CLEVELAND — A grand jury declines to indict a white police officer in the killing of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy who was shot while playing with what turned out to be a pellet gun.

 

CHICAGO — The fatal shootings of a woman who worked with anti-violence community groups and a young man visiting his father for the holidays has raised further questions about the Chicago police department, already under intense scrutiny after the killing of black teenager.

 

GARLAND, Texas — The storm system that spawned deadly tornadoes in Texas over the weekend brings heavy snow, ice and blustery winds to several states in the nation's midsection, as well as heavy rain in already water-logged areas where flooding has already been blamed for more than a dozen deaths.

 

CONCORDIA, Argentina — Massive, widespread flooding forced tens of thousands of people in South America to take refuge in shelters on Monday, as they endured heat, bugs and dirty running water because of contaminated sewer lines

 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A Puerto Rico policeman fatally shot two high-ranking officers and a policewoman following an argument and hostage taking at work that temporarily shut down the station in the U.S. territory's second largest city, authorities say. The suspect was immediately placed under arrest.

 

PRESIDENTIAL RACE-RUBIO - With a nationally focused campaign that leans on strong debate performances and television advertising, Marco Rubio isn't going all out in any one of the early voting states.

 

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Relatives of a Syrian boy whose lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach, sparking worldwide concern for the refugee crisis, have landed in Canada.

 

WASHINGTON — The first of 17 detainees scheduled to be released from the Guantanamo Bay prison in January will be transferred next week, as the Obama administration continues to reduce the population at the controversial detention center, a senior U.S. official says.

 

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Central American nations have reached a deal to let the first of thousands of stranded Cuban migrants continue their journey north toward the United States next month, officials said.

 

NEW YORK — The attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo made France the second deadliest country for journalists in 2015, while 69 journalists worldwide were killed for their work during the year, the Committee to Protect Journalists says in its latest annual report.

 

There's a dark side to those delightfully low gas prices: Housing markets are slumping in communities that were recently flush from the U.S. shale oil fracking boom. Home sales are down sharply this year in North Dakota and the West Texas cities of Midland and Odessa. Home sales have also slowed in El Paso, and, more recently, in Houston.

 

LOS ANGELES — Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister, the Motorhead frontman whose outsized persona made him a hero for generations of hard-rockers and metal-heads, has died. He was 70.

 

LOS ANGELES — "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" soared to a galactic $1 billion in ticket sales over a record-breaking weekend at the Christmas box office.