Charged

Authorities on Dec. 21 charged Andrew McClinton with arson for allegedly burning Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church, an African-American church in Greenville, Miss., in November. McClinton, an African-American, attended the church. The attack included a spray-painted “Vote Trump” message on the church, leading authorities initially to suspect a political motivation (see “Human Race,” Nov. 26). Hopewell is boarded up currently and will probably be torn down. Rebuilding will take months, and the predominantly white congregation of First Baptist Church has welcomed the Hopewell congregation to use its building for as long as Hopewell needs it.

Accused

Authorities say three Chinese citizens hacked into the computers of U.S. law firms, making more than $4 million off their fraud. The three, posing as information technology analysts, allegedly stole information from seven New York firms for use in insider trading, making tens of thousands of attempts before they broke into their systems. They allegedly made investments based on the information they stole, landing massive profits and sparking an investigation. Authorities have arrested one of the alleged hackers, Iat Hong from Hong Kong, but the other two are still at large.

Bombed

A driver plowed a van carrying gas cylinders into the headquarters building of the Australian Christian Lobby in Deakin on Dec. 21, causing damage to the building but no injuries to those inside it. The driver was treated at a hospital for injuries. Police quickly said the driver’s actions “were not politically, religiously or ideologically motivated.” ACL managing director (and WORLD’s 2016 Daniel of the Year) Lyle Shelton disagreed, telling ABC radio the act was “an attack against the sort of things that we’ve been saying in the public square.”

Reunited

More than a dozen Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram were reunited with their families, seeing them on Christmas Day for the first time since their kidnapping. The schoolgirls, 21 of them and a baby, waited nearly three years for their kidnappers to release them. In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 Christian girls and forced them to convert to Islam, sparking international outrage. Nigerian authorities and an unidentified Swiss contingent brokered a deal leading to the release of these 21 girls. The girls spent two months undergoing psychoanalysis and medical assistance before they went home to their families.

Admitted

Russian officials in December conceded, for the first time, the large-scale doping of their Olympic athletes. Olympic officials have been collecting information chronicling an institutional doping conspiracy for years. The Russian sports agency began by vehemently denying the accusations, even after Olympic officials banned Russian athletes from the last Olympics. But the investigation has now been published, and the International Olympic Committee required the nation to admit the truth in order to be accepted again as an equal Olympic competitor and possible host of future games. The Russians, however, only admitted to a low-level conspiracy, still claiming the Russian government was not involved.