Month: December 2024

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Santa Claus has arrived in Rio de Janeiro — under water. Starting on Saturday, he’ll be spotted at AquaRio Marine Aquarium swimming with sharks during their daily fish feeding sessions as part of the city’s Christmas festivities. Nine-year-old Guilherme Martins Matos said he’d seen Santa — or at least an

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s coast guard says it continues to search for survivors or victims of a speedboat that capsized carrying migrants off the eastern Greek island of Rhodes. The capsizing, the result of the boat’s maneuvering to evade a patrol vessel, according to authorities, left eight confirmed dead. A total of 18 migrants,

Associated Press Federal officials have joined with the state of Arizona to begin fulfilling a settlement agreement that was reached with the Hopi Tribe nearly three decades ago. Officials on Friday filed condemnation documents to start transferring dozens of square miles of state land into trust for the Hopi. Tribal leaders called it a historic

AP Business Writer Amazon delivery drivers and Starbucks baristas are on strike in a handful of U.S. cities as they seek to exert pressure on the two major companies to recognize them as unionized employees or to meet demands for an inaugural labor contract. Strikes during busy periods like the holidays can help unions exercise

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — After days of threats and demands, Donald Trump had little to show for it once lawmakers passed a budget deal in the early hours of Saturday, narrowly averting a pre-Christmas government shutdown. The president-elect successfully pushed House Republicans to jettison some spending, but he failed to achieve his central goal

Associated Press KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — A ferry overloaded with people returning home for Christmas capsized on the Busira River in northeastern Congo, leaving 38 people confirmed dead and over 100 others missing, officials and eyewitnesses said Saturday. Twenty people have been rescued so far. The sinking of the ferry late Friday came less than

AP Technology Writer Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26. Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August.

Associated Press GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyana’s government has formally protested to Venezuela following the completion by Venezuela’s armed forces of a bridge built on a remote river island shared by both countries. Work on the bridge, which links Venezuela’s mainland to a military base, has caused a decades-old row over border lines in the

MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Four women and a 9-year-old boy were killed and 200 people were injured when a man drove into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers in the German city of Magdeburg — an attack that has left Germans mourning the victims and with a shaken sense of security. How did the

Associated Press TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s prime minister said Saturday the government will shut down the video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children. Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents following the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teen after

Associated Press BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is drawing a direct link between immigration and an attack in Germany where a man drove into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers, killing at least five people and injuring 200 others. Orbán on Saturday also implied that the 27-nation bloc’s migration policies

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed a bill into law Saturday that averts a government shutdown, bringing a final close to days of upheaval after Congress approved a temporary funding plan just past the deadline and refused President-elect Donald Trump’s core debt demands in the package. The deal funds the government at

Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The top uniformed police officer in the New York Police Department has resigned amid allegations he demanded sex from a subordinate. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Saturday she accepted the resignation of Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey on Friday night, effective immediately. John Chell, the department’s chief of patrol,

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The Pakistani Taliban says it carried out a deadly attack on a military checkpoint in the country’s northwest. It’s the militant group’s latest assault on troops in the restive province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan. The group said it killed 35 soldiers and injured 15 others in an early Saturday

Associated Press ROME (AP) — The Vatican has taken the first main step to implement Pope Francis’ wish that Belgium’s late king be beatified for having abdicated for a day rather than approve legislation to legalize abortion. The Holy See’s saint-making office on Dec. 17 established a historical commission, made up of experts in Belgian

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is allocating more than $100 billion in emergency aid to address extensive damage caused by hurricane and other disasters. The money is in a bill passed early Saturday by Congress after this week’s scramble to find consensus on a government spending bill. The money is being provided after back-to-back

AP Sports Writer The Washington Commanders’ path to returning to nation’s capital is clear after an on-again, off-again saga in Congress ended with a late reprieve. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution early Saturday to transfer the land including old RFK Stadium from the federal government to the District of Columbia. A provision to do

Associated Press SAO PAULO (AP) — A crash between a passenger bus and a truck early Saturday killed 38 people on a highway in Minas Gerais, a state in southeastern Brazil, officials said. The Minas Gerais fire department, which responded to the scene, said 13 others were taken to hospitals near the city of Teofilo

Associated Press LONDON (AP) — A car-ramming at a Christmas market in Germany, which police are treating as an attack, is the latest in a grim series of events in which vehicles have been used as deadly weapons. There have been a spate of such attacks over the past decade, some committed by groups but

Hanukkah — also spelled Chanukah or other transliterations from Hebrew — is Judaism’s “festival of lights.” On eight consecutive nightfalls, Jews gather with family and friends to light one additional candle in the menorah — a multibranched candelabra. In Hebrew, Hanukkah means “dedication,” and the holiday marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Authorities in Nigeria say ten people, including four children, have been killed in a stampede in the capital city as a large crowd gathered to collect food items distributed by a local church at a Christmas event. Police said the stampede occurred in the early morning hours on Saturday at the

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A nearly two-year investigation by Democratic senators of Supreme Court ethics details more luxury travel by Justice Clarence Thomas and urges Congress to establish a way to enforce a new code of conduct. Any movement on the issue appears unlikely as Republicans prepare to take control of the Senate in

LONDON (AP) — Thousands of tourists, pagans, druids and people yearning for the promise of spring have marked the dawn of the shortest day of the year at the ancient Stonehenge monument. Some cheered and others beat drums as the sun rose at 8:09 a.m. on Saturday over the giant standing stones on the day

Associated Press ROME (AP) — Pope Francis is suffering from a cold and will deliver his Sunday blessing from indoors, the Vatican said, announcing the precautions ahead of a busy Christmas period and launch of the Holy Year that will sorely test Francis’ stamina and health. The Vatican cited the cold temperatures outside and Francis’