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This year brought a mixed bag of finishes, from AMC’s “Better Call Saul” – which put a cherry on top of its splendid run – to Showtime’s “Ray Donovan,” which after ending abruptly in 2020 presented a dreary movie intended to provide its audience a belated degree of closure.

Your one last chance to make a wish upon a shooting star in 2022 is approaching! Pay attention skywatchers, because the Ursids are upon us, not only marking the last meteor shower of the month, but the final celestial spectacle of the year. NASA considers the annual Ursid meteor shower "low-key" due to the minimal rate the stars shoot in comparison to the Geminids that preceded them. (The latter is the one the space agency deems the "best and most reliable" meteor shower overall.)

Drinking two or more cups of coffee per day may significantly raise the risk of heart disease-related death in some patients, a study suggests. Japanese researchers found people whose blood pressure was above 160/100 mmHg - considered extremely high - were twice as likely to die from a cardiac issue compared to people with lower levels.

National Guard deployed as desperate migrants spill into the streets of El Paso Migrants sheltered from the cold on the banks of the Rio Grande and in the streets of El Paso as a Trump-era Covid law barring many from seeking asylum received a last-minute extension. El Paso is at a breaking point as record numbers of migrants flood the city's streets. Reports have emerged that food banks are running out and shelters are overflowing.

Russia and China have signed a formal agreement to jointly explore the Moon and construct a scientific base on the lunar surface by the year 2035. The arrangement was announced today by Yury Borisov, the head of the Russian state space corporation, Roscosmos, on the state-owned news network Russia-24. The news follows the announcement on December 5 this year by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin that the intergovernmental agreement between the two powers had been prepared for signing.

Shares in electric vehicle maker Tesla sank to a new 52-week low on Tuesday, closing around $138 per share, or 8% lower for the day in an otherwise mixed day for stocks. CEO Elon Musk tried to blame the sinking price partly on macroeconomic factors.

^ The power company manager had barely begun explaining how his workmen were restoring service, when a residents’ representative from a nearby housing block interrupted to give thanks. Gesturing to the workmen repairing buried power lines, the middle-aged woman declared they were heroes. “I want to say that all the workers of communal services, electric companies and others are all our soldiers: heroes in the rear,” she told the Telegraph, before walking off.

The prime minister has said "the world is watching" the Taliban after women in Afghanistan were ordered to stop attending university until further notice. Taliban security forces in Kabul have been enforcing the higher education ban for women by blocking their access to universities, with a video showing women weeping and consoling each other outside a campus in the capital.

With overcrowding, understaffing and rising levels of violence, why would anyone want to work in a prison? ITV News was given rare and exclusive access to new recruits working on the frontline in the country’s most notorious prisons. Officer Brown, 23, is on an early shift at HMP Belmarsh, a maximum-security male prison in South East London with a fearsome reputation, housing 700 inmates from terrorists to sex offenders.

The Home Office could use disused cruise ships to house asylum seekers while their claims are being processed. Home Secretary Suella Braverman confirmed her department is looking at the idea as an alternative to resorting to costly hotels and suggested officials were in talks with ship companies. Disused holiday parks and former student halls are also being "looked at" under new plans by the Home Office, she added, saying that hotels were costing the British taxpayer over £5 million a day.

A statement is released by the Bulgarian government following an investigation by Sky News and others that uncovered a host of allegations of abuses against migrants entering the country from Turkey.