quote [ KIEV, Ukraine -- Russia is building up its land forces and weapons along the border, Ukraine's president said Saturday as German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Russia not to block Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine were still escalating a week after a naval clash in the Black Sea on Nov. 25 in which Russia fired on three Ukrainian naval ships then seized them and their 24 crew members. ]

quote [ The faculty union at Michigan's Oakland University purchased 2,500 hockey pucks to be used as a potential weapon of last resort. The pucks also double as a fundraising tool. ]

quote [ The three ships were sailing off the coast of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, when they were seized.

Ukraine said it was a Russian "act of aggression". Moscow said the ships had illegally entered its waters.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he was proposing that parliament back a 30-day martial law - half the length of that recommended by Ukraine's security and defence council a day earlier. ]

quote [ Lee and her doctors didn?t know what to call the mystery condition, so some of them referred to it as the Thing. (Smith said other names came later, including Immaculate Concussion and Havana Syndrome.) At the end of the testing, Lee told one of the specialists that she didn?t think she had the Thing. The specialist replied, ?Oh, it?s definitely the Thing.? ]

quote [ Talks between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a top North Korean official were canceled last week due to "a scheduling issue," according to the State Department ? but the BBC reported that the meeting was canceled because "the North Koreans didn't get on the plane as planned." ]

quote [ Benjamin Craig Matthews of Mountain Home faces five felony counts of terroristic threatening, nine misdemeanor counts of harassing communications and four misdemeanor counts of second-degree terroristic threatening. He was being held in the Baxter County jail in lieu of a $15,000 bond. ]

quote [ Several people had been injured after someone opened fire inside the Borderline Bar & Grill, a country music themed bar in Ventura County. ]

quote [ Multiple reports from Gaza say that the 20-year-old protester photographed last month with a slingshot and a Palestinian flag was among those injured by Israeli troops in the most recent protests. ]

quote [ Scott Beierle, who shot dead two women at a yoga studio in Tallahassee, Florida, on Friday before killing himself, was a far-right extremist and self-proclaimed misogynist who railed against women, black people, and immigrants in a series of online videos and songs. ]

quote [ In a video posted Wednesday, Shea argues that the United States is ?a Christian nation? and asserts that his detractors are part of a so-called ?counter state? made up of ?Marxists? and ?Islamists.? ]