BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A frigid winter storm killed at least 18 people as it swept across the country, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses and leaving millions of people on edge about the possibility of Christmas Eve blackouts.

The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, New York, with hurricane-force winds causing whiteout conditions. Emergency response efforts were paralyzed, and the city’s international airport was shut down.

Across the U.S., officials have attributed deaths to exposure, car crashes, a falling tree limb and other effects of the storm. At least three people died in the Buffalo area, including two who suffered medical emergencies in their homes and couldn’t be saved because emergency crews were unable to reach them amid historic blizzard conditions.

Deep snow, single-digit temperatures and day-old power outages sent Buffalo residents scrambling Saturday to get out of their houses to anywhere that had heat. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the Buffalo Niagara International Airport would be closed through Monday morning and almost every fire truck in the city was stranded in the snow.

“No matter how many emergency vehicles we have, they cannot get through the conditions as we speak,” Hochul said.

Blinding blizzards, freezing rain and frigid cold also knocked out power in places from Maine to Seattle, while a major electricity grid operator warned the 65 million people it serves across the eastern U.S. that rolling blackouts might be required.

Pennsylvania-based PJM Interconnection said power plants are having difficulty operating in the frigid weather and has asked residents in 13 states to conserve electricity through at least Christmas morning. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to 10 million people in the state and parts of six surrounding ones, directed local power companies to implement planned interruptions but ended the measure by Saturday afternoon. The start of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans’ game in Nashville was delayed an hour by a planned power outage.

Across the six New England states, more than 273,000 customers remained without power on Saturday, with Maine the hardest hit and some utilities saying it could be days before electricity is restored.

In North Carolina, 169,000 customers were without power as of the afternoon, down from a peak of more than 485,000, but utility officials said rolling blackouts would continue for “the next few days.”

Those without power included James Reynolds of Greensboro, who said his housemate, a 70-year-old with diabetes and severe arthritis, spent the morning bundled beside a kerosene heater with indoor temperatures “hovering in the 50s.”

In the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, two people died in their homes Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. He said another person died in Buffalo and said the blizzard may be “the worst storm in our community’s history.”

It was taking ambulances over three hours to do one trip to a hospital, Poloncarz said.

Forecasters said 28 inches (71 centimeters) of snow accumulated as of Saturday in Buffalo. Last month, areas just south of the city saw a record 6 feet of snow (about 1.8 meters) from a single storm.

The latest storm knocked out the furnace in the Buffalo home of Brian LaPrade, who woke up Saturday morning to indoor temperatures dipping below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius).

“I had to go out and dig out the vents,” LaPrade said. “As it was, the snow was taller than my snow blower.”

Plows were on the roads, but large snow drifts, abandoned cars and downed power lines were slowing progress.

On the Ohio Turnpike, four died in a pileup involving some 50 vehicles. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.

A utility worker in Ohio was also killed Friday while trying to restore power, according to the Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative. It said the 22-year-old died in “an electrical contact incident” near Pedro in Lawrence County.

A woman in Vermont died in a hospital Friday after a tree broke in the high winds and fell on her. Police in Colorado Springs said they found the body of a person who appeared to be homeless as subzero temperatures and snow descended on the region. Near Janesville, Wisconsin, a 57-year-old woman died Friday after falling through the ice on a river, the Rock County Sheriff’s Office announced.

Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, were stuck for 34 hours in a massive traffic jam caused by several accidents. The truck drivers weathered the wait in a rig outfitted with a diesel heater, a toilet and a refrigerator but nonetheless regretted trying to drive from Alabama to their home near Akron, Ohio, for Christmas.

“We should have stayed,” Terry Henderson said after they got moving again Saturday.

The storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.

As millions of Americans were traveling ahead of Christmas, more than 2,360 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Saturday, according to the tracking site FlightAware.

In Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border were facing unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum.

Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.

Western New York often sees dramatic lake-effect snow, which is caused by cool air picking up moisture from the warm water, then dumping it on the land. But even area residents found conditions Christmas Eve to be dire.

Latricia Stroud and her two daughters, 1 and 12, were stranded without heat or power in their Buffalo house since Friday afternoon, with the snow too deep to leave.

“I have to go over a snowbank to get out,” Stroud told the AP. “There’s a warming center, I just need a ride to get there.”

Bleiberg reported from Dallas. Associated Press journalist Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Corey Williams in Southfield, Michigan; John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Maysoon Khan in Albany, New York; Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, North Carolina; Wilson Ring in Stowe, Vermont; and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas contributed to this report.

© Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — The biblical town of Bethlehem marked a merry Christmas on Saturday, with thousands of visitors descending upon the traditional birthplace of Jesus as it rebounds from the coronavirus pandemic.

Tourism is the economic lifeblood of this town in the occupied West Bank, and for the past two years, the pandemic kept international visitors away.

