Here's what driving was like in wicked Christmas Day storm

The torrential rain from Friday's Christmas Day storm created extremely difficult driving conditions across the region, including on Route 1 through Norwood and Walpole.

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  • Trump plays Christmas Day golf with Lindsey Graham while complaining about stimulus bill’s ‘pork’

    Lawmakers still unsure if outgoing president will sign $900bn Covid bill

  • Boko Haram kill villagers in Christmas Eve attack

    The Islamist group also burnt down the church in the Christian village in northeast Nigeria.

  • Dog crushed to death by owner during confrontation with mugger

    A dog was crushed to death by its owner after she was knocked over during a confrontation with a mugger in an “unprovoked and unacceptable” attack. Norfolk Terrier, Rufus was crushed while the woman tried to pull the thief off her husband. The man, 56 and his 36 year old wife were walking their two dogs in Westminster, central London, when they were approached by a man pushing a bike along the footpath. The man, who wore a face covering and gloves, stopped the pair before pulling the watch off the man's arm, causing scratches to his forearm. The pair began to struggle and it was at this point that the wife tried to pull the mugger away during the attack at 4.15pm in Spanish Place on August 4.

  • Some Russians, dismayed at vaccine exports, call for more doses at home

    Some Russians took to social media on Friday to voice frustration after 300,000 doses of the country's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine were supplied to Argentina, arguing that more shots should be made available at home. Though the vaccine is readily available in Moscow, relatively small batches have so far been delivered to many Russian regions as part of a mass inoculation programme, with several reporting receiving 2,000 doses or less so far. Kaliningrad has received 400, according to the Interfax news agency.

  • GOP blocks $2,000 checks as Trump leaves COVID aid in chaos

    President Donald Trump’s sudden demand for $2,000 checks for most Americans was swiftly rejected by House Republicans as his haphazard actions have thrown a massive COVID relief and government funding bill into chaos. The rare Christmas Eve session of the House lasted just minutes, with help for millions of Americans awaiting Trump's signature on the bill. Unemployment benefits, eviction protections and other emergency aid, including smaller $600 checks, are at risk.

  • I knew this Christmas was going to be awful. And then I saw my neighbor's Christmas lights.

    All of the symbolism of Christmas is designed to remind us that better days are coming. There is no better year to remember that than this one.

  • Royal Caribbean tries to block families suing over fatal tour to island of live volcano

    Royal Caribbean, the world's largest cruise company, is trying to prevent victims of the 2019 New Zealand volcanic eruption from suing in the US. Passengers from the Royal Caribbean ship Ovation of the Seas took a trip to White Island, a popular tourist site, last December, when a volcano suddenly erupted, killing 27 visitors and injuring 25 more. Ivy and Paul Reed, from the US state of Maryland, who suffered burns as a result of the eruption, and Australians Marie and Stephanie Browitt, who lost family members because of the eruption, filed separate lawsuits against Royal Caribbean claiming that the cruise line did not properly explain the dangers of visiting White Island. Peter Gordon, a lawyer for the Browitt family, told the Australian Broadcasting Company that Royal Caribbean should have known that the volcano could erupt before allowing its passengers to visit White Island.

  • Japan official, calling Taiwan 'red line,' urges Biden to 'be strong'

    TOKYO (Reuters) -A top Japanese defence official on Friday urged U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to "be strong" in supporting Taiwan in the face of an aggressive China, calling the island's safety a "red line." In an interview, Nakayama, Japan's deputy defence minister, urged Biden to take a similar line on Taiwan as outgoing President Donald Trump, who has significantly boosted military sales to the Chinese-claimed island and increased engagement.

  • Christmas in Florida: Chilly forecast, falling iguanas

    With unexpectedly cold weather in the forecast and pandemic-related curfews in some places, Florida is about to have a Christmas unlike any other in recent memory, and it may involve falling iguanas. The National Weather Service earlier this week warned that South Florida could experience the coldest Christmas Day in 21 years. Morning lows on Saturday could drop into the low 30s and 40s degrees Fahrenheit, the weather service said.

  • Creek Fire forces Christmas Eve evacuations north of San Diego

    Thousands of people were told to evacuate the Camp Pendleton military base and nearby communities as the Creek Fire spread.

