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It’s Kennedy Center Honors time for a crop including Queen Latifah, Billy Crystal and Dionne Warwick

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The newest group of Kennedy Center honorees, including comedian Billy Crystal and actor Queen Latifah, are being feted Sunday night at a star-studded event commemorating their lifetime achievement in arts and entertainment.Opera singer Renée Fleming, music star Barry Gibb and prolific hitmaker Dionne Warwick also are being honored at the black-tie gala. Each will receive personalized tributes that typically include appearances and performances that are kept secret from the honorees themselves. In announcing the recipients earlier this year, the Kennedy Center’s president, Deborah F. Rutter, called this year’s group of inductees “an extraordinary mix of individuals who have redefined their art forms.”Crystal, 75, came to national prominence in the 1970s playing Jodie Dallas, one of the first openly gay characters on American network television, on the sitcom “Soap.” He went on to a brief but memorable one-year stint on “Saturday Night Live” before starring in ...

Heavy snow in northern England causes havoc on highways and knocks out power

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

AMBLESIDE, England (AP) — Heavy snow in northern England forced motorists to seek shelter or spend the night in their cars and knocked out power to more than 2,500 customers, officials said Sunday.Trucks jackknifed in the snow, blocking highways, as drivers reported taking hours to complete short trips while others were forced to find a place to stay along their routes or in their vehicles.“It really feels like you’re walking through the Alps or some ski resort at the moment,” Harrison Ward said in the Lake District community of Ambleside. “Once a few cars have stopped or crashed or been abandoned, then it all comes to a halt.”Ant Brett said he had been stuck in his car for 19 hours since Saturday afternoon while driving from Essex to Cumbria, a journey that should have taken just over 5 hours. “I was heading up to a family wedding — it’s fair to say I didn’t make it,” he told the BBC. “I’m down to my last bit of water and having to ration it. I know the emergency ...

Pope Francis says he’s doing better but again skips his window appearance facing St. Peter’s Square

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

VATICAN CITY (AP) — For a second Sunday, an ailing Pope Francis skipped his popular window appearance to the public in St. Peter’s Square, but in televised remarks said he’s doing better even though his voice wouldn’t let him read all his comments aloud. As he did a week earlier, Francis delivered very brief remarks from the chapel of the Vatican hotel where he lives and where he is recovering from what he has said is infectious bronchitis. Thousands of people in the square followed his words from giant screens set up outdoors.Francis, whose 87th birthday is later this month, also said he is following from afar the workings of the U.N. climate conference in Dubai. The pontiff was due to go to the COP28 conference on Friday to address the gathering. During his first chapel appearance on Nov. 26, he insisted he would make the trip despite his illness. He instead canceled it following his doctors’ orders and stayed at the Vatican, where he has received antibiotics intravenously. ...

Earth is running a fever as UN climate talks focus on the contagious effect on human health

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

With Planet Earth running a fever, U.N. climate talks focused Sunday on the contagious effects on human health.Under a brown haze over Dubai, the COP28 summit moved past two days of lofty rhetoric and calls for unity from top leaders to concerns about health issues like the deaths of at least 7 million people globally from air pollution each year and the spread of diseases like cholera and malaria as global warming upends weather systems.World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it’s high time for the U.N. Conference of Parties on climate to hold its first “Health Day” in its 28th edition, saying the threats to health from climate change were “immediate and present.”“Although the climate crisis is a health crisis, it’s well overdue that 27 COPs have been and gone without a serious discussion of health,” he said. “Undoubtedly, health stands as the most compelling reason for taking climate action.”After two days of speeches by dozens of president...

Indian premier Narendra Modi’s party set for victory in 3 states ahead of 2024 national vote

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Hindu nationalist party was headed for a clear win in three out of four states Sunday, according to the election commission’s website. The crucial poll has pitted India’s opposition against the ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of next year’s vital national vote. Ballot counting showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, was poised to wrest control of the states of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan from the Indian National Congress, India’s main opposition party. The BJP was also likely to be re-elected in Madhya Pradesh in for a record fifth term.The Congress was comfortably leading in Telangana state which is ruled by the strong Telangana Rashtra Samithi, known for opposing BJP in the state.Final results are expected later Sunday. Vote counting in a fifth state, Mizoram, is set for Monday where BJP’s regional ally, Mizo National Front, is in power. Elections in the five states were held last month where more than 160 million people, or a sixth...

