• Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley, 15, will use 'insanity' as a defense after pleading not guilty to charges made against him for the massacre


• Crumbley's attorney filed a notice to perform a psychiatric evaluation on the teen which will determine if he understands the weight of his actions


• If found not guilty, Crumbley will be referred to a state psychiatric center for custody and further evaluation


• He is being charged as an adult for his alleged involvement in the Oxford High School shooting on November 30 that killed four students and injured several others


• A new lawsuit has since been filed over the massacre blaming school officials and Crumbley's parents Jennifer and James for their negligence


• Both parents have been charged with involuntary manslaughter after they allegedly gave Crumbley the gun he used as a Christmas present

• West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice
  

  ...currently a Trump Republican, Big Jim switched to the Democratic Party to run for governor in 2016, then returned to the Republican fold seven months after being sworn in. He subsequently beat the Democratic candidate for the office in 2020. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he turned the family ag. and coal millions into $1.2 billion before turning his attention to politics...

  concluded his state of the state address Thursday by lifting up his English Bulldog Babydog and showing off her butt


• The gesture was meant as a message to actress Bette Midler


• 'They never believed in West Virginia. That we could do it. They told every bad joke in the world about us,' Justice said


• 'And so from that standpoint, Babydog tells Bette Midler and all those out there, "kiss her hiney,"' he added


• Midler made disparaging comments about West Virginia following Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin's refusal to support Build Back Better


• 'He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out,' she said of Manchin


• On Friday she hit back and tweeted '...I’d say his dog’s ass would make a better Governor than him'

• A Florida police officer has been fired after tasering a wheelchair-bound man four times at point-blank range during a June arrest


• Police body-camera video showed St. Petersburg Police Officer Matthew Cavinder as he deployed his Taser gun on 64-year-old Timothy Grant


• Grant had been sitting in a wheelchair outside a gas station on June 20 when he was arrested for five open warrants


• Cavinder later wrote a report that claimed Grant was resisting arrest with violence, however'Mr. Grant was not resisting with violence,' officials said


• 'This will not and cannot be tolerated here at St. Petersburg PD, and as long as I'm the chief here, it will not be tolerated,' said Police Chief Anthony Holloway


• Cavinder had been an officer with the department since March 23, 2020

• Confidential vaccine distribution list developed under former President Trump


• Administration prepared a secret list of which nations would get the doses first


• It placed allied nations ahead of poorer ones with greater needs


• The secret list was drawn up during the second half of 2020 and prioritized nations based on their strategic relationship with the U.S.


• First on the list were allies, including Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Canada, and several European nations, despite having perfectly good health-care systems


• The countries also had their own financial resources to buy their own doses and had good infrastructure for it to be distributed


• Next on the list were countries involved with the development of the vaccine


• Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a public–private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunization in poor countries, was third on the list


• Fourth came all the other countries that were not already in any other category


• The Trump plan never went into action because the Biden administration came to power before the vaccination effort had been fully set up

• Landon Eastep, 37, was shot and killed by nine law enforcement officers while walking along a Nashville highway carrying a boxcutter Thursday afternoon


• Video footage recorded by a witness, police bodycam and highway surveillance recorded the moment of the deadly encounter


• Police say Eastep was shot after he quickly pulled an unknown 'silver, shiny cylindrical object' from his pocket holding the boxcutter in the other hand


• His sister-in-law Samantha McGill-Barge claims that he was 'unjustly executed with over 20 shots in very close range' and 'killed in cold blood'

• Joe Biden on Friday evening said that he would be moving some troops to Eastern Europe - but 'not too many' - as tensions mount in Ukraine


• Landing back in Washington DC after a trip to Pittsburgh, the president said that the troops would be moved 'in the near term', but did not say when


• Hours earlier Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that the world was overreacting to the threat of a Russian invasion of his country


• Zelensky chided world leaders for their public statements, saying 'we don't need this panic' and condemning the withdrawal of diplomats


• Chairman of Joint Chiefs Gen Milley warned of 'horrific' consequences if Russia put its 100,000-plus force to work on an invasion


• Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops around Ukraine after a steady buildup in the region and may be planning an invasion in February


• UK intelligence source suggested Putin will continue massing forces for 'two or three weeks' before attacking


• Attack could come from Belarus aimed at Kiev, coupled with amphibious assault from Crimea on port city of Odessa, before the troops roll in from the east

For years, U.S. officials have tiptoed around the question of how much military support to provide to Ukraine, for fear of provoking Russia.

Now, in what would be a major turnaround, senior Biden administration officials are warning that the United States could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Putin invade Ukraine.

How the United States, which just exited two decades of war in Afghanistan, might pivot to funding and supporting an insurgency from just finishing one — is still being worked out: "Biden has not determined how the United States might arm insurgents in Ukraine; or, who would conduct the guerrilla war against Russian military occupation. Nor is it clear what Russia’s next move might be ... But Biden Administration officials have begun signalling to Russia [that eventually it] would find the costs of an invasion ... prohibitively expensive in terms of military losses.

"If Putin invades Ukraine with a major military force ... And if it turned into a Ukrainian insurgency, Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them", said James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral, who was the supreme allied commander at NATO.

• A new video and photo of the US Navy F-35 stealth fighter jet that crashed into the South China Sea on Monday have surfaced
  Maybe we should let China have it, as a strategic ploy.
  
• The video, which circulated on social media and confirmed to be real, showed the moment just before the $100 million jet crashed into the aircraft carrier


• The pic, also confirmed to be real by a Navy spokesperson, shows the jet damaged and floating in the sea before it sank


• It was the second time in three months an F-35 has been lost at sea, with the crash injuring the pilot and seven sailors aboard the USS Carl Vinson


• The US faces a race to beat China in recovering the high-tech warplane as Beijing could claim salvage rights to remove an 'environmental hazard'


• The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it had no interest in the jet and that the US should stop 'flexing force at every turn' in the South China Sea

• Around 1.2 million people in Xiong'an New Area are now under a strict lockdown


• Restrictions appear to have been introduced by stealth with no announcements


• The restrictions kicked in on Tuesday, when five Covid cases were noted nearby


• With the Winter Olympics beginning next week, Chinese authorities have scrambled to eradicate flare-ups in several major cities, including Beijing