Bill Clinton, the former president, will swear in Bill de Blasio, who managed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s successful 2000 Senate campaign, as New York City’s 109th mayor at a ceremony Wednesday on the steps of City Hall in Lower Manhattan.

Helen Williams, a 44-year-old South Carolina woman, was charged with criminal domestic violence on accusations that she beat and stabbed her common-law husband with a ceramic squirrel after he returned home without beer.

Xi Jinping, the president of China, surprised workers at the Qing-Feng Steamed Dumpling Shop in Beijing by stopping in unannounced and buying a lunch of buns stuffed with pork and onions, green vegetables, and stewed pig livers and intestines, which he ate alongside other diners in the eatery while they took his photograph.

Ralph Hall, a Republican lawmaker from Texas who at age 90 is the oldest person ever to serve in the U.S. House, filed for re-election, entering the field with five Republican primary challengers, but said the 2014 campaign will be his last.

Abubakar Shekau, an Islamic extremist leader in northeastern Nigeria, released a video saying that the bloody insurgency in the country will continue because Allah says his followers must decapitate and mutilate, adding that his men would have eaten their enemies after a recent attack, but Allah forbids cannibalism.

Kayla Blackmon, 17, who turned in an envelope containing $1,600 that she found while working at Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers in San Antonio, received a $100 reward from the customer who lost the cash and a $100 gift card from the restaurant’s owner.

Mike Butzberger, pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church, said he had no intention of hurting or insulting anyone when his Florida church’s marquee read “Christmas - Easier to spell than Hanukkah,” a message he removed after receiving complaints.

Jacqueline Zwambila, Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Australia, said harassment by security agents from her southern African country prompted her to request political asylum from the government in Canberra days before her term as ambassador was to end.

Alexis Valdez, 18, was charged with murder in the death of Sylvester Diaz-Hernandez, a 41-year-old man whose decapitated body was found in a Chicago apartment.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/29/2013