APD officer injured in suspected intoxicated driver crash on SH 71

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) — An Austin Police officer was injured early Sunday morning in a crash on State Highway 71, according to APD. The crash happened around 2:30 a.m. Sunday on SH 71 near the Austin airport. Police said the crash was between an APD police car and another vehicle with a suspected intoxicated driver. The driver was taken into custody. The APD officer was taken to the hospital with injuries, according to police. The officer's injuries were not known. Eastbound SH 71 was closed due to the crash but is expected to reopen soon, according to police. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport officials said the exit to Spirit of Texas Drive was open for passengers and drivers to get to the terminal. This is a developing story. Check back with KXAN for updates.

Busy Atlantic hurricane season ends with 20 storms

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- The beginning of December marked the end of the Atlantic hurricane season for 2023. In total, there were 20 named storms, including an "Unnamed Storm" that was posthumously determined to have needed a name. According to NOAA, this makes the 2023 Atlantic hurricane hurricane season the 4th busiest on record.Of the 20 named storms, seven became hurricanes, and three were major Category 3 hurricanes or greater.A typical Atlantic hurricane season has 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. Hurricane Idalia was the only landfalling storm to strike the United States as a hurricane during the 2023 season. That storm was a Category 3 storm at landfall in late August near Keaton Beach in Florida. According to a NOAA news release, storm surge reached 7-12 feet of inundation.Ophelia made landfall in North Carolina as a tropical storm in late September on Emerald Isle. Heavy rain, river and storm surge flooding were reported in some areas with that storm.H...

A nice stretch of unseasonably warm temps

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Happy Sunday! Expect another beautiful day today. Ahead of a Monday morning cold front we'll notice a much warmer day today with highs jumping into the mid 70s, roughly 5-8 degrees warmer than Saturday was.Sunday afternoon highsWe'll have sunshine and high clouds on Sunday with the majority of our clouds in the eastern sky. It'll be a bit breezy as winds shift to the southwest and gust up to 20 mph.Our next cold front is a dry one and comes in Monday morning with a wind shift and cooler temperatures. Highs are back in the 60s on Monday, but with plenty of sunshine.Highs next few days70s return Tuesday and we'll stay in the 70s for the rest of our forecast. Our only chance of rain for the next week comes as we head into next weekend. Winter Weather Outlook: What a strong El Niño could mean for rainfall and ice risk Austin Interactive Weather Stats (2023) FIRST WARNING WEATHER: Stay up to date with your Central Texas forecast, sign up for our weather newsletter a...

Page Fortna: In Gaza conflict, words like ‘terrorism’ and ‘genocide’ are potent weapons. Definitions matter

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, language is being used strategically in a contest over legitimacy in ways that blur important distinctions. Much of the heat — and none of the light — comes from a failure to distinguish tactics from goals, leaders and organizations from the people they aim to represent, and attempts to understand or explain from attempts to justify the actions of the other side.The intensity of the battle over legitimacy is not surprising. The conflict evokes existential fears of expulsion and extermination that both sides feel to their core given their histories. And the political outcome of this conflict may be shaped as much by the contest over legitimacy on the world stage as by the unfolding military contest on the ground.A number of important distinctions get lost in the contest over words, however.Arguments about whether Oct. 7 was “terrorism” or “resistance to occupation” evoke the old adage that one personR...

Movie review: Dialogue-free ‘Silent Night’ pummels away without respite

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:24:57 GMT

The dialogue-free action movie “Silent Night” is a fascinating experiment — but a failed one. As it turns out, modern action movies, though they can be ideal vessels for bombastic image-making, need words to convey humor and humanity, and not even one of our foremost action auteurs, John Woo, can make it work without those two elements.“Silent Night” is Woo’s much heralded return to Hollywood after two decades (his last American film was 2003’s “Paycheck”). The Hong Kong filmmaker behind movies like “Face/Off” and “Mission: Impossible II,” as well as his iconic collaborations with Chow Yun-Fat, “Hard Boiled” and “The Killer,” is the poet laureate of action movies, known for his expressive, evocative and highly influential style.One would think a stylist like Woo could make a dialogue-free project work, but not with the dog of a script he’s been handed by screenwriter Robert Archer Lynn. The story of “Silent Night” is a rabid right-wing “Death Wish”-style revenge fantasy trafficking ...