This year, visitors are back, hotels are full and shopkeepers have reported a brisk business in the runup to the holiday. Although the numbers have not reached pre-pandemic levels, the return of tourists has palpably raised spirits in Bethlehem.

“We are celebrating Christmas this year in a very much different way than last year,” Palestinian Tourism Minister Rula Maayah said. “We’re celebrating Christmas with pilgrims coming from all over the world.”

Throughout the day, hundreds of people strolled through Manger Square for Christmas Eve celebrations. Marching bands pounding on drums and playing bagpipes paraded through the area, and foreign tourists meandered about and snapped selfies with the town’s large Christmas tree behind them.

Cool gray weather, along with an occasional rain shower, did little to dampen spirits, though many people headed indoors to shops and restaurants to warm up. By nightfall, the crowds had thinned.

Daisy Lucas, a 38-year-old Filipina who works in Israel, said it was a dream come true to mark the holiday in such an important place.

“As a Christian walking in the places in the Bible, it’s so overwhelming,” she said. “This is the birthplace of Jesus Christ. As a Christian, that’s one achievement that’s on my bucket list.”

Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Roman Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, arrived from Jerusalem through a checkpoint in Israel’s West Bank separation barrier.

“We are living in very difficult challenges,” he said, noting the war in Ukraine and a recent wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence. “But the message of Christmas is a message of peace.”

“It’s possible to change things,” he added. “We will be very clear in what we have to do and what we have to say in order to preserve the importance of unity and reconciliation among all.”

Pizzaballa walked through Manger Square, waving to well-wishers before heading to the Church of the Nativity, built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born. Later, he was to celebrate Midnight Mass.

Hundreds of millions of Christians were ushering in the holiday, wrapping up a tumultuous year characterized by conflict and violence in many parts of the world.

In war-ravaged Ukraine, the glitzy lights normally spread over over Kyiv’s Sophia Square were missing due to restrictions and power cuts. Instead, a modest tree decorated with blue and yellow lights barely broke the gloom of the square. Mayor Vitali Klitschko has called it the “ Tree of Invincibility.”

In the United States, a winter storm battered much of the country, bringing blinding blizzards, freezing rain and bone-chilling temperatures that caused many holiday events to be canceled and created mayhem for travelers.

But off the central coast of Florida, where temperatures dropped as low as 27 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2.7 Celsius), more than a hundred surfers dressed in Santa costumes braved the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean in the morning for an annual Christmas Eve Surfing Santas festival.

NORAD, the U.S. military agency known for its playful tradition of tracking Santa Claus as he delivers presents on Christmas Eve, said it didn’t expect COVID-19 or the storms hitting North America to affect Saint Nick’s global travels.

“I think Santa will be right at home with the Arctic weather that’s hitting into the lower 48,” said Lt. Gen. David Nahom, a NORAD official based in Anchorage, Alaska.

In Mexico, tens of thousands of migrants who fled violence and poverty in their home countries are almost certain to spend Christmas in crowded shelters or on the streets of towns along the U.S. border, where organized crime routinely targets them.

Present-day reality was visible at Manger Square as banners showing photos of Palestinian prisoner Nasser Abu Hamid were prominently displayed. The veteran prisoner died of cancer last week in an Israeli prison clinic after spending some 20 years behind bars for his conviction in the deaths of seven Israelis.

Schoenbaum reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.

© Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

(NEXSTAR) — We have now found ourselves hours from Christmas. That means children around the world are settling in, hoping that Santa Claus will soon arrive.

Have a little one that just can’t wait for Santa and his reindeer to get to your town? With a little help from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), you can track Santa on his journey around the world.

NORAD, a joint organization between the U.S. and Canada, is responsible for tracking everything flying in and around the two countries. Around Christmastime, NORAD has a crucial mission: Track Santa.

It’s a tradition NORAD has carried out for over 60 years that started accidentally in 1955. Since then, NORAD has continued its annual mission.

NORAD doesn’t start tracking Santa until their radars let them know Santa has taken to the air on Christmas Eve, roughly around 4 a.m. ET.

You can track Santa’s movements around the world on NORAD’s website.

NORAD also offers a phone line that remains open for 23 hours starting on Christmas Eve. Last year, the call center fielded over 53,000 calls, according to Lt. Sean Carter, the NORAD Tracks Santa Program Manager.

A hilarious Yiddish video clip about Jewish diners in a Chinese restaurant on Christmas has now been released with Mandarin subtitles, opening up the video’s exposure to a whole new audience. Because YouTube is blocked in China, the video is being shared on China’s own video platform, Bilibili.

In 2015, it was estimated that Bilibili had over 50 million users — 75% of them under the age of 24.

The videotaped skit is an episode of the online comedy series YidLife Crisis. The clip, titled “Yingl Belz,” has the two main characters Chaimie and Leizer (played by the show’s writers, Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion) dining in a Chinese restaurant, arguing in Yiddish on the true reason that Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas. The clip is accompanied by English subtitles.

