Baghdad, Iraq – An ISIS commander was killed in Salahuddin province and his body was searched. A cell phone retrieved from the corpse revealed messages from Turkish intelligence services proving the NATO country was providing security for ISIS militants when they traveled between Turkey and Iraq. This is the second NATO country implicated in assisting ISIS troops. The first was Canada. MORE

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A Cape Town fire department spokesman says nine people were killed in fires in the South African city over the weekend.

Fire and Rescue Services spokesman Theo Layne said Monday that about 1,500 people were left homeless over the holiday weekend from five separate fires in the coastal city. Layne said two girls were among the dead.

Layne said the first fire began on the evening of Dec. 25, while three other fires were reported in the early hours of Dec. 26. A fifth fire was reported on Sunday, Dec. 27. MORE

A rare winter flood pushed swollen rivers and streams to virtually unheard-of heights Tuesday, sparking widespread evacuations and the transfer of inmates from an Illinois state prison as Missouri’s governor activated the National Guard to help divert traffic away from submerged roads.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said water from the rising Mississippi River and its tributaries threatened to spill over 19 federal levees, putting hundreds of homes in jeopardy. MORE

The biggest cities in the US are struggling from a lack of homeless shelters and food pantries as they appear unable to cope with the rising number of homeless people nationwide, a study by the US Conference of Mayors revealed on Tuesday.

The past year has marked the year of homelessness in the US as Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Seattle — America’s most populated areas — hosted a huge jump in the number of people on the streets, according to the Hunger and Homelessness study. Washington, D.C. ranks first in the list of cities with homeless as figures say it has 28 percent more homeless and 60 percent more transient families. The demand for food for the hungry rose 27 percent over last year’s. MORE

Prophetic Events Accelerating Going into 2016…Strange Events December New World Order End Times Martial Law Something is Going On End of America Illuminati Prophecy Has Now Begun This Video Will Shock You Are You Ready

Jamarlon Edwards is too young to buy beer, but he’s charged with murder, capital murder, theft and robbery in a string of carjackings in the Birmingham area.

Aaron Thomas, 17, is charged with capital murder. So are 18-year-old James Reynolds and 19-year-old Dominic Keeth.  Ditto 16-year-old Anthony Murray, 18-year-old Harold Mason, 18-year-old Rufus Clyde Jr. and 18-year-old Cameron Green.

It’s been that kind of year. An epidemic of children turned killers. MORE

Below we will discuss a multitude of biblical references to show how far this one man matches what Scripture refers to as “the man of sin,” but before we do, 2016 will yield much to monitor Turkey’s rise to a Caliphate system which its initiation was sparked when on this Friday, Hayrettin Karaman, Erdogan’s main Fatwa giver issued some very strange declarations. MORE

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PHILADELPHIA — For more than 100 years, the cloistered nuns known as the Pink Sisters have worked in shifts to ensure nonstop prayer in Philadelphia’s Chapel of Divine Love.

Now, to address their shrinking numbers and ensure their prayers continue for another century, the Roman Catholic Holy Spirit Adoration sisters have begun quietly reaching out, seeking to grow their order while carefully maintaining their secluded life. MORE

In 2015, a sense of unease and foreboding seemed to settle on all the world’s major power centres. From Beijing to Washington, Berlin to Brasília, Moscow to Tokyo — governments, media and citizens were jumpy and embattled.

This kind of globalised anxiety is unusual. For the past 30 years and more, there has been at least one world power that was bullishly optimistic. In the late 1980s the Japanese were still enjoying a decades-long boom — and confidently buying up assets all over the world. In the 1990s America basked in victory in the cold war and a long economic expansion. In the early 2000s the EU was in a buoyant mood, launching a single currency and nearly doubling its membership. And for most of the past decade, the growing political and economic power of China has inspired respect all over the world. MORE

The National Catholic Reporter has named two of the men at the heart of the Supreme Court’s landmark same-sex marriage case its “persons of the year.”

Greg Bourke and Michael DeLeon were two of the several dozen plaintiffs in the case Obergefell v. Hodges. In June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of these couples and legalized marriage equality nationwide. MORE

York (United Kingdom) (AFP) – British Prime Minister David Cameron was expected to visit flood-stricken parts of northern England on Monday, as troops helped tackle a deluge that has swamped the historic city of York.

The government has dispatched hundreds of soldiers to help deal with unprecedented flooding in the county of Yorkshire, where hundreds of people have been forced to flee their homes. MORE

WASHINGTON: Islamic State has sanctioned the harvesting of human organs in a previously undisclosed ruling by the group’s Islamic scholars, raising concerns that the violent extremist group may be trafficking in body parts.

The ruling, contained in a January 31, 2015 document reviewed by Reuters, says taking organs from a living captive to save a Muslim’s life, even if it is fatal for the captive, is permissible.

For a US government translation of the document, click here. MORE

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says Muslims should strive towards improving the world’s opinion of Islam, which he says has been tarnished by violence.

“We must remove Islam’s negative image from today’s cyber and real space,” he told a conference in Tehran.

Mr Rouhani, a religious moderate, said Islamic principles opposed violence.

In a veiled reference to Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, he also criticised nations which had bought US weapons and fired them at fellow Muslims. MORE

I was one of a handful of leftist non-Christians at a private Christian high school in the Deep South where, at graduation, everyone received a Bible embossed with their names in gold lettering. Which made me an oddity at college, in the bastion of liberal values that is the American Northeast: Reflecting on high school with my classmates, I mentioned one of my favorite classes was a course on the New Testament. And I thought that everyone should study it in school. Private or public.

Please, put down your fiery stakes. My classmates weren’t into it, either. MORE

List of havoc growing bigger and faster. Look out world.

A Christmas Day bushfire has destroyed more than 100 homes in Australia’s Victoria state, officials say. MORE