  • Beaver found in Plymouth among first to be reintroduced to wild in Britain for 400 years

    A beaver rescued by police this week was among the first of its kind to be reintroduced to the wild in Britain for nearly 400 years The 20kg creature had escaped from a specially designed re-wilding enclosure near Poole Farm in Plymouth. Local officers say they were confronted with the “unusual sight” of the beaver at large on Monday and posted a photograph on social media of the runaway creature in the city. They tweeted yesterday: “An unusual sight for one of our crews on Monday night shift: Plymouth's resident beaver spotted out and about! “He has apparently been caught since and is back home for Christmas.” The male had been released into the wild at Forder Valley in November – the first in the city for 400 years. The Eurasian Beaver was originally caught in late September in the wild from the Tay Catchment in Scotland and was released as part of a nationwide trend to reintroduce beavers in the wild. The beaver’s behaviour and actions will now be monitored in the hope that its actions will reduce flooding further downstream and create habitats for wildlife in the Bircham Valley. This comes after a 25kg young male beaver was spotted in Italy for the first time in nearly 500 years, after it walked over the border from Austria or Slovenia into the Dolomites. The first clues that the rodent might be back on Italian soil were noticed by a hunting guide who spends his days roaming the mountains and forests. Forester Reinhard Pipperger had noticed at the time young trees had been felled along a stretch of the Sesto river in Northern Italy. The beaver was later photographed by a camera set up along the river by wildlife rangers.

  • Disgraced New York politician found limping by Ohio roadside 23 years after fleeing justice

    The former politician disappeared when he was sentenced for selling pistols without a permit

  • Aides fear what Trump will do next as his behavior proves to be erratic after the election

    With four weeks left in President Trump’s term, he is at perhaps his most unleashed — and, as events of the past few days have demonstrated, at the most unpredictable point in his presidency.

  • No, China Did Not 'Expel' a US Warship from its Territory, Navy Says

    China called the McCain's movements "a serious violation" of its sovereignty and security.

  • In official Christmas Day message, Trump barely mentions Covid; Biden talks of pandemic's pain

    Nearly 330,000 Americans have died from the virus, and there are over 18.7 million confirmed cases in the U.S.

  • Israel 'launches attack in Syria' after low-flying planes terrify Beirut residents

    Israel was reported to have launched air strikes against military targets in Syria last night, after war planes flew low over Lebanon, terrifying local residents. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted a military source blaming Israeli “aggression” for launching a “barrage of missiles” from the north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli towards Masyaf, in Syria’s Hama province. The source claimed that most of the missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defences, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said that a warehouse and missile factories had been destroyed, with “at least” six casualties. Explosions were reported after midnight in the area around Masyaf, north-west of Homs, which is a significant military area for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, containing a military academy and scientific research centre believed to have been used to create chemical weapons. The Israeli military said it would not comment on reports in foreign media, but it has allegedly launched dozens of attacks against Iranian militias and other targets in Syria in recent years, with jets regularly crossing over Lebanese air space. Witnesses said that the Christmas Eve flights were louder than usual, however, frightening residents of Beirut who are still traumatised by the August 4 explosion at the city’s port that killed more than 200 people. The catastrophic blast, which destroyed large areas of the city, was caused after a huge store of ammonium nitrate was ignited by a fire. Tamara Qiblawi, a CNN producer based in the Lebanese capital, shared a video apparently showing “illegal overflights” of four Israeli jets. “You very often hear them here but very rarely do you see them,” she added. “These were exceptionally low altitude. Houses shook. Cats freaked out. Chills down people’s spines.” Quoting “reliable sources”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the “Israeli strikes targeted military posts of regime forces and Iranian militias”. Syrian activists observed ambulances rushing to the scene of the explosions and the dead were all foreign paramilitaries loyal to President Assad, it added. One attack also targeted the research centre, where ground-attack missiles are developed and stored, and which has been hit several times by Israeli strikes in recent years, the Observatory said. The most recent attack in June, killed nine people, including four Syrians. The United States military has previously claimed that sarin gas, a deadly nerve agent, was being developed at the centre, which the Syrian authorities have denied. According to the SANA report, air defences hit “most” missiles before they reached their target. “Our air defences intercepted an Israeli attack on the Masyaf area,” it said.

