Protesters break into U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Dozens of Iraqi Shiite militiamen and their supporters broke into the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday, angered over the deadly U.S. airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kataeb Hezbollah. Qassim Abdul-Zahra of The Associated Press reports that an AP reporter at the scene saw flames rising from inside the compound and at least three U.S. soldiers on the roof of the main embassy building. President Trump blamed Iran for the unprecedented breach and called on Iraq to protect the diplomatic mission. Mustafa Salim and Liz Sly are covering the developments at The Washington Post with ongoing live updates, Iran-backed militia supporters converge on U.S. embassy in Baghdad shouting ‘Death to America.’ Tweets Matt Peterson, “Watch this space: ‘Inside the embassy, U.S. diplomats and embassy staffers were huddled in a fortified safe room, according to two reached by a messaging app. They declined to give details but added that they felt secure.’” Robert Malley says, “Events could quickly spin out of control and provoke the US-Iran military confrontation neither side wants — but to which both sides’ actions seem to be inexorably leading.” Salim and Sly point out that the “Death to America” chants “carried echoes of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when Iranian students seized control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and detained American diplomats and other personnel there for 444 days.” Hell on earth Meanwhile, “Here’s what the last day of the decade in Australia looked like: hell on earth.” Isabella Kwai of The New York Times reports from Sydney as Thousands Flee to Shore as Australia Fires Turn Skies Blood Red. Liam Mannix, David Crowe and Ashleigh McMillan of The Age have live updates on the Victoria bushfire crisis, with the outlet tweeting, “Some incredible - and frightening - photos are emerging from Mallacoota, where about 4000 people are sheltering in the water, protected by CFA tankers.” Also on Twitter, Mannix shares, “Mary O’Malley is sheltering on a boat in Mallacoota. ‘Everyone’s sitting here with swimming goggles, face masks and wet towels around their heads.’ Houses have been lost, fires are sparking in the town, she says.” So in case it wasn’t clear, “‼️Australia is on fire. Please please donate if you can - we’ve got to help them out‼️” tweets Stevie Martin, who links to the Australian Red Cross’s Disaster Relief and Recovery ABC NYE donation site. The Red Cross is partnering with ABC for its New Year’s Eve 2019 donation drive. As Mary Gearin says, “So many #NYE goals must now have been replaced by the least, and the best, hope for #2020 — to be SAFE. Wishing safety and kindness and peace to all And if you can spare a little cash for those facing a bleak entry to the year.” Adds Cameron Williams, “Also, make a NYE rule: for every drink, sappy feeling, impulse to confess your love or angry opinion you hear about Star Wars, donate $1 (or more, please, more) to the Red Cross as they support thousands in evacuation centres due to fires.” Law and order and coffee cups Janelle Griffith of NBC News reports that all of the West Virginia correctional cadets who gave the Nazi salute in that photo will be fired (154, 000+ shares). Alex Jones and InfoWars have been ordered to pay $100K in court costs for the Sandy Hook case, marking the latest court victory for a Sandy Hook family suing Jones for his promotion of conspiracy theories about the 2012 shooting. Will Sommer has the details at The Daily Beast, and Elina Shatkin shares, “I am dying. ‘In an apparent act of incompetence, Jones’ legal team accidentally transmitted child pornography to the Connecticut plaintiffs during the discovery process, claiming later that the illegal images had been sent to Jones by anonymous trolls.’” 
And here’s a thing that happened. A police officer in Kansas resigned after admitting he made up that story about a McDonald’s employee writing “pig” on his coffee cup. Tiffany Littler and Mark Feuerborn have the details at KSNT-TV, and Rob Rousseau has an idea: “hey maybe now we can stop devoting news cycles to these obviously bullshit stories about service workers being mean to cops.” Yascha Mounk adds a “Lesson from this and other hoaxes: If we allow anyone to become the center of a news cycle by scribbling something stupid on their own coffee cup, a lot of shameless people will scribble stupid things on their own coffee cups to hijack a news cycle.” But the main thing? “Ronald McDonald vindicated,” tweets Josh Marshall. Trumpworld news In a letter filed in court on Monday evening, Lev Parnas says that he’s looking to share more material with congressional investigators. Betsy Swan of The Daily Beast reports that the ex-Giuliani associate asked for permission to send the contents of an iPhone to Hill investigators. She also writes that the letter indicates the committee is gathering additional evidence on Trump World — and as Noah Shachtman puts it, “Parnas is begging the court to let him spill to Schiff & co.” In a column for The Washington Post, Greg Sargent writes that the explosive new revelations in The New York Times about Trump’s corrupt freezing of military aid to Ukraine just weakened Trump’s impeachment defenses. He points out, “McConnell badly needs the media’s both-sidesing instincts to hold firm against the brute facts of the situation.” But as he notes on Twitter, “Key context on NYT’s damning account of Trump’s freezing of aid: Many of the officials now deeply implicated in this scheme are the *same ones* Trump/McConnell don’t want to testify. That should be glaring enough to break through media’s both-sidesing.”  In the meantime, Team Trump has been busy. Exhibit A: “New w/ @swin24. Here’s the story of how the WH and State Dept went on a wild goose chase to see who at the embassy in Brussels liked a Chelsea Clinton tweet during a Trump-Clinton spat. They interviewed 10 staffers.” Erin Banco links to her exclusive with Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast on Team Trump’s Furious Hunt to Find Out Who ‘Liked’ a Chelsea Clinton Tweet, and it’s quite a yarn: “The office of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was irate. Someone in Brussels with access to the mission’s Twitter account had liked the wrong tweet. It had set off alarm bells in Foggy Bottom.”
