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Hanukkah, Judaism’s eight-day Festival of Lights, begins this year on Christmas Day, only the fourth time that’s happened since 1900. For some rabbis, the intersection of the two religious holidays provides an auspicious occasion for interfaith engagement. “This can be a profound opportunity for learning and collaboration and togetherness,” said Rabbi Josh Stanton, a vice president of the Jewish Federations of North America. He oversees interfaith initiatives involving the 146 […]

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 the 2nd century BC, after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying […]

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Hundreds of former Syrian soldiers on Saturday reported to the country’s new rulers for the first time since Bashar Assad was ousted to answer questions about whether they may have been involved in crimes against civilians in exchange for a promised amnesty and return to civilian life. The former soldiers trooped to what used to be the head office in Damascus of Assad’s Baath party that […]

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 most by individuals. The motives – where they could be established – have varied widely. Some were […]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Edited by Anna Furman for movement Saturday, Dec. 21 at 8 a.m. ET. Prelinked photos CATC101-107 and video by Terry Chea. At Scoma’s Restaurant in San Francisco, this holiday season ‘s batch of eggnog began 11 months ago. The process typically starts in late January, just after the previous year’s celebrations are over. Nearly a thousand egg yolks, gallons upon gallons of heavy cream and roughly […]

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Iceland’s president appointed a new government on Saturday and named Social Democratic party leader Kristrun Frostadottir as prime minister following a November election, public broadcaster RUV reported. The new cabinet will also include the centrist People’s Party and the left-leaning, pro-European Reform Party, the report said. (Reporting by Isabelle Yr Carlsson and Louise Rasmussen) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Joel Embiid is trying to believe in the good that can come from asking for help. Embiid’s career has yielded an MVP — and so many more DNPs — with a biography littered by the kind of devastating injuries that can, in time, heal. Ask even the most casual 76ers fan, and they can rattle off a CliffsNotes version of Embiid’s injury timeline: The broken bones in […]

By Orhan Qereman, Tom Perry and Tuvan Gumrukcu QAMISHLI, Syria/BEIRUT/ANKARA (Reuters) – With hostile Turkish-backed groups mobilising against them in Syria’s north, and Damascus ruled by a group friendly to Ankara, Syria’s main Kurdish factions are on the back foot as they seek to preserve political gains carved out during 13 years of war. Part of a stateless ethnic group straddling Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Armenia and Syria, Kurds have so […]

(Reuters) – Syria’s new rulers have appointed a foreign minister, the official Syrian news agency (SANA) said on Saturday, as they seek to build international relations two weeks after Bashar al-Assad was ousted. The ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international […]

MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (AP) — A week after its worst cyclone in nearly a century, France’s impoverished Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte is still grappling to count the dead, restore essential services and aid a beleaguered population. Already stretched thin, hospitals are overwhelmed with patients suffering not only from cyclone-related injuries but dehydration, malnutrition and disease. At Mayotte’s main hospital in the capital, Mamoudzou, doctors face a cascade of crises. “We […]