White Christmas on its way for Northeast, Midwest

CHICAGO (AP) — If you live in the Northeast or Midwest, you're not dreaming: It's probably going to be a white Christmas.

But the trade-off is hazardous driving conditions across New England and the Great Plains. Out west, the Rocky Mountains have been pounded this weekend.

The storm system attacking the Mississippi River and to the east started in Nebraska, swept across Iowa and will dump several inches of snow on Chicago. Aside from a lake-effect dump of as much as 4 inches (10 centimeters), accumulation in the nation's third-largest city will be slightly less than predicted, said Ricky Castro, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. It's headed for the East Coast Sunday night to dump more through midday on Christmas.

It's a welcome site for snow-lovers in a season short on the white stuff — just over 2 inches (5 centimeters) previously in Chicago, Castro said.

"It's a more wintry feel for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, with a cold week ahead," Castro said.

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N. Korea says it's a 'pipe dream' that it will give up nukes

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said it is a "pipe dream" for the United States to think it will give up its nuclear weapons, and called the latest U.N. sanctions to target the country "an act of war" that violates its sovereignty.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved tough new sanctions against North Korea on Friday in response to its latest launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang says can reach anywhere on the U.S. mainland. The resolution was drafted by the United States and negotiated with the North's closest ally, China.

"We define this 'sanctions resolution' rigged up by the U.S. and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region and categorically reject the 'resolution,'" North Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The ministry said the sanctions are tantamount to a "complete economic blockade" of North Korea.

"If the U.S. wishes to live safely, it must abandon its hostile policy towards the DPRK and learn to co-exist with the country that has nuclear weapons and should wake up from its pipe dream of our country giving up nuclear weapons which we have developed and completed through all kinds of hardships," said the statement, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

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Guatemala says it is moving embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala's president announced on Christmas Eve that the Central American country will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, becoming the first nation to follow the lead of U.S. President Donald Trump in ordering the change.

Guatemala was one of nine nations that voted with the United States and Israel on Thursday when the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a non-binding resolution denouncing Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Trump didn't set any timetable for moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and neither did Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales.

In a post on his official Facebook account Sunday, Morales said that after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he decided to instruct Guatemala's foreign ministry to move the embassy.

Guatemala and Israel have long had close ties, especially in security matters and Israeli arms sales to Guatemala.

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Peru's president grants medical pardon for jailed Fujimori

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru's president announced Sunday night that he granted a medical pardon to jailed former strongman Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses, corruption and the sanctioning of death squads.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski released a statement on Christmas Eve saying he decided to free Fujimori for "humanitarian reasons," citing doctors who had determined the ex-leader suffers from incurable and degenerative problems.

The 79-year-old Fujimori, who governed from 1990 to 2000, is a polarizing figure in Peru. Some Peruvians laud him for defeating the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement, while others loathe him for human rights violations carried out under his government and some human rights groups quickly criticized the pardon.

His daughter, Keiko Fujimori, narrowly lost Peru's last presidential election to Kuczynski, and her party dominates congress. Her party mounted an attempt this month to oust Kuczynski over business ties to the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which is at the center of a huge Latin American corruption scandal, but the president survived the impeachment vote late Thursday.

Critics of Fujimori again raised speculation that Kuczynski agreed to pardon the former leader in return for some opposition lawmakers not supporting his impeachment.

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump on making Christmas great again

WASHINGTON (AP) — To hear Donald Trump talk, you'd think Barack Obama was the president who stole Christmas.

Although Trump doesn't generally single him out by name on this subject, the president's meaning is unmistakable when he declares, as he has done since long before the holiday season, that's he making it OK to talk about Christmas again. Obama, it would seem, did not. But that's not what the record shows.

A look at that matter and others that arose in a week bristling with action on taxes and Trump's words on foreign policy, politics and more:

TRUMP: "People are proud to be saying Merry Christmas again. I am proud to have led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! — a tweet Christmas Eve.

THE FACTS: "Merry Christmas," the president said when presiding over the lighting of the National Christmas Tree and celebrating "the birth of our Savior."

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AP PHOTOS: Lingering drought threatens Holy Land's waters

JERUSALEM (AP) — As Israel heads into its fifth consecutive year of drought, the Sea of Galilee stands at a century low, much of the Jordan River is a fetid trickle and the Dead Sea is rapidly shrinking.

The biblical bodies of waters — pilgrimage sites for baptisms and beach parties alike — are crucial to the survival and stability of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians. But more and more of the river the ancient Israelites crossed to enter the Holy Land is drying up — the result of climate change, growing populations and the increasing use of its water for agriculture.

