December 15, 2014 (Monday)
Disasters and accidents
- A fire at a karaoke bar in China's Henan province kills at least 11 people. (IANS via The Hindu)
- An emergency rescue SMURD helicopter crashes into Lake Siutghiol, Constanţa County, Romania with four people killed. (ABC)[permanent dead link]
- The death toll of the 2014 Indonesia landslide rises to 56. (AP via Fox News)
International relations
- Philippine prosecutors charge a United States Marine with murder over the death of Jennifer Laude, a Filipino transgender woman. (The Washington Post)
- Authorized by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Denmark becomes the first country to officially submit a claim on the North Pole. (UPI)
- About ten thousand people, including those of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA), protest in Germany against the presence of Muslims. (The Telegram)
Law and crime
- 2014 Sydney hostage crisis
- A gunman, Man Haron Monis, takes 17 people hostage at Lindt Chocolate Café in Martin Place, Sydney. (BBC) (ABC) (Melbourne Herald-Sun)
- Montgomery County, Pennsylvania shootings
- A shooting spree kills six people throughout Montgomery County in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania suburbs. The suspect, Bradley William Stone, remains at large. (WPVI-TV) (Philadelphia Inquirer)
- The Supreme Court of the United States rules by an 8–1 vote that evidence collected based on a reasonable misinterpretation of the law can be used at trial and is not deemed an unreasonable search or seizure. (Wall Street Journal)(Washington Post)
- An appellate court in Vietnam upholds a 30-year prison sentence and convictions for Nguyen Duc Kien, a former businessman. (Tuoi Tre)
Politics and elections
- 2014 Hong Kong protests
- Authorities remove the last remaining protest camp, the one at Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. (Wall Street Journal)(BBC)
- The United States Senate approves Vivek Murthy's nomination as Surgeon General by a 51–43 vote. (CBS)