SAINT LOUIS – Demonstrators took to the streets for a second night after a white police officer in Berkeley, Missouri, killed a black 18-year-old who police said pointed a gun at him.
Dozens of protesters held a vigil late Wednesday at the gas station in the St. Louis suburb where Antonio Martin was shot, and they briefly blocked traffic on Interstate 170 during a march before returning to the station. Berkeley Police Chief Frank McCall told KMOV-TV that six to eight people were arrested.
Later, about 75 people staged a peaceful protest early Christmas morning outside of a nearby church, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Police in riot gear were present.
The actions were calmer than a night before, when a crowd of about 300 people gathered at the gas station, throwing rocks and bricks in a scene reminiscent of the sometimes-violent protests that followed the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson.
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(Washington Times) Every year, in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I think about George W. Bush.
It was in that week each year for the eight years that I covered him as a reporter that he gave me a spectacular gift — and he knew it.
I started covering the newly elected president in 2000, when I was in my 30s. Back then, as a reporter for The Washington Times, we went everywhere the president went. If he went to Charlotte, N.C., to give a 30-minute speech on an airport tarmac, we went. Up at 4 a.m., an hourlong commute to Andrews Air Force Base, in place on the ground hours before POTUS landed, and there for hours and hours after he left — sometimes right through the evening news so network reporters could file live from the site.
We also went with the president to Texas every summer — often for a month — and every winter, too, over the holidays. (more…)

Each year since 1952 Queen Elizabeth II delivers a personal Christmas Message to the United Kingdom and territories. The queen writes the message herself, and it is broadcast throughout the U.K live. Today’s message was one of her best. In an era filled with prose and grand pontifications there is something quite refreshing about focusing on content over context, deliberacy over delivery.
During times of breathless unease, a steady helm is reassuring:

https://twitter.com/DefendWallSt/status/547989131050381312
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For more than two years, Pastor Saeed Abedini has been held unjustly in an Iranian jail, simply for meeting with Christians in a private home.
Despite his ordeal, Abedini has maintained his strong Christian faith. Never has that faith been more evident than in an inspiring Christmas letter that he sent his family:
Rajai Shahr Prison 2014

Merry Christmas!

These days are very cold here. My small space beside the window is without glass making most nights unbearable to sleep. The treatment by fellow prisoners is also quite cold and at times hostile. Some of my fellow prisoners don’t like me because I am a convert and a pastor. They look at me with shame as someone who has betrayed his former religion. The guards can’t even stand the paper cross that I have made and hung next to me as a sign of my faith and in anticipation of celebrating my Savior’s birth. They have threatened me and forced me to remove it. This is the first Christmas that I am completely without my family; all of my family is presently outside of the country. These conditions have made this upcoming Christmas season very hard, cold and shattering for me. It appears that I am alone with no one left beside me. (more…)

EGYPT – An Egyptian court sentenced 40 backers of ousted president Mohammed Mursi to up to 15 years in jail Thursday for violence including torching churches, a judicial source said.
Followers of Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement have been the target of a relentless crackdown by the authorities since he was deposed in July 2013 by ex-army chief and current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The criminal court in Assiut in southern Egypt sentenced two defendants to 15 years each, while the others were given jail terms ranging from one year to 10, the source said.
They were accused of taking part in acts of violence in Assiut last year during which five churches, several police stations and a number of shops were set on fire. There were no reported casualties. (more…)

Trying to have a political democratic process where a violent minority sect cannot disrupt nor manipulate a peaceful majority desire is challenging.  
EGYPT – On the same day he left to China for political and economic talks, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ratified an anticipated electoral constituencies law, the final prerequisite for holding parliamentary elections, which would conclude the country’s transitional roadmap.
The law drafted by Egypt’s government last week will divide the country into 237 constituencies for individual candidacy seats and another four for party list seats.
The parliament will be comprised of a total of 567 seats, 120 for party-based ‎candidates, 420 for independents and 27 for presidential ‎appointees, as stipulated by an elections law issued by former interim president Adly Mansour in June, a day before El-Sisi’s inauguration as president. (more…)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

Luke 2-8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9-And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11-For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12-And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 13-And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.