Christmas break is finally over for us, and 5 things is back. We missed the colour of the dress debacle. But we arrived just in time to catch the weasel riding the woodpecker. Every morning, we scour the Internet and vet what we believe are the five things you absolutely need to know for the day. Join this mailing list to receive 5 things you absolutely must know today every morning, Monday to Friday.
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Thousands of Russians show up to mourn gunned-down leader
Thousands of Russians paid their respects to outspoken Vladimir Putin critic Boris Nemtsov today at his funeral in Moscow. Some EU leaders and Russia’s opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, were barred from the funeral. Navalny, who is currently serving a fifteen-day prison sentence for distributing leaflets to promote a protest, was released early, but was still not allowed to attend. Last Thursday, Nemtsov was walking home after dinner out with his girlfriend, Anna Durytska, when the attacker, who has yet to be identified, shot him four times. No arrests have been made. [Source: BBC]
Lost city found in Honduras
La Mosquitia, Honduras, is one of the last unexplored regions on this earth. A team, acting on long-standing rumours that the area used to be the site of the fabled “White City,” which is also referred to as the “City of the Monkey God,” found evidence of a lost civilization. The archaeologists on the crew studied the various ancient infrastructures they found on the expedition, and will reach conclusions about the now extinct population soon. Scientists are, however, differentiating these “White City” inhabitants from the nearby Maya. [Source: National Geographic]
Too much poo and pee on Mount Everest
There it too much poo and pee on Mount Everest, the chief of Nepal’s mountaineering association, Ang Tshering, told news sources on Tuesday. Apparently many of the more than seven hundred climbers ascending the mountain each season – which is only two months long – each year, are not disposing of their waste properly and leaving troubling amounts of it on Everest. “Climbers usually dig holes in the snow for their toilet use and leave the human waste there,” Tshering said. “It is a health hazard and the issue needs to be addressed.” Local government has yet to tackle the issue, specifically, but last year those in power passed a law requiring climbers to return to base with 18 pounds of waste in the waste bags they were given. This is the amount people who know such things estimate each person to discard on the trip. [Source: The Guardian]
Netanyahu to address Congress, inject suspicion into Obama’s Iran deal
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants Congress to step in and arouse more opposition to Barack Obama’s attempts to reach a deal with Iran that would put an end to their controversial nuclear program. He’s speaking in Washington today. Obama hopes to close the ten-year deal by the end of this month, and is accusing the Republicans who initiated Netanyahu’s visit of manufacturing partisanship into the good, longstanding relationship between the U.S. and Israel. The Israeli leader doesn’t want a nuclear Iran either, but is deeply suspicious of Obama’s plan, fearing that it may give the country too many breaks in return for the cessations of its nuclear programs; breaks that could potentially allow Iran to be just as devastating to the Middle East as it has been. “I plan to speak about an Iranian regime that is threatening to destroy Israel, that’s devouring country after country in the Middle East, that’s exporting terror throughout the world and that is developing, as we speak, the capacity to make nuclear weapons — lots of them,” Netanyahu told America’s leading pro-Israel lobby on Monday. [Source: CBC]
Did Jesus turn water into wine in this home?
Jesus, the Lord, lunatic, or liar, lived in a house in Nazareth, modern-day Israel, with his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph. This house may have been discovered by a team of archaeologists working in the area. The nuns of the Sister of Nazareth convent discovered the stone-and-mortar home built on the side of a mountain in the 1880s. And in 2006, Ken Dark, a UK-based professor, dated it to a time when Jesus was alive and doing things worth recording. “Was this the house where Jesus grew up? It is impossible to say on archaeological grounds,” Dark wrote in an article recently published in the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review. “On the other hand, there is no good archaeological reason why such an identification should be discounted.” [Source: livescience]
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