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ASHLAND, Miss. (AP) — It is not, and will not be remembered as a season of joy in parts of northern Mississippi and Tennessee where the death toll is at 13 from severe weather. There was one other death in Arkansas. Experts say unseasonable warmth generated tornadoes from Arkansas to Michigan. Torrential rains caused flooding in Alabama and a mudslide in Georgia.
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Authorities in southeastern Nigeria say a gas tanker truck fire has killed more than 100 people. The Christmas Eve blast happened as scores of people in a predominantly-Christin community (Nnewi) had lined up to refill their cooking gas cylinders.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, say one person was killed after an argument erupted at a crowded shopping mall on Christmas Eve. Police said in a statement that one person, described as "armed," was shot and pronounced dead at the scene -- Northlake Mall. No officers were injured.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Influential Florida civil rights leader Dr. Robert B. Hayling has died. Hayling, who was a dentist, spent six months in a Florida jail and reform school in 1964 when he and three others asked to be served at a Woolworth's lunch counter. They were released only after protests by Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson and others. Hayling was 86.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's governor has granted pardons to 91 people for criminal convictions -- and they include actor Robert Downey Junior. He was pardoned for a nearly 20-year-old felony drug conviction that led to Downey's imprisonment for about a year. Governor Jerry Brown's office says the people who were pardoned have demonstrated that they have rehabilitated themselves. They've all been out of custody for at least 10 years.
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