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NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of police officers from across the country are in New York City for the funeral of a police officer shot to death with his partner in an ambush last week. The officers in dress blue uniforms have gathered outside the Christ Tabernacle Church in Queens for the services. Vice President Joe Biden and Mayor Bill de Blasio are among those expected to speak at Officer Rafael Ramos' funeral. Ramos and Officer Wenjian Liu were killed last weekend while sitting in their patrol car on a Brooklyn street.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A Somali intelligence official says a falling out among extremist leaders may have led one al-Shabab's leaders to surrender to police today. Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi had a $3 million bounty on his head. On Christmas day, al-Shabab launched an attack at the African Union base in Mogadishu, killing nine people. The group said the attack was in retaliation for the killing of the group's leader Ahmed Abdi Godane in a U.S. airstrike earlier this year.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's army says it has deployed a suicide drone for the first time in military drills near the Strait of Hormuz. The chief commander of the army's ground forces describes the unmanned aircraft as a "mobile bomb." State media says the aerial device is designed to strike air, ground and naval targets. The six-day military exercise is being carried out over an 850,000-square-mile area near the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine says the closure of rail and road connections with Crimea is expected to be only a temporary measure. A spokesman for Ukraine's security council says train and bus traffic was suspended because of "a high likelihood of sabotage groups entering" posing as local people. He did not say how long the closure is expected to last.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new poll finds Americans looking with some optimism toward 2015. The Associated Press-Times Square Alliance poll finds that nearly half predict a better year for themselves in 2015 while only 1 in 10 think it will be worse. Opinions on the top news of 2014 is about evenly divided among the rise of the Islamic State group, protests over the killings of black men by police and the Ebola outbreak. A separate survey of news directors and editors picks the police killings.
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