The water basin is dotted with sacred sites for Jews, Muslims and Christians. Jesus, who was baptized in the Jordan, is said to have walked on the waters of the Sea of Galilee and multiplied loaves and fishes on its shores. The medieval Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides is buried by the lakeshore, and companions of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad are buried on the eastern banks of the Jordan.

For visitors with high expectations for such iconic sites, the scenes can be shocking.

"If you blink when you cross the Allenby Bridge," which links Jordan and the West Bank, "then you'll miss seeing the Jordan River," said Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli director of EcoPeace, an organization of Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian environmentalists.

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Trump's busy Christmas Eve: calls to troops, talk of Santa

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump's first Christmas Eve in office was a busy one that unfolded like this: tweet against perceived adversaries, cheer U.S. troops spending the holidays overseas, play golf, chat with children anxious to know when Santa will bring their presents, eat dinner with the family and attend a church service.

"Today and every day, we're incredibly thankful for you and for your families," Trump told the troops via video hook-up from his Florida estate, where he is spending the holidays with his family. "Your families have been tremendous. Always underappreciated, the military families. The greatest people on Earth."

Trump briefly addressed members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard stationed in Qatar, Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and patrolling the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East.

Vice President Mike Pence rallied U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan during a surprise visit last week.

Trump complimented each branch of the armed forces, starting with the Army's "Iron Brigade" combat team in Kuwait, which he said is performing a "vital mission" by partnering with the Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Saudi Arabian and Jordanian armies.

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Dems aim for 2018 midterm boost from Trump tax plan fallout

ATLANTA (AP) — A Democratic congressional candidate outside Philadelphia calls the Republican tax overhaul a "cynical bill" that will redistribute wealth upward.

One of her counterparts in California dismisses estimates of tax savings for most U.S. households and says the legislation is "just putting money in the pocket of the wealthy." And in Kansas, a Democratic candidate for governor says it's "a recipe for disaster" that previews inevitable cuts to popular programs like Social Security and Medicare.

While Republicans celebrate a massive tax overhaul they say will goose the economy and increase workers' take-home pay up and down the income ladder, Democrats are aiming to turn the tax law into a cudgel in next year's fight to retake control of Congress and to dent GOP advantages in statehouses.

Democrats hope to use the tax plan, passed without a single Democratic vote, to stake their ground as the party of middle-class and working-class America. They hope Republican efforts to gut the 2010 health care law and President Donald Trump's unpopularity will help that cause.

"It's all a consistent message: This is not what you were promised," says Chrissy Houlahan, a Democratic candidate in the suburban Philadelphia district of Republican Rep. Ryan Costello, who voted for the tax plan. He is one of Democrats' top GOP targets as they try to flip the 24 GOP-held seats necessary for a House majority.

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2 Virginia deputies shot responding to domestic dispute

STERLING, Va. (AP) — Two Virginia sheriff's deputies were shot and wounded Sunday while responding to a domestic dispute in northern Virginia, authorities said.

The injuries were serious but not expected to be life-threatening. The dispute involved a man and his 19-year-old daughter, The Washington Post reported.

The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office tweeted that the shooting occurred in Sterling, which is about 30 miles northwest of Washington. WRC-TV in Washington reported that the shooting occurred shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday.

The sheriff told The Post that a male and a female deputy were at the house and tried to de-escalate the dispute. When the man went upstairs, deputies followed. The deputies confronted him near a closet and as the man was being taken into custody, it appeared based on preliminary information, he reached for a gun, the sheriff told the newspaper.

The deputies used a stun gun on the man but he managed to get several shots off, the sheriff said. The female deputy was hit in the leg and the male was struck in an arm and both legs.

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UNESCO recognizes Panama's hats _ no, not those ones

LA PINTADA, Panama (AP) — Cultural authorities at UNESCO have recognized the artisans of Panama for their distinctive woven hats. No, not those hats; the famed "Panama hat" comes from Ecuador.

Panama's real contribution to the world's hat heritage is the pintao, or painted hat, handmade from five different plants and a dose of swamp mud.

Production of the circular-brimmed hats is still a family affair carried out on a household scale. The industry's center is La Pintada, a district about 170 kilometers (105 miles) west of Panama City.

"They don't have anything (artificial), no machinery; no factory as such exists here in La Pintada," said Reinaldo Quiros, a well-known artisan and designer who sells hats out of his home. "Each artisan in his own home makes the hats maintaining the techniques taught by his ancestors."

The widely known "Panama hat" is a brimmed hat traditionally made in Ecuador from the straw of the South American toquilla palm plant. The hats are thought to have earned their misleading name because many were sold in nearby Panama to prospectors traveling through that country to California during the Gold Rush.