In his New Year message, Pope Francis called for a firm commitment to respect life from the womb to old age, and urged wealthy nations to cancel the debts of the poorest countries in the Jubilee year.

Carter’s open “born again” faith made him a political sensation in 1976 and then, as evangelicals drifted right, a cautionary tale. His Sunday school marathons in Plains told the fuller story.

Arnold Rüütel, who presided over Estonia’s break with Moscow as its last Soviet-era leader and later, as president, took the country into the EU and NATO, died on New Year’s Eve at 96.

Berlin police made about 400 arrests as emergency crews were pelted with fireworks; five men died in fireworks accidents across Germany, reviving demands for a ban on private pyrotechnics.