12/11

• Former Libyan intelligence officer Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir al-Marimi, who was accused of building the bomb that destroyed an American passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, was taken into U.S. custody and will face charges for the act of terrorism.

12/12

• Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declares a “state of emergency on homelessness” quickly after her inauguration.
• Iran carried out its second known protest-related execution (see 12/8).
• Peru President Boluarte proposed bringing general elections forward by two years to April 2024 following the demonstrations in Peru (see 12/11).
• Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti urged the Kosovo Force, a NATO-led international peacekeeping force, to intervene in the tensions with ethnic Serb protesters.
• FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas after the U.S Attorney for the Southern District of New York filed a sealed indictment, including wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and money laundering.
• Elon Musk disbanded Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, which functioned to advise Twitter on how to enforce its policies on content such as hate speech.

12/13

• Former President Bolsonaro’s supporters attempted to invade the federal police headquarters in Brasilia.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Sam Bankman-Fried with fraud, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Bankman-Fried, his hedge fund Alameda Research LLC, and FTX, claiming fraud involving the company’s assets. Additionally, Bankman-Fried was denied bail in the Bahamas (see 12/12).
• President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act (see 12/8).
• Louisville, Kentucky will pay Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, $2 million to settle the state and federal civil suits alleging the police officers involved violated his civil rights.
• Tehran’s judiciary chief, Ali Alghasi-Mehr, announced that 400 people have been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison due to the country-wide protests.

12/14

• The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate to a targeted range between 4.25% and 4.5%, the highest level in 15 years (see 9/21).
• Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, released a statement calling on the Georgia legislature to end general election runoffs, due to the racist history behind the process.
• The House of Representatives approved a temporary funding extension for the federal government through Dec. 23, which will buy more time to negotiate a spending bill and avoid a government shutdown.
• Peru declared a 30-day national state of emergency amid growing protests (see 12/11).
• President Biden promised the United States’ commitment to the prosperity of Africa to the heads of nearly 50 African nations during the U.S.-Africa summit.
• Elon Musk threatened legal action against Jack Sweeney, a college student who posted the locations of Musk’s private jet. Twitter also suspended various accounts that tracked the locations of private airplanes, including Sweeney’s personal account and main account, @ElonJet.

12/15

• Joseph Morrison, Pete Musico, and Paul Bellar were sentenced to prison for aiding the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer, with a minimum of 10 years, 12 years, and 7 years, respectively.
• Former police officer Aaron Dean was found guilty of manslaughter in the death of Atatiana Jefferson in 2019.
• The House of Representatives approved a bill that allows Puerto Ricans to vote on either independence, to become the 51st state of the United States, or sovereignty in free association with the U.S.
• The U.S. Senate passed legislation that authorizes a $858 defense budget, which is $45 billion more than proposed by President Biden.
• Former Peru President Castillo was ordered to be held in preventive detention for 18 months in light of the protests occurring in the country.
• 5 Louisiana officers were charged in the fatal arrest of Ronald Greene in 2019.

12/16

• Doug Jenson, a Jan. 6 Capitol rioter who was among the first in the building, was sentenced to 60 months in prison.
• U.S. Attorney General Merrill Garland ordered federal prosecutors to eliminate the vast difference in the amount of powder cocaine proportionate to crack cocaine that is required to be in a suspect’s possession to prompt a mandatory minimum federal sentence following conviction. The move aims to reverse decades of legislation that disproportionately targeted Black and Brown communities.
• The father of the gunman at the Chicago July 4 parade was charged with 7 felony counts of reckless conduct.

12/17

• A federal appeals court declined to delay the end of Title 42. Additionally, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser declared a state of energy to address the migrants crossing the southern border (see 11/15).
• The bond for the father of the July 4 parade gunman was set at $50,000 (see 12/16).