As it turns out, a professor at Peking University in Beijing has been showing episodes of YidLife Crisis in her Yiddish course. Yang Meng launched the Yiddish class, called “Yiddish and Jewish Culture,” in September and says it’s the first university Yiddish class to be taught in all of mainland China.

Yang is one of only a handful of Chinese academics fluent in the language. She learned Yiddish in New York City and wrote her dissertation on the Jewish exile in Shanghai during the Holocaust. This semester, 18 students are enrolled in her course. In addition to the language lessons, Yang also screens films on Jewish content. This semester they watched the first season of Shtisel and Woody Allen’s film Cafe Society.

The students who translated the subtitles of the Yiddish video into Mandarin Photo by Yang Meng

Yang told the Forward that she believes YidLife Crisis has much to teach her students about Yiddish and Jewish culture. Sensing that an episode set in a Chinese restaurant in North America would resonate with them, she launched a class project: The students would translate the English subtitles into Mandarin and share it on Chinese social media.

Getting the task done wasn’t easy, though. Because there are so few Jews living in China (only 2,500 out of a population of 1.4 billion), Yang’s students had trouble understanding the cultural references and the humor in the clip. To help them along, she asked Elman and Batalion to answer her students’ questions over Zoom and email — not always easy, considering the time zone difference.

“We went over every joke, every line and every nuance in the episode,” Elman said.

The Chinese restaurant clip went live on Bilibili on Saturday. By the time this article  and Yang is both excited and grateful for Elman’s and Batalion’s help in getting the project done. “Now we know the rule in kashrut about no milk and meat together and about the tradition of Jews going to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas,” she said.

“Yidlife Crisis has really enriched our class, making us think more about our cultural differences and similarities,” she said. “What they’re doing is a mitzvah.”

The post Yiddish Chinese restaurant video is shared in China – with Mandarin subtitles appeared first on The Forward.

There is a new Republican war going on, and it’s a big one! This one is between Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee Chair, and Kari Lake, the LOSING candidate for the Arizona Governor’s election.

Now it’s important to understand here that this argument is quite important because both of these ladies represent different factions in the Republican party. And what this argument is REALLY all about is which faction is going to lead the party. The answer to that question is neither — as it stands now.

And this should not be a surprise. The GOP can’t do anything right, and that includes getting their infighting correct. So McDaniel is in the fight of her life to retain her position. And now she has turned on Maga’s beloved nimrod, Kari Lake. McDaniel says it was Lake’s own fault she didn’t win.

Appearing on NewsMax, McDaniel explained that republicans are ‘cannibalizing each other.” As an example, she used the Lake race. And she said Lake alienated some of her own potential voters by telling fans of John McCain to: “get the hell out of my rallies.”

Lake did do this. And Ronna is correct. That was a shockingly stupid thing to do, even by republican standards. “We can’t do that,” McDaniel said. Well — maybe she can’t do that, but Maga certainly can. Faster than you could say catfight Maga exploded. Who does she think she is? Many deplorables yelled.

Ronna needs to step down! Kari Lake won! Ronna is yesterday’s news! McDaniel also accused Lake of spreading misinformation, something that also is true but which infuriated Maga. And it gets better. Because I personally witnessed some of the Maga melt-downs. And many say they will not vote or make phone calls unless McDaniel is driven out of her position.

Oh man — they always eat their own, don’t they? You know what I’d like to see? I would like to see ONE television segment on ALL of this bullshit from republicans. “Republicans in disarray!” “Republicans are falling apart!” “Republicans can’t get along for two seconds!” All of these headlines would be true as we are seeing about a dozen different Republican quarrels play out in real-time. Let’s take a look at some of them:

Greene and Lauren Boebert

Mike Lindell and Ron DeSantis

Donald Trump and — any republican who says a bad word about him.

Tucker Carlson and Lindsey Graham (will get to that one in another story.)

Kevin McCarthy and — everyone.

I could go on. As the two GOP factions collide, I say let’s all break out the popcorn and watch the show till the bitter end.

The post Kari Lake and RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel are now at war with each other appeared first on Palmer Report.

Three Ukrainian emergency services workers were killed on Saturday when a mine exploded while they were demining parts of the Kherson region, said the emergency service of another region, in which they served.

“All three selflessly served in the emergency and rescue squad of the Special Purpose Unit of the State Department of Ukraine in Zhytomyr region and performed the task of demining territories liberated from the enemy in the Kherson region,” the Zhytomyr emergency service said on its Facebook page.

The Zhytomyr region is west of Kyiv, in northern Ukraine.

Russia, which invaded Ukraine 10 months ago, controls most but not all of Kherson region. By mid-November, Ukrainian forces retook Kherson city – the region’s administrative centre – and a number of settlements in the region.