  • What is heaven?

    When a family member or a friend passes away, we often find ourselves reflecting on the question “where are they now?” As mortal beings, it is a question of ultimate significance to each of us. Different cultural groups, and different individuals within them, respond with numerous, often conflicting, answers to questions about life after death. For many, these questions are rooted in the idea of reward for the good (a heaven) and punishment for the wicked (a hell), where earthly injustices are finally righted.However, these common roots do not guarantee contemporary agreement on the nature, or even the existence, of hell and heaven. Pope Francis himself has raised Catholic eyebrows over some of his comments on heaven, recently telling a young boy that his deceased father, an atheist, was with God in heaven because, by his careful parenting, “he had a good heart.” So, what is the Christian idea of “heaven”? Beliefs about what happens at deathThe earliest Christians believed that Jesus Christ, risen from the dead after his crucifixion, would soon return, to complete what he had begun by his preaching: the establishment of the Kingdom of God. This Second Coming of Christ would bring an end to the effort of unification of all humanity in Christ and result in a final resurrection of the dead and moral judgment of all human beings.By the middle of the first century A.D., Christians became concerned about the fate of members of their churches who had already died before this Second Coming. Some of the earliest documents in the Christian New Testament, epistles or letters written by the apostle Paul, offered an answer. The dead have simply fallen asleep, they explained. When Christ returns, the dead, too, would rise in renewed bodies, and be judged by Christ himself. Afterwards, they would be united with him forever.A few theologians in the early centuries of Christianity agreed. But a growing consensus developed that the souls of the dead were held in a kind of waiting state until the end of the world, when they would be once again reunited with their bodies, resurrected in a more perfected form. Promise of eternal lifeAfter Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the early fourth century, the number of Christians grew enormously. Millions converted across the Empire, and by the century’s end, the old Roman state religion was prohibited. Based on the Gospels, bishops and theologians emphasized that the promise of eternal life in heaven was open only to the baptized – that is, those who had undergone the ritual immersion in water which cleansed the soul from sin and marked one’s entrance into the church. All others were damned to eternal separation from God and punishment for sin.In this new Christian empire, baptism was increasingly administered to infants. Some theologians challenged this practice, since infants could not yet commit sins. But in the Christian west, the belief in “original sin” – the sin of Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God’s command in the Garden of Eden (the “Fall”) – predominated.Following the teachings of the fourth century saint Augustine, Western theologians in the fifth century A.D. believed that even infants were born with the sin of Adam and Eve marring their spirit and will. But this doctrine raised a troubling question: What of those infants who died before baptism could be administered? At first, theologians taught that their souls went to Hell, but suffered very little if at all. The concept of Limbo developed from this idea. Popes and theologians in the 13th century taught that the souls of unbaptized babies or young children enjoyed a state of natural happiness on the “edge” of Hell, but, like those punished more severely in Hell itself, were denied the bliss of the presence of God. Time of judgmentDuring times of war or plague in antiquity and the Middle Ages, Western Christians often interpreted the social chaos as a sign of the end of the world. However, as the centuries passed, the Second Coming of Christ generally became a more remote event for most Christians, still awaited but relegated to an indeterminate future. Instead, Christian theology focused more on the moment of individual death. Judgment, the evaluation of the moral state of each human being, was no longer postponed until the end of the world. Each soul was first judged individually by Christ immediately after death (the “Particular” Judgment), as well as at the Second Coming (the Final or General Judgment). Deathbed rituals or “Last Rites” developed from earlier rites for the sick and penitent, and most had the opportunity to confess their sins to a priest, be anointed, and receive a “final” communion before breathing their last.Medieval Christians prayed to be protected from a sudden or unexpected death, because they feared baptism alone was not enough to enter heaven directly without these Last Rites. Another doctrine had developed. Some died still guilty of lesser or venial sins, like common gossip, petty theft, or minor lies that did not completely deplete one’s soul of God’s grace. After death, these souls would first be “purged” of any remaining sin or guilt in a spiritual state called Purgatory. After this spiritual cleansing, usually visualized as fire, they would be pure enough to enter heaven. Only those who were extraordinarily virtuous, such as the saints, or those who had received the Last Rites, could enter directly into heaven and the presence of God. Images of heavenIn antiquity, the first centuries of the Common Era, Christian heaven shared certain characteristics with both Judaism and Hellenistic religious thought on the afterlife of the virtuous. One was that of an almost physical rest and refreshment as after a desert journey, often accompanied by descriptions of banquets, fountains or rivers. In the Bible’s Book of Revelation, a symbolic description of the end of the world, the river running through God’s New Jerusalem was called the river “of the water of life.” However, in the Gospel of Luke, the damned were tormented by thirst. Another was the image of light. Romans and Jews thought of the abode of the wicked as a place of darkness and shadows, but the divine dwelling place was filled with bright light. Heaven was also charged with positive emotions: peace, joy, love, and the bliss of spiritual fulfillment that Christians came to refer to as the Beatific Vision, the presence of God. Visionaries and poets used a variety of additional images: flowering meadows, colors beyond description, trees filled with fruit, company and conversation with family or white-robed others among the blessed. Bright angels stood behind the dazzling throne of God and sang praise in exquisite melodies.The Protestant Reformation, begun in 1517, would break sharply with the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe in the 16th century. While both sides would argue about the existence of Purgatory, or whether only some were predestined by God to enter heaven, the existence and general nature of heaven itself was not an issue. Heaven as the place of GodToday, theologians offer a variety of opinions about the nature of heaven. The Anglican C. S. Lewis wrote that even one’s pets might be admitted, united in love with their owners as the owners are united in Christ through baptism. Following the nineteenth-century Pope Pius IX, Jesuit Karl Rahner taught that even non-Christians and non-believers could still be saved through Christ if they lived according to similar values, an idea now found in the Catholic Catechism. The Catholic Church itself has dropped the idea of Limbo, leaving the fate of unbaptized infants to “the mercy of God.” One theme remains constant, however: Heaven is the presence of God, in the company of others who have responded to God’s call in their own lives.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. Read more: * How the Catholic Church came to oppose birth control * How Catholic women fought against Vatican’s prohibition on contraceptives * How did celibacy become mandatory for priests?Joanne M. Pierce is a Roman Catholic member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation in the USA, a national ecumenical dialogue group sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and The Episcopal Church.

