The edition of
Wednesday 8 January 2025
14 stories, section by section, the most important first.
International
Gunfire and military vehicles are reported near the Presidential Palace in N'Djamena, Chad, with the Chadian government accusing Boko Haram of being behind the attack. The Chad National Army has reportedly regained stable control of the capital, with 18 insurgents and one security force member being killed in the attack.
Russian forces attack an industrial facility in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, killing 13 people and injuring 18 others. Further strikes on Zaporizhzhia with guided aerial bombs kill 13 more people and injure 32 others.
At least 40 people are killed and 12 others are injured in Tatmadaw airstrikes on Ramree, Rakhine State, Myanmar.
The Iranian government releases Italian journalist Cecilia Sala from prison, with Sala arriving back in Rome later that day.
Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip kill at least 27 people.
Twenty-eight soldiers are killed during a mass shooting in northern Benin near the border with Burkina Faso.
Lithuanian prime minister Gintautas Paluckas deploys the police to secure the country's electricity link with Poland in response to reported attempts to disrupt the planned decoupling of the Baltic states' power systems from the grid shared with Belarus and Russia.
Azerbaijan protests Eritrea's detention of three Azerbaijani-flagged vessels and 18 crew members since November 2024, stating the ships entered Eritrean waters due to adverse weather en route to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Politics
The ruling party in São Tomé and Príncipe, Independent Democratic Action, proposes Hélio Vaz de Almeida as Prime Minister to replace Patrice Trovoada, who was fired by President Carlos Vila Nova two days ago.
Alcide Ponga of the pro-France The Rally party is elected President of New Caledonia by six of the eleven government ministers.
The Law
The British government freezes the assets of neo-Nazi music network Blood & Honour, becoming the first far-right group in the UK to be sanctioned by the government.
Environment
More than 100,000 people are evacuated from approaching wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and Hollywood neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Altadena, California, United States, that have burnt more than 3,000 acres, aggravated by an ongoing extreme windstorm and drought conditions. Five people are killed, dozens of others are injured, and around 1,000 structures are destroyed.
The CALNEV Pipeline connecting oil refineries in southern California to Clark County, Nevada, shuts down due to power outages, temporarily cutting off the gasoline supply to Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base. The Kinder Morgan SFPP Pipeline connecting southern California to Phoenix, Arizona, also shuts down.
Six people are killed and over forty others are injured in a stampede at the Hindu Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Stories adapted from Wikipedia’s Current events portal for 8 January 2025, by Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0.