UNITED NATIONS, December 21. #Russia’s response to the latest Ukrainian crime will not keep itself waiting, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said, commenting on Friday’s missile attack on the town of Rylsk in the bordering Russian region of #Kursk.

"Our response to this deliberate criminal attack on Russian civilians will come shortly," the diplomat warned as he denounced the attack as yet another unambiguous step by the Kiev regime toward escalation.

Six people, including a child, were killed in the attack and 10 others were hospitalized.

The Russian Investigative Committee is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism.

#WASHINGTON -A senior White House official on Thursday said nuclear-armed Pakistan is developing long-range ballistic missile capabilities that eventually could allow it to strike targets well beyond South Asia, making it an "emerging threat" to the United States.

Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer's surprise revelation underscored how far the once-close ties between Washington and Islamabad have deteriorated since the 2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

It also raised questions about whether #Pakistan has shifted the objectives of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs long intended to counter those of India, the victor in three major wars they have fought since 1947.

Speaking to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Finer said Pakistan has pursued "increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment, that would enable the testing of significantly larger rocket motors."

If those trends continue, Finer said, "Pakistan will have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including in the United States."

The number of nuclear-armed states with missiles that can reach the U.S. homeland "is very small and they tend to be adversarial," he continued, naming Russia, North Korea and China.

"So, candidly, it's hard for us to see Pakistan's actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States," Finer said.

His speech came a day after Washington announced a new round of sanctions related to Pakistan's ballistic missile development program, including against the state-run defense agency that oversees the program.

The Pakistani embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Islamabad casts its long-range ballistic missile program as a deterrent against Indian aggression and intended to maintain regional stability.

Finer included himself among senior U.S. officials who he said repeatedly have raised concerns about the program with top Pakistani officials.

Washington and Islamabad, he noted, had been "long-time partners" on development, counterterrorism and security.

"That makes us question even more why Pakistan will be motivated to develop a capability that could be used against us."

Pakistan conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1998 - more than 20 years after India's first test blast - becoming the seventh country to do so. It also has built an extensive arsenal of ballistic missiles capable of lofting nuclear warheads.

The Bulletin of the American Scientists research organization estimates that Pakistan has a stockpile of about 170 warheads.

U.S.-Pakistani relations have undergone major ups and downs, including close Cold War ties that saw them support Afghan rebels against the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

#Pakistan also was a key partner in the U.S. fight against al Qaeda following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and has been a major non-NATO ally since 2004.

But ties also have been hurt by coups staged by the Pakistani military, its support for the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule and its nuclear weapons program.

Several experts said Finer's speech came as a major surprise.

"For a senior U.S. official to publicly link concerns about proliferation in Pakistan to a future direct threat to the U.S. homeland - this is a mighty dramatic development," said Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center think tank.

Elizabeth Threlkeld of the Stimson Center think tank, said Finer's speech showed that Pakistani officials had failed to reassure Washington about the aims of their missile and nuclear weapons programs and that U.S. concerns are mounting.

#Scientists think they know why Stonehenge was rebuilt thousands of years ago, Scientists made a major discovery this year linked to Stonehenge — one of humanity’s biggest mysteries — and the revelations keep coming.

A team of researchers shared evidence in August suggesting that the Altar Stone, an iconic monolith at the heart of Stonehenge, was transported hundreds of miles to the site in southern #England nearly 5,000 years ago from what’s now northeastern Scotland. Just a month later, a report led by the same experts ruled out the possibility that the stone came from Orkney, an archipelago off Scotland’s northeastern coast that’s home to Neolithic sites from that time frame, and the search for the monolith’s point of origin continues.

A #mysterious monument

Construction on Stonehenge began as early as 3000 BC and occurred over several phases in an area first inhabited as early as 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, according to the researchers.

Previous analysis has shown that bluestones, a type of fine-grained sandstone, and larger silicified sandstone blocks called sarsens were used in the monument’s construction. The bluestones were brought from 140 miles (225 kilometres) away at the Preseli Hills area in west Wales and are thought to have been the first stones placed at the site. The sarsens, used later, came from the West Woods near Marlborough, located about 15 miles (25 kilometres) away.

Researchers believe the Altar Stone was placed within the central horseshoe during a rebuilding phase. While the exact date is unknown, the study authors believe the stone arrived between 2500 and 2020 BC.

It’s during that rebuilding phase, according to the research, that Stonehenge’s builders erected the large sarsen stones to form an outer circle and an inner horseshoe made of trilithons, or paired upright stones connected by horizontal stone beams, which remain part of the monument to this day.

The Altar Stone is the largest of the bluestones used to build Stonehenge. Today, the Altar Stone lies recumbent at the foot of the largest trilithon and is barely visible peeking through the grass.

Many questions remain about the exact purpose for Stonehenge and the Altar Stone. But the monument aligns with the sun during the winter and summer solstices.

