10 things you need to know today: December 31, 2015

Bill Cosby will face the criminal charges against him on January 14.

(Image credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

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1. Cosby charged with sexual assault
2. Brussels New Year's celebration scrapped due to terror threats
3. Mexico stays extradition of teen fugitive Ethan Couch
4. Friend of San Bernardino attacker indicted for alleged earlier plots
5. U.S. prepares first post-nuclear-deal sanctions against Iran
6. Washington Post report details Rubio's help for brother-in-law
7. Repeatedly postponed Central African Republic elections held without violence
8. Knicks player shot, robbed in overnight attack in New York City
9. Temperature spikes above freezing at North Pole
10. A drug company recently acquired by Martin Shkreli files for bankruptcy protection

published 31 December 2015

1. Cosby charged with sexual assault

Comedian Bill Cosby, 78, was charged with sexual assault in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. The accuser worked with the basketball team at Temple University, Cosby's alma mater. She said Cosby became a mentor and friend, then drugged and sexually abused her at his home in 2004. Cosby did not enter a plea in his first court appearance, and his bail was set at $1 million. The case, which Cosby's lawyers called unjustified, marked the first charges since more than 50 women accused the entertainer of sexual assault.

Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur on Wednesday canceled the Belgian capital's New Year's Eve celebration due to terror threats against several cities around the world. Two people have been arrested for allegedly plotting a New Year's attack. Mayeur said it would be impossible to adequately screen the tens of thousands expected to come out for the main fireworks display. Belgian police said Thursday they had arrested a 10th person linked to the November Paris terror attacks. Turkish authorities a day earlier said they arrested two people for an alleged New Year's attack plot.

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Mexico on Wednesday granted captured fugitive Ethan Couch a three-day stay of deportation to Texas, where he could face jail time. Couch is widely known for his lawyers' "affluenza" defense against a 2013 drunken-driving manslaughter charged. His lawyers claimed he was too spoiled to know right from wrong. U.S. Marshals Service officials said it could take "two weeks to two months" to bring Couch, 18, back. His mother returned to the U.S. Thursday to face charges of helping him flee to Puerto Vallarta.

On Wednesday a federal grand jury indicted Enrique Marquez Jr. on charges of conspiring with San Bernardino massacre attacker Syed Farook to plan terror attacks in 2011 and 2012. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were killed in a shootout with police after fatally shooting 14 people, most of them social workers and colleagues of Farook, at a holiday party. Prosecutors said there was no evidence Marquez knew of the plan for the San Bernardino attack.

The Obama administration on Wednesday sent Congress a draft of new sanctions it plans to impose against five Iranians and several businesses and individuals outside Iran as punishment for Tehran's ballistic missile tests in October and November. The sanctions would be the first issued by the U.S. since it and five other nations signed a deal with Iran to curb its controversial nuclear program, which Tehran insists is peaceful but others say has gotten dangerously close to producing nuclear weapons. The United Nations has banned Iran from working on missiles that could carry nuclear warheads.

GOP presidential contender Sen. Marco Rubio used his influence in 2002 as majority whip in the Florida House of Representatives to help get a real estate license for his brother-in-law, who had been released from prison 20 months earlier after serving time for cocaine trafficking, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. According to a letter the newspaper obtained in a public records request, Rubio did not mention the man, Orlando Cicilia, was married to his sister. Rubio’s presidential campaign adviser, Todd Harris, said Rubio only recommended Cicilia after he had paid his debt to society, and it would have been inappropriate to mention their relationship as that might have been perceived as "undue pressure."

On Wednesday the Central African Republic held long-delayed presidential and legislative elections in an effort to end years of deadly fighting between Christians and Muslims. Peacekeepers patrolled the streets, and there were no signs of the violence that had caused the voting to be repeatedly postponed. With no opinion polls to go on, it was impossible to predict a winner among the 30 presidential candidates, but Interim President Catherine Samba-Panza was barred from running.

New York Knicks forward Cleanthony Early was shot in the knee Wednesday by robbers in Queens, New York. Early, 24, reportedly was leaving a strip club with his girlfriend when his Uber was boxed in by three cars. Several men with semi-automatic weapons then pulled the athlete from the back seat, and took his cash, gold jewelry, iPhone, and gold caps from his teeth before shooting him. Early was taken to a hospital, where he was in stable condition.

A freak heatwave pushed temperatures above freezing at the North Pole on Wednesday, 20 degrees Celsius above normal for the end of December. Canadian weather authorities blamed the same Atlantic storm that brought record high Christmas temperatures to North America, and winds and floods to the U.K. "It's a very violent and extremely powerful depression, so it's not surprising that hot temperatures have been pushed so far north," said Canadian government meteorologist Nathalie Hasell.

Troubled drugmaker KaloBios filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, less than two weeks after its controversial leader, Martin Shkreli, was arrested on securities fraud charges. The former hedge-fund manager, dubbed "Pharma Bro," was vilified after another pharmaceutical company he ran, Turing, acquired the rights to a lifesaving drug and hiked the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Turing is now seeking a replacement for Shkreli, who resigned as CEO after his arrest.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.