The much-hyped "Polar Vortex" that plunged much of North America into dangerously low temperatures is giving the climate change denialist crowd an opportunity to gloat—and, typically, display their ignorance. Bloomberg on Jan. 7 presented a sneering Tweet from Donald Trump dismissing global warming as "bullshit" because the "planet is freezing." But the Bloomberg account, as well as a video on the Greenpeace Blog, quotes Rutgers University climate researcher Jennifer Francis explaining how the Vortex was likely unleashed by—yup, global warming! It seems that the Jet Stream, which normally serves as a boundary separating cold air to the north from warm air to the south, is being destabilized; receding arctic sea ice lessens the temperature difference either side of the Stream, thereby slowing its velocity and causing large loops and meanders to form, and even for it to get "stuck." When this happens, North America and Europe are going either into extreme heat or extreme cold, depending on where the jet gets jammed. Recent record-breaking highs in Chicago and Fairbanks, as well as shriveling heat waves across the Great Plains, may have been caused by the same phenomenon now sending the mercury plunging in the Midwest and Northeast.

Palestinians from Qusra village near Nablus on Jan. 7 apprehended at least 18 settlers and held them captive after they raided Qusra lands, attacked a youth, and attempted to uproot olive trees. Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinan Authority official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma'an News Agency that the settlers came from the "illegal" outpost of Yesh Kodesh, and that a similar clash took place at the nearby village of Jalud. The settlers were held for several hours before being turned over to the IDF following mediation by Palestinian liaison officials. Some were beaten while being held by the villagers. The settlers apparently undertook the raid as a "price tag" attack after the IDF destroyed vineyards which had been illegally planted on Palestinian lands. MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beytenu) blasted Defense Secretary Moshe Ya'alon, saying he was "to blame" for the violence. (Ma'an, Arutz Sheva, YNet, Jan. 7)

At least 30 people were killed by gunmen said to be Hausa-Fulani herdsmen in a raid on Shonong village, in Bachit district of Nigeria's Plateau state Jan. 7. (See map.) Over 40 homes were reportedly burned by the attackers, and livestock stolen. Thousands have been killed in a spiral of violence in Plateau state in recent years, rooted in land disputes between semi-nomadic Muslim Fulani herdsmen and mainly Christian Berom farmers. Plateau lies in a belt of savanna where Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north meets the Christian-majority south. (BBC News, Leadership, Abuja, via AllAfrica, Jan. 7)

Tunisian members of parliament rejected Islam as the main source of law for the country on Dec. 4 as they voted to establish a new constitution. The Islamist-led party and secular parties overcame intense debate about Islam's role in the country before beginning to draft the new constitution. The National Constituent Assembly adopted only 12 of the proposed 146 articles despite a Jan. 14 deadline for the completion of the new constitution. The first clause of the constitution says Tunisia is "a free country, independent, with sovereignty; Islam is its religion, Arabic its language and the republic its regime." However, Article 6 makes the state the "guardian of religion," "protector of the sacred" and guarantor of "freedom of conscience." The Tunisian government employed heavy security in the capital Tunis during the parliament assembly to deter attacks from radical Islamists opposed to the adoption of the new constitution in place of Islam law.

Guatemala has emerged as a major opium producer in recent years, and now President Otto Pérez Molina—a conservative who is increasingly breaking with the US-led "drug war" consensus—is considering legalized and regulated cultivation of the poppy as an alternative to eradication. "We started exploring the capacity that we could have for controlled planting," said Pérez Molina. "What that means is that we would know exactly what extensions are being planted, what the production would be and that the sale would also be well controlled, especially for medicinal use." Interior minister Mauricio López added: "There are two paths; one is cultivated substitutes, and the other is the alternative which is controlled cultivation. This is what is already being done in other countries such as India and China, that is to say identifying hectares clearly, seeing how they are grown, carrying out the harvest, taking control of the commercialization and above all making sure this serves mainly the pharmaceutical industry."

Costa Rica's authorities announced 17 raids by the elite Drug Control Police across the Caribbean provinces of Limón and Cahuita as well as locations in the capital San José Dec. 17, that they boast resulted in the dismantling of the most important narco-trafficking operation in the country to date—with ties to Colombia and Jamaica as suppliers of cocaine and cannabis, and Europe as an export destination. Prosecutor General Jorge Chavarria said that among the 12 arrested were two officers of Public Force, the country's national police, and an officer at the Bank of Costa Rica who facilitated laundering of proceeds. The ring was reportedly led by one Rivas Bonilla AKA "Tito" or "Patrón"—who kept ahead of the law for at least three years through tip-offs from his pal on the police force. Chavarría said that the ring was the largest yet run by Costa Ricans, instead of Colombian or Mexican networks operating within the country. "History has changed," Chavarría said. "We now have Costa Rican groups who want to be entrepreneurs in drugs: owners of the drugs, the organization and the routes."

Construction of a interoceanic canal in Nicaragua has been delayed by a year and will "probably" begin in 2015. The head of the canal authority, Manuel Coronel Kautz, announced Jan. 4 that more time is needed to carry out feasibility studies and choose a route. President Daniel Ortega, who promotes the project as key to Nicaragua's "economic independence," had projected construction to start in May 2014. (BBC News, Jan. 4) The setback comes as Chinese workers brought in by HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co Ltd are swelling the population of Brito, a small town projected as the canal's Pacific terminus, in Rivas department. (IBT, Dec. 12)

On Dec. 25, Bogotá-based online newspaper Las 2 Orillas ran photos scanned from old print editions of provincial daily El Meridiano de Córdoba that showed ex-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez posing with various figures linked to narco-trafficking and illegal paramilitaries. The shots, taken when Uribe was on the campaign trail in 2002, and earlier when he was governor of Antioquia, showed him with numerous figures later tainted by the "para-politics" scandal. One was Róger Taboada, first director of the scandal-plagued rural development bank FINAGRO, who stepped down following revelations he had approved a  loan to Luis Enrique "Micky" Ramírez, the reigning drug lord of Caquetá department. Uribe also appeared with family members of now-imprisoned paramilitary warlord Salvatore Mancuso.