“There’s good evidence to suggest that these large stone monoliths have ancestral significance, representing and even embodying the ancestors of the people who placed them,” Parker Pearson said. “(The Altar Stone’s) location within Stonehenge is important as if you stand at the center of the stone circle, the midwinter solstice sun sets over its middle.”

During the winter, Neolithic people would gather near Stonehenge at the village of Durrington Walls, bringing pigs and cattle with them for a feast, Parker Pearson said. Stonehenge was also the largest burial ground of its time, lending support to the idea that the site may have been used as a religious temple, a solar calendar and an ancient observatory all in one.

And nearly half the Neolithic people buried near Stonehenge came from somewhere other than Salisbury Plain.

The new research adds a political twist to the backstory of a rebuilt Stonehenge.

“The fact that all of its stones originated from distant regions, making it unique among over 900 stone circles in Britain, suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose — as a monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos,” Parker Pearson said.
Bridging distant communities

This show of unity — transporting giant stones long distances — would not have been easy for Neolithic people. The study authors don’t think boats at the time would have been strong enough to carry anything like the Altar Stone across coastal waters.

“Though the wheel had been invented elsewhere, it hadn’t quite reached Britain yet, so the massive stone blocks would likely have had to be dragged by wooden sledge sliding atop wooden rails that could be continuously lifted and re-laid,” Parker Pearson said.

The wooden sledge could have had shock absorbers made from vegetation to cushion the stone, which would have been susceptible to cracking on the long journey, the study authors said.

Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people would have been needed to help move the stone over land, and the journey may have taken about eight months, the researchers noted in the paper.

“Travel by land would have provided much better opportunities for spectacle, pageantry, feasting and celebration that would have drawn people in (the) thousands to witness and take part in this extraordinary venture,” according to the study.

Moving the massive stone from Scotland to southern England suggests there was a network between two distant groups fostered by collaboration and cooperation — something the researchers think existed due to striking cultural similarities in both locations.

“They would have taken significant coordination across Britain — people were literally pulling together — in a time before telephones and email to organize such an effort,” Parker Pearson said.

The Altar Stone is similar in both size and placement to other large horizontal blocks in stone circles found in northeast Scotland, the study authors said. These recumbent stone circles have only been found in that part of Scotland, rather than the rest of England, which suggests that the Altar Stone may have been a gift from the community in northern Scotland to signify a type of alliance.

Russian #bombardment targets #Kyiv after #Ukraine fires U.S.-made #missiles across the border.

#KYIV, #Ukraine -A Russian #ballistic #missile attack on Ukraine's capital #Kyiv early Friday killed at least one person and injured 12 others, officials said. Moscow claimed it was in response to a Ukrainian strike on Russian soil using American-made weapons.

At least three loud blasts were heard in Kyiv shortly before sunrise. Ukraine's air force said it intercepted five #Iskander short-range #ballistic #missiles fired at the city. The attack knocked out heating to 630 residential buildings, 16 medical facilities, and 30 schools and kindergartens, the city administration said, and falling missile debris caused damage and sparked fires in three districts.

"We ask citizens to immediately respond to reports of ballistic attack threats, because there is very little time to find shelter," the air force said.

During the almost three years since the war began Russia has regularly bombarded civilian areas of Ukraine, often in an attempt to cripple the power grid and unnerve Ukrainians. Meanwhile Ukraine, struggling to hold back Russia's bigger army on the front line, has attempted to strike Russian infrastructure supporting the country's war effort.

The falling debris in Kyiv smashed into the city centre, causing damage to around two dozen high-rise office buildings as well as the Catholic Church of St. Nicholas, which is a city landmark, and the Kyiv National Linguistic University.

What may have been the blast wave from an intercepted low-flying missile also blew out windows or caused other damage at six embassies, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said the strike was in response to a Ukrainian missile attack on Russia's Rostov border region two days earlier. That attack used six American-made Army Tactical Missile System, known as #ATACMS, missiles and four Storm Shadow air-launched missiles provided by the United Kingdom, it said.

That day, Ukraine claimed to have targeted a Rostov oil refinery as part of its campaign to strike Russian infrastructure supporting the country's war effort.

The use of Western-supplied weapons to strike Russia has angered the Kremlin. Ukraine fired several American-supplied longer-range #missiles into Russia for the first time on Nov. 19 after Washington eased restrictions on their use.

That development prompted #Russia to use a new hypersonic missile, called Oreshnik, for the first time. President Vladimir Putin suggested the missile could be used to target government buildings in Kyiv, though there have been no reports of an Oreshnik being used for a second time.

Answering the Ukrainian attack on Rostov on Wednesday, the Defence Ministry said it carried out a group strike with "high-precision, long-range weapons" on the command centre of Ukraine's military intelligence agency and another location where it said Ukraine's Neptune missile systems are designed and produced.

The attack also targeted Ukrainian ground-based cruise missile systems and U.S.-made Patriot air defence systems, the Defence Ministry said.

"The objectives of the strike have been achieved. All objects are hit," the defence ministry said in a Telegram post.

