Merry Christmas! Let’s dispense for today with the usual mayhem and destruction. It’ll hold and there will plenty for another day. The NORAD Santa Tracker says Santa Claus delivered 7,282,439,471 gifts. The Weather Outside: It’s a strangely warm Christmas, so warm …

Heavy Weather: At least eight people were killed yesterday as tornadoes ripped through Mississippi and Tennessee. A dozen tornadoes touched down and thunderstorms rolled over the Southeast as tornado warnings were issued in more than a dozen states Hundreds of …

Not a Lot Like Christmas: Record-breaking warm weather has moved into the central and eastern states just before Christmas with temperatures running as much as 20 degrees above normal. Christmas day in some cities could be the warmest on record. …

Final Frontier: After a series of failures, SpaceX took a big step for private space exploration last night, successfully launching a Falcon 9 supply rocket from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station and safely landing the booster stage on …

The Beautiful Game: The international soccer body FIFA has banned its president Sepp Blatter and senior official Michel Platini for eight years. Blatter has been president of FIFA for 17 years and Platini is the man who was expected to …

Debatable: What if they held a Democratic presidential candidate debate on the Saturday night before Christmas? Would it make a noise? If it did, would anybody hear it? The debate opened with Bernie Sanders having to apologize for his staff …

Permawar: With hopes for peace after years of civil war, The United Nations Security Council agreed on a plan yesterday to end the slaughter in Syria and trade the regime of President Bashar al Assad for an elected government. Secy. …

Uncas Thinking: A ground war in Iraq would lead to 100 US deaths and 500 wounded every month, President Obama told a private meeting of news columnists earlier this week. He said the cost in lives and money was the …

Police Beat: The judge in the trial of a Baltimore police officer accused in the death of Freddie Gray declared a mistrial yesterday after the jury said it was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. Off. William Porter, 26, was charged …

Debatable: The Republican presidential candidates beat up each other last night over terrorism, immigration, and Donald Trump’s call to ban all foreign Muslims from entering the country. Rand Paul: “I think if we ban certain religions, if we censor the …