Pope Francis offered a Christmas message of hope Wednesday against darkness that cloaks conflicts and relationships in large parts of the world, from the Middle East to the Americas to Africa.
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Queen Elizabeth II called 2019 “quite bumpy” in a Christmas message at the end of a chaotic year which saw Britain feud over its split from the European Union and her scandal-plagued son Prince Andrew withdraw from public life.
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The U