  • Las Vegas slots player wins $15.5M jackpot on Christmas Eve

    It is the largest slots prize won in Nevada for eight years

  • At least 15 dead in delays at South Africa-Zimbabwe border -TV news

    At least 15 people have died in recent weeks on the South African side of the Beitbridge border with Zimbabwe in lengthy queues that have been slowed by coronavirus screening, television news channel eNCA said on Friday. The health ministry, Department of Home Affairs and South African police Local did not respond immediately to Reuters' requests on Friday for confirmation of fatalities that local media outlets attributed to exhaustion and ill health owing to a lack of facilities while waiting to cross the border, sometimes for days. Images and videos on local news channels and circulated on social media showed lines of stationary cars, mainly trucks, stretching for kilometres on the narrow road leading to the inland Beitbridge port that serves as the main crossing point between the countries, and is more busy than usual at this time of year because of a seasonal return of migrants to Zimbabwe.

  • Fauci raises his COVID herd-immunity estimate

    Herd immunity against COVID-19 could require vaccination rates approaching as high as 90 percent, according to top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, who on Thursday admitted that he had increased his earlier estimates. Fauci’s revised figure came in a New York Times interview on Thursday, his 80th birthday. Meanwhile, the country continues to mark grim new milestones… with more than 3,000 coronavirus deaths reported for the second consecutive day. According to Reuters data, the nationwide death toll was over 326,000 by midnight on Wednesday… the same day that saw more Americans fly than on any other day since the pandemic emerged in March. Over 1.1 million passengers passed through airport checkpoints two days before Christmas, according to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. Wednesday’s airport traffic exceeded the prior high set during the pandemic on November 29th - the Sunday after Thanksgiving... Meaning many Americans disregarded the advice of public health experts who warned against holiday gatherings. Top health officials believe that those who traveled and gathered indoors for Thanksgiving contributed to the latest explosion in cases. Most Americans have been told it could be six months or more before they are eligible for Coronavirus vaccines.