SAO PAULO, Brazil -Sloths weren’t always slow-moving, furry tree-dwellers. Their prehistoric ancestors were huge — up to four tons (3.6 metric tons) — and when startled, they brandished immense claws.

For a long time, scientists believed the first humans to arrive in the Americas soon killed off these giant ground sloths through hunting, along with many other massive animals like mastodons, saber-toothed cats and dire wolves that once roamed North and South America.

But new research from several sites is starting to suggest that people came to the Americas earlier — perhaps far earlier — than once thought. These findings hint at a remarkably different life for these early Americans, one in which they may have spent millennia sharing prehistoric savannas and wetlands with enormous beasts.

“There was this idea that humans arrived and killed everything off very quickly — what’s called ‘Pleistocene overkill,’” said Daniel Odess, an archaeologist at White Sands National Park in New Mexico. But new discoveries suggest that “humans were existing alongside these animals for at least 10,000 years, without making them go extinct."

Some of the most tantalizing clues come from an archaeological site in central Brazil, called Santa Elina, where bones of giant ground sloths show signs of being manipulated by humans. Sloths like these once lived from Alaska to Argentina, and some species had bony structures on their backs, called osteoderms — a bit like the plates of modern armadillos — that may have been used to make decorations.

In a lab at the University of Sao Paulo, researcher Mírian Pacheco holds in her palm a round, penny-sized sloth fossil. She notes that its surface is surprisingly smooth, the edges appear to have been deliberately polished, and there’s a tiny hole near one edge.

“We believe it was intentionally altered and used by ancient people as jewelry or adornment,” she said. Three similar “pendant” fossils are visibly different from unworked osteoderms on a table — those are rough-surfaced and without any holes.

The military's tradition of #tracking Santa Claus on his gravity-defying sweep across the globe will carry on this Christmas Eve, even if the U.S. government shuts down, officials said Friday.

Each year, at least 100,000 kids call into the North American Aerospace Defense Command to inquire about Santa’s location. Millions more follow online.

“We fully expect for Santa to take flight on Dec. 24 and Norad will track him," the U.S.-Canadian agency said in a statement.

On any other night, Norad is scanning the heavens for potential threats, such as last year's Chinese spy balloon. But on Christmas Eve, volunteers in Colorado Springs, Colo., are fielding questions like, “When is Santa coming to my house?” and, “Am I on the naughty or nice list?”

The endeavour is supported by local and corporate sponsors, who also help shield the tradition from #Washington dysfunction.

Bob Sommers, 63, a civilian contractor and Norad volunteer, told The Associated Press that there are "screams and giggles and laughter” when families call in, usually on speakerphone.

Sommers often says on the call that everyone must be asleep before Santa arrives, prompting parents to say, "Do you hear what he said? We got to go to bed early."

Norad's annual tracking of Santa has endured since the Cold War, predating ugly sweater parties and Mariah Carey classics. Here's how it began and why the phones keep ringing.

The origin story is Hollywood-esque

It started with a child's accidental phone call in 1955. The Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears advertisement that encouraged children to call Santa, listing a phone number.

A boy called. But he reached the Continental Air Defense Command, now Norad, a joint U.S. and Canadian effort to spot potential enemy attacks. Tensions were growing with the Soviet Union, along with anxieties about nuclear war.

#Google Maps image provides clue in Spanish missing persons case.

Chance images captured by a passing Google Maps camera showing a man leaning over a large bag or bags in a car trunk with what could be a human body gave police an extra clue in a murder investigation in the central Spanish village of Tajueco.

A friend reported the male victim missing in November 2023 after receiving suspicious text messages sent from the victim's phone saying he had met a woman and was leaving the province of Soria, where Tajueco is located, and abandoning his phone, police said in a statement on Wednesday.

The investigation focussed on the missing man's girlfriend and her ex-partner, with unspecified important clues found in their cars and homes, police said.

During checks on the movements of one of the cars, police came across a street view image captured by a Google Maps car mapping the area.

It showed a street that was deserted except for a man leaning into the trunk of a red car in which there was a bulky white bag or bags. Several other images in the same series, dated October 2024, showed the trunk shut and nobody in the street.

Last month, police arrested the couple initially on suspicion of kidnapping, and later discovered a human torso, believed to be that of the missing man, in a shallow grave at a local cemetery on Dec. 11.

The investigation is still underway, police said, noting that the Google Maps image was just one of several clues in the case.

#MOSCOW, December 17. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the assassination of Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov and his aide as a planned terrorist attack made possible by the West’s connivance of the crimes of the Kiev regime.

"Another terrorist attack has taken place. General Igor Kirillov and his aide were killed in a planned manner, killed in front of an apartment building at a time when people are going to work, children are going to school or kindergarten," she wrote on Telegram.

According to the diplomat, the attack represented "a continuation and development of the spiral of Western connivance of the war crimes of the Kiev regime's militants, which they have been exacerbating all these years."

#Taiwan said on Thursday it detected 16 #Chinese warships in waters around the island, one of the highest numbers this year, as Beijing intensifies military pressure on #Taipei.