departures of Burke and his deputy, Paloma Garcia Ovejero, signalled that the problems associated with Francis' reform of the Vatican bureaucracy had come to a head, and at a very bad time: The Pope is struggling to address a global sex abuse and cover-up scandal that threatens his own legacy. Francis nevertheless accepted the resignations, which take effect tomorrow. He named a longtime member of the Vatican's communications operations, Alessandro Gisotti, as an interim replacement for Burke.
