Disaster

A Russian military plane carrying 92 people, including dozens of Red Army Choir singers, dancers and orchestra members, crashed into the Black Sea shortly after takeoff from Sochi on its way to Syria on Sunday, killing everyone on board, Russian authorities said. Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said one of its TU-154 Tupolev planes had disappeared from radar screens at 0525 MSK (9.25 p.m. ET), two minutes after taking off from Sochi in southern Russia, where it had stopped to refuel from Moscow on route to Syria.

Authorities in Germany are evacuating tens of thousands of citizens on Christmas day after the discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb in Augsburg.  The biggest evacuation since WWII will see around 54,000 people in the Southern Germany city of Augsburg leave their homes following the discovery of the 3.8-ton bomb on a building site. Digitaljournal.com reports: The evacuation and defusing of the device will take place on Christmas Day, the first public holiday after the bomb was discovered on December 20.

The worlds largest ice mass is melting at an accelerated rate due to warm ocean temperatures and is contributing to rising sea levels. The Totten glacier within the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is the most voluminous single mass of ice in the world. It is melting at an insane rate as warm water enters a cavity from below. Further greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and oceans will increase water and air temperatures and could lead to a catastrophic 3.9 meters (12.8 feet) rise in sea levels in coming years.

In what could be the first "blowback" response against German refugees following Monday's deadly Berlin terrorist attack in which a Tunisian jihadist killed 12 people after ramming a truck in a Christmas market after swearing allegiance to ISIS, Germany's Morgenpost reports that on Friday a suspicious fire erupted at a refugee center in a Hamburg suburb, destroying 28 residential units in the blaze.

Just days after a dramatic explosion at a Mexican fireworks market killed 29 people, on Saturday another powerful explosion rocked a fireworks factory in Tangshan, a city in the northeastern Chinese province of Hebei. According to China National Radio, at least two people died in the in the blast. According to People’s Daily, the firecracker factory was illegal.