Explosive experts have worked there since, after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russian forces had heavily mined buildings and objects. They have also done so in many other areas that Ukraine has been able to retake.

The U.S. State Department estimated in early December that some 160,000 square kilometres (62,000 square miles) of Ukrainian land needed to be checked for explosives hazards. That is nearly half the size of Germany’s land area.

“We expect this to be one of the largest landmine and unexploded ordinance challenges since World War Two,” the State Department said in a briefing posted on its website.

On Saturday, Ukrainian authorities said a Russian strike had killed at least 10 people in the Kherson City, while Moscow blamed Ukrainian forces for the attack.

We get it. Fox News is the most explicitly partisan news show on mainstream television. Much of what is said, compliments of the Fox airwaves, is heavily slanted in favour of Republican apologetics. In a free society the other side of every issue has a right, perhaps even a duty, to be heard.

I will even go so far as to acknowledge, though not an inch farther, that Sean Hannity is a right wing commentator in the same spirit that I am a left wing commentator. But that’s where Hannity and I part company. I believe what I write. I have never once written a line for Palmer Report that I claimed to be true that I knew was not. If placed under oath I will happily affirm — without fear of perjury — that every word I have ever written for Palmer Report I fervently believed to be the truth at the time I wrote it.

It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that I also acknowledge that I may have been wrong about something I wrote. I’m always willing to admit that, because sometimes it turns out to be the case. But I sincerely believed it to be true at the time. The point remains, I’ve never written a single word to you, brothers and sisters, that I thought was a lie.

Not so Sean Hannity. And he has said so — under oath. In a deposition for a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought against discredited attorney Sidney Powell and Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems (DVS), Hannity admitted he lied. As you may recall, Sidney Powell claimed without evidence that DVS machines were rigged to perpetrate a massive fraud against the American people and steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. According to an attorney for DVS, Hannity said of Powell’s claim that he “did not believe it for one second.”

But Hannity’s under oath statement runs contrary to what he has said for years on Fox News. He even lent credibility to Powell’s claims at a time when all the other Republican MAGA wingnuts were distancing themselves from Powell and her idiotic claims. (I also wouldn’t be surprised if, when Hannity said that he didn’t believe it, he said so with his usual arrogance, as if he was proud of the fact that he wasn’t ever taken in by the likes of Sidney Powell.)

Hannity had Sidney Powell on his show. After she made her outrageous claims about DVS, instead of telling her he didn’t believe her for one minute, Hannity instead asked her, “Why were Democrats silencing whistleblowers who could prove the fraud?”

In other words, instead of calling out Powell as an obvious liar, Hannity went back to attacking Democrats about whistleblowers. Recall that during the first impeachment of Donald Trump, Republicans wanted to expose the whistleblower who first reported Trump’s improper phone call to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mentioning whistleblowers during the interview was Hannity returning to the topic and wondering aloud, disingenuously, why suddenly Democrats suddenly weren’t interested in whistleblowers any more. The answer, of course, is we are interested in them only when the whistleblowers have actual evidence.

Hannity is nothing more than a propaganda spewing money whore who will do or say anything for ratings — and the truth be damned. He should never be allowed to forget his under oath statement proving that he tells lies in the name of profit and ratings, even when those lies are severely damaging to democracy.

There are eight million stories of Republican money whores in the naked city of hypocrisy. Sean Hannity’s story has been one of them. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.

The post Sean Hannity exposed appeared first on Palmer Report.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the House:

The congressmen were feuding about Kevin the louse.

The politicians were stung because they could not agree,

On who their next House leader could possibly be.

Maga was nestled on Twitter, anger in their heads:

While visions of Kari Lake danced in their mad heads.

Many had settled down for a long winter’s nap:

When across the miles, there arose an angry clap.

People sprung from their beds and put on the news.

It was just Donald Trump having yet another feud.

The great part of this is that it is NOT fiction. This is EXACTLY That the GOP is doing right now. And let us now, in the spirit of the 12 days of Christmas, take a look at the twelve cheerful Republican shitstorms breaking right now.

So as we head toward the holiday, we know,

1) Kevin McCarthy really might not be speaker.

2) Mike Lindell is contesting Ron DeSantis win.

3) Kari Lake has lost her election challenge.

4) Greene and Boebert are fighting like two mud wrestlers.

5) Maga is miserable.

6) Mitch McConnell has come out against Trump

7) The January 6 report is out and spells disaster for Trump

8) Republicans did terrible in the midterms.

9) George Santos is a con artist who is dragging the GOP down.

10) Trump hovers on the verge of indictment.

11) nobody can decide who the Republican national Chair should be.

12) Republicans in disarray.

Happy holidays Palmer Report readers!

The post Twas the night before Christmas… appeared first on Palmer Report.