* As fighting continues, new UN report says 60,000 have been killed in Syria's war. * Predictions for events in 2013. * Four hundred and nine people have been killed by guns in the U.S. since Newtown. * In case you heard about the LAPD buying back rocket launchers, it
* Gunshot wound survivors tell their stories on Reddit. * Over the winter break, schoolteachers learned how to shoot guns. * Home schooling in the U.S. is growing, and it's not just religious families who are doing it. * The divisive, conflicted history of the Montessori system in the U.S.
* House passes bill to avoid fiscal cliff, but faces debt-ceiling and sequester debates. * Just a few years ago, the tax deal pushed through Congress on Tuesday would have been a Republican fiscal fantasy. * Survey of highlights from the fight, including Boehner telling Reid, "Go fuck yourself." * French
We’ve left off the identifying information from the below map. Try guessing what it references using only clues contained within the map. The answer is linked below.
* Charity Navigator's top 10 lists of various charities' achievements and embarrassments. * See also: Best Practices of Savvy Donors. * Cunningham Children's Home offers healing to young people with serious emotional and behavioral disabilities. * The Ronald McDonald House of Chapel Hill, NC—a beacon of hope for
* Schwarzenegger bicycles Venice Beach just to inhale stray smoke, and other notes on weed in California. * Overview of "sea change" taking place globally toward gay marriage. * In case this applies to your late-December plans somehow: Is he cute or is he British? * French consumer trends of 2012.
* One in eight Americans believed the world would end today. * Portraits of people preparing for the Mayan doomsday, and/or the end of civilization. * Chart shows dates when the world was predicted to end by various prognosticators. * The Times goes big and interactive on the Stevens Pass avalanche at Tunnel
* North Korea assessed one year later, where the new Kim is thriving, though loose nukes loom. * In case you forgot: Photographs of the Syrian civil war. * Now that more and more Mexicans sport the label “middle class,” fashionistas are vying to clothe them. * List of trash humans have left behind
* Obama vows swift action on gun control; Republicans stick to NRA talking point, saying now is not the time. * Details about recent cases and lives lost to guns in Tennessee, Kansas, Nevada, Alabama, and Missouri. * The view from Germany: [Newtown] was no uncontrollable natural disaster. * Professor tweets about wanting NRA
* Obama is Time's person of the year, followed by a 15-year-old girl. * French psychologist convicted of manslaughter after her patient killed his grandmother. * Therapist explains what it's like to experience a midlife crisis—as a therapist. * Picture of the president composing his Newtown speech
