2015 New Year’s Celebrations

2015 New Year’s Celebrations, It’s out with the old and in with the new, as revelers around the world begin to ring in the new year with parties and celebrations. From the beaches of Brazil to the shores of Sydney Harbor and the potentially snowy streets of Las Vegas – yes, really – 2015 is being welcomed with a bang and a cheer.

The first major celebrations took place in New Zealand, with midnight local time falling at 6 a.m. ET. A giant clock on Auckland’s landmark Sky Tower structure counted down the minutes until the new year, with a huge fireworks display launching from the tower at midnight. The next taxi off the rank was Australia, where the iconic Harbor Bridge in Sydney lit up with a spectacular fireworks display.

In the U.S., New York will drop its Waterford crystal ball at midnight, while in the west Sin City might be celebrating the new year under flurries of snow. Forecasts in Las Vegas pin the area’s chances for New Year’s Eve snow at 70 percent.

Trial Of Russian Opposition Figure Alexei Navalny

Trial Of Russian Opposition Figure Alexei Navalny, A Russian court gave Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny a suspended sentence on Tuesday for embezzling money but jailed his brother for three and a half years in a case seen as part of a campaign to stifle dissent.

Navalny led mass protests against President Vladimir Putin three years ago, when tens of thousands took to the streets in Moscow and St Petersburg to protest against corruption in his government and inner circle. Opposition figures say jailing Navalny risked a new wave of protests and so it was decided to punish him by jailing his brother instead.

Navalny’s supporters will gather in front of the Kremlin later on Tuesday with some 17,000 people having registered on Facebook to attend although the numbers may be smaller as people prepare to celebrate the New Year. The authorities have not given permission for the rally so it is considered illegal and there maybe arrests.

The Navalny brothers, Alexei and Oleg, were accused of stealing 30 million roubles, around $500,000 at the current exchange rate, from two firms including an affiliate of the French cosmetics company Yves Rocher between 2008 and 2012.

Tuesday’s ruling will come as a relief for Navalny’s supporters after prosecutors asked that he be imprisoned for 10 years. The Kremlin denies allegations that it uses the courts to persecute opponents.

Officials have taken few steps to investigate Navalny’s corruption allegations. He claimed there was mass embezzlement, including in state bank VTB and pipeline monopoly Transneft, run by close allies of Putin.

“Aren’t you ashamed of what you are doing?” Navalny told the court and judge Yelena Korobchenko. “Why are you putting him (my brother Oleg) in prison? To punish me even harder?”

Currently under house arrest, Alexei Navalny is serving another suspended five-year jail term for a separate conviction last year, which critics also called a sham.

AirAsia Flight 8501

AirAsia Flight 8501, PANGKALAN BUN, INDONESIA—Bad weather hindered efforts to recover victims of AirAsia Flight 8501 on Wednesday, and sent wreckage drifting far from the crash site, as grieving relatives prayed for strength to endure their losses.

“Help us, God, to move forward, even though we are surrounded by darkness,” the Rev. Philip Mantofa, whose church lost about 40 members in the disaster, told families gathered in a waiting room at the Surabaya airport.

The massive hunt for 162 people who vanished Sunday aboard the Airbus A320 from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore, was severely limited due to heavy rain, wind and thick clouds. Seven bodies, including a flight attendant in her red AirAsia uniform, have been recovered, said Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo.

Sonar images also identified what appeared to be large parts of the plane, but strong currents were moving the debris.

Conditions prevented divers from entering the choppy Java Sea, and helicopters were largely grounded. But 18 ships continued to scour the narrowed search area, and four of the seven corpses were recovered Wednesday. Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency predicted conditions would worsen, with more intense rains, through Friday.

“It seems all the wreckage found has drifted more than 50 kilometres from yesterday’s location,” said Vice Air Marshal Sunarbowo Sandi, search and rescue co-ordinator in Pangkalan Bun on Borneo island, the closest town to the site. “We are expecting those bodies will end up on beaches.”

The airliner’s disappearance halfway through the two-hour flight triggered an international search involving dozens of planes, ships and helicopters from numerous countries. It is still unclear what brought the plane down.

Its last communication indicated the pilots were worried about bad weather. They sought permission to climb above threatening clouds but were denied because of heavy air traffic. Four minutes later, the jet disappeared from the radar without issuing a distress signal.

The aircraft’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders, or black boxes, must be recovered before officials can start determining what caused the crash. Items recovered so far include a life jacket, an emergency exit window, children’s shoes, a blue suitcase and backpacks filled with food.

Malaysia-based AirAsia’s loss comes on top of the still-unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March with 239 people aboard, and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July over Ukraine, which killed all 298 passengers and crew.

Teen Gets Pulled Over For The Surprise Of A Lifetime

Teen Gets Pulled Over For The Surprise Of A Lifetime, Audra Daniloff probably didn’t expect to be giddy with excitement after a cop asked for her driver’s license., After the rough year Audra Daniloff had endured – spending more than 60 days in the hospital recovering from a rare disease that struck her in February 2013 – her dad thought she deserved a pick-me-up. Little did Marc Daniloff know, though, that the treat he decided to give his daughter would bring smiles to millions.

Marc, a business coach, enlisted police in their hometown of Saukville, Wisc., to pull over the 17-year-old as she drove to school and give her two tickets – a concert ticket to see her favorite band and an airline ticket to fly to NYC, where the group was playing the final concert of its tour. “Any father of a teen daughter will tell you, there’s a small window to amaze her, and I took advantage of it,” the father tells Yahoo Parenting. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to see the look on her face when she got the surprise, though.”

Nurse Becomes First Ebola Victim Diagnosed In Britain

Nurse Becomes First Ebola Victim Diagnosed In Britain, A health worker who has become the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in Britain was being treated at a London hospital on Tuesday after contracting the disease in West Africa.

The woman arrived from Scotland at the Royal Free hospital, Britain’s designated Ebola treatment centre, in an ambulance accompanied by police vehicles, a Reuters witness said.

“The latest update we have on the condition of the patient is that she is doing as well as can be expected in the circumstances,” Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.

The Royal Free Hospital confirmed the patient was being treated for the Ebola virus, and named her as Pauline Cafferkey, a 39-year-old nurse with 16 years experience who normally works at a Scottish health centre.

The London hospital’s “High-level isolation unit” will allow doctors to treat Cafferkey while she lies in a plastic tent, limiting the scope for the disease, which is transmitted by contact with bodily fluids, to be passed to medical staff.

Officials said three other patients were being tested for Ebola in Britain.

One of them, who was described by Sturgeon as a “low probability” case in Scotland, has tested negative for the disease. The health service said the second possible case was in Cornwall, England, and details were not available on the third.

The World Health Organization said on Monday that the number of people infected by Ebola in the three West African countries worst affected by the outbreak – Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – had passed 20,000, with more than 7,842 deaths so far.

Cafferkey, a National Health Service worker who had been working in West Africa with the charity Save the Children, flew from Sierra Leone to Glasgow late on Sunday on a British Airways flight via Casablanca in Morocco and London’s Heathrow.

Health officials said she was screened for a high temperature with other returning health workers at Heathrow but showed no signs of fever. She requested further screening at the airport but six subsequent checks were within normal levels.

She was diagnosed with the virus on Monday after developing symptoms overnight and was initially treated at a Scottish hospital.

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