You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen.But do you recall Saint Nicholas of Myra, the man behind Santa Claus? The jolly old elf of Christmastime lore is an embellishment on the historical persona of a Christian pastor from the 4th century. People adapted his legacy to suit their cultural needs, altering his attributes as they went along. As a result, the man behind the holiday fable is shrouded in myths and misconceptions.
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A man dressed as Santa Claus entertains children. (John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images)
Every holiday season, families and friends convene to share affection, kindness and experience. In the ideal holiday atmosphere, one often depicted in commercials and media, such get-togethers are events of warmth, appreciation and general happiness.
If you find yourself in such a family, count yourself lucky and blessed.
If your holiday is marked with stress and difficulty, then you may be part of the rest of America, where the holiday season brings real issues to light in addition to the positive experiences of the season.
The football field-size CCGS Amundsen, breaking through the icy waters of the Northwest Passage, came to a halt. Traversing one of the most unexplored regions of Earth’s oceans, the Canadian coast guard vessel found itself amid ice 10 feet thick. It reversed course, turned 30 degrees, and proceeded forward again, trembling along the way.
This icebreaker’s objective was to carry scientists into little-charted seas high in the Canadian Arctic. There they planned to map regions of the seafloor at high resolution and pull up a sample that could reveal what happened here at the close of the last ice age, 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.
But the dilemma the scientists on this vessel faced had less to do with ancient history than the near future. By helping to map a region that’s only now becoming navigable, thanks to climate change, they’re part of a broader opening of one of Earth’s most untouched environments to a growing volume of ship traffic.
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Mark Furze, a geoscientist and professor at MacEwan University, discusses the importance of understanding how climate change is impacting the Arctic.(Alice Li/TWP)
A sport utility vehicle driven by an Australian man of Afghan descent with a history of mental illness plowed into pedestrians in Melbourne on Thursday, injuring at least 19 people, four of them critically, officials said.
While the incident bore similarities to recent terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States, and police described the ramming as a “deliberate act,” authorities said there was no evidence of terrorist links.
“We don’t have any intelligence or evidence to indicate there is a connection to terrorism,” said Shane Patton, the acting police commissioner of Victoria state, of which Melbourne is the capital. “Having said that, we continue to support this investigation with the Counter Terrorism Command to ensure there isn’t that connection and there is no ongoing threat.”
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A car plowed into pedestrians at a crowded intersection on Dec. 21 in Melbourne, Australia, injuring at least 19 people.(The Washington Post)
The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a measure rejecting the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which was repeatedly criticized as undermining the prospects for peace.
Despite blunt warnings of U.S. funding cuts, 128 countries voted in favor of the nonbinding resolution and only nine voted against it. Another 35 countries abstained.
“The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out in this assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” said Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. “We will remember it when, once again, we are called up to make the world’s largest contribution to the U.N., and we will remember it when many countries come calling on us to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”
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On Dec. 21, the United Nations voted 128-9 in favor of rejecting President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.(Reuters)
Cardinal Bernard F. Law, the Boston archbishop who became one of the most influential Catholic leaders in the United States before resigning in 2002 amid revelations that he and other prelates had known for years of rampant child molestation by parish priests, a scandal that has been called the church’s darkest crisis of the modern era, has died at 86.
The Vatican announced in a statement that Cardinal Law died “after a long illness,” without offering further details. He had been recently hospitalized in Rome.
For more than half a century, Cardinal Law dedicated himself to the church, an institution that became his home after his itinerant upbringing as the son of a commercial and military aviator. As he rose from parish priest to Boston archbishop — the steward of one of the most Catholic American cities — he promoted traditional Catholic doctrine and envisioned the church as a guarantor of social justice in the 20th century.
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Cardinal Bernard Law, a key figure in the church abuse scandal, passed away at the age of 86 on Dec. 20. He resigned as Boston’s archbishop in 2002.(Reuters)
Several people were killed and scores more injured when an Amtrak train on its inaugural trip on a new route derailed south of Seattle on Monday morning while crossing a bridge above a busy highway, authorities said.
Officials said 13 cars jumped the tracks. The Associated Press reported the derailment killed at least six people, citing an anonymous U.S. official who was briefed on the investigation. Local officials haven’t confirmed the death toll.
A total of 77 people were sent to hospitals, according to CHI Franciscan Health, which operates numerous hospitals in Western Washington. Some patients are in critical conditions, a spokesman said. The injured are in St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, St. Claire Hospital in Lakewood, St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor and Tacoma General Hospital and Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia. MultiCare Health System, a nonprofit healthcare group that manages multiple hospitals in the area, said MultiCare hospitals have about 20 patients in their care.
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Several people were killed after an Amtrak train derailed in Washington state about 40 miles south of Seattle on Dec. 18.(Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)
More than a decade after the improvised explosive device became the scourge of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is battling another relatively rudimentary device that threatens to wreak havoc on American troops: the drone.
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Raytheon has mounted a high-energy laser weapon on top of a militarized dune buggy that it says can be used to take out drones.
A federal judge on Monday denied the Trump administration’s request to delay an order requiring the military to begin accepting transgender recruits starting Jan. 1, saying the argument for more time seemed based on “vague claims.”
“The Court is not persuaded that Defendants will be irreparably injured by” meeting the New Year’s Day deadline, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
The ruling from Kollar-Kotelly of the District of Columbia follows her earlier opinion blocking the president’s ban on military recruitment of transgender men and women that possibly would have forced the dismissal of current service members starting in March.
Here’s one way to put this extraordinary week into perspective, after sexual misconduct allegations felled three members of Congress: To find a comparable moment of mass resignations, you’d have to go back to the Civil War.
In the months leading up to that conflict, Southern senators resigned en masse from the U.S. Senate over disputes about slavery. In January 1861, five senators in one day left their jobs as their states seceded from the Union. Senators from Northern states expelled an additional 10 Southern senators before they could resign.
“I think it’s quite unprecedented,” said Brooklyn College historian and professor Robert David Johnson. “If you look over the history of the 20th century in Congress, there just is no comparable event.”
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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) leaves the Capitol after announcing his resignation Thursday. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
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A man dressed as Santa Claus entertains children. (John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images)
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