More news As Amanda Katz says, this is a “Super disturbing new story by @MikeRezendes of Globe Spotlight fame, now at AP. The person covering for this accused Jesuit priest child molester: literally Mother Teresa.” Michael Rezendes of AP News reports on that Lawsuit: Famed Jesuit abused boy 1,000 times around world. The boy, Robert J. Goldberg, now 61, has begun to tell his story, in interviews with The Associated Press and in a lawsuit he filed Monday in California state court in San Francisco. An AP investigation by Maggie Michael, Lori Hinnant and Renata Brito reveals that Libya militias are taking EU funds for migrants. The AP found that huge sums of European money have been diverted to intertwined networks of militiamen, traffickers and coast guard members who exploit migrants. Not only that, in some cases, U.N. officials knew militia networks were getting the money. “dear world, please start to pay attention to Libya,” tweets Durrie Bouscaren. Gary Weiss thinks, “2019 will be remembered as the year of the CEO-fleeing-to-a-country-without-an-extradition-treaty. First $OSTK’s fugitive ex-CEO Patrick Byrne and now Carlos Ghosn of Nissan.” As Nick Kostov reports at The Wall Street Journal, Former Nissan and Renault chief Carlos Ghosn unexpectedly left Japan, where he faces trial on charges of financial wrongdoing, and traveled to his homeland of Lebanon. Timeless wisdom 
Assuming you spent any time on Twitter over the past few days (or any time recently, really), you’ll know the context for this next one. In his new piece for Politico Magazine about Bret Stephens and the Perils of the Tapped-Out Column, Jack Shafer makes this bold statement: “if you’re going to edit a piece, the smart move is to edit before it publishes.” Beyond that “timeless wisdom,” as Ben Smith puts it, you’ll find “Jack Shafer throwing heat,” tweets Ben Mullin. Worth the wait Things are weird all over, but also, as Alex Cooke says, “This story by @Brett_CBC is amazing. ‘Plse advise the Commissionaires that apparently Fort Frontenac is both a PokeGym and a PokeStop. I will be completely honest in that I have not idea what that is.’” 
That’s from How Canada’s military reacted to seeing Pokemon Go players trespassing on its bases, by Brett Ruskin of CBC, who shares, “Three years ago, I asked the military for all documents related to Pokemon Go players trespassing on Canadian Forces bases. I just got back 471 pages of internal communications. (It was worth the wait.)” Yes, as you may have guessed, “This story about the Canadian military scrambling to handle Pokemon Go players on bases is kind of perfect,” tweets Tracey Lindeman. Reflections on 2019 
“The most and least important events of 2019? That’s what @TheMorningNews asked me and a bunch of other writers and journalists. I talked about the #ClimateCrisis.” Amy Brady links to The Year That Was and Wasn’t at The Morning News, and Bijan Stephen says, “back for the 4th time for @TheMorningNews’s year end reflection. things have definitely gotten worse.” For the counterpoint, “I also contributed something to @TheMorningNews’ year-end roundup. While many focused on politics or cultural issues, I decided to focus on the fact that making a living off of something you created online is getting easier than ever. It’s empowering,” tweets Ernie Smith. Another contributor, Rachel Vorona Cote, adds, “Read through the entirety of ‘The Year That Was And Wasn’t’ because there is so much insight to be had from luminaries like @Remember_Sarah @geekylonglegs @tajjaisen @Ted_Scheinman and @DearSplenda.” This is a delight! 
Back to weird and amazing things for a moment. Have you seen “John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch” yet? It is both weird and amazing, and everything else you want it to be. But if you want to dig a little deeper on Mulaney’s thought process with the show, you need to read Alexander Bonanos’ interview with John Mulaney for Vulture. Who is Alexander Bonanos? Well, he’s a Mulaney superfan. Oh, and he’s also the 10-year-old son of Christopher Bonanos. And it’s a great interview! As Samantha Leal says, “Everyone needs to read this pure (so pure) Q&A.” Marina Fang enthuses, “This is a delight!” Adds Margaret Lyons,”So it turns out that 10-year-olds are actually really good at doing interviews? Or at least @heybonanos’s son is. This is just the most charming.” In fact, “if you look up wholesome in the dictionary, it is this flawless piece of content,” Jamie Ducharme points out. A real treat We’re going to sign off for the year with this story, because as Jacob Brogan says, “this, uh, this doesn’t go where you think it’s going,” and Maggie Gordon calls it “A real treat.” Do take a moment out and read Nancy French’s Washington Post piece, I ignored warnings from friends and family not to marry my husband. Was I making a big mistake? After all, Rachael Larimore offers, “If this is not the best thing you read today, I will eat my hat.” But if you’re still not convinced, “good lord this article ... just read,” tweets Josh Marshall. And then, “Retire all other relationship/modern love columns forever,” says Drew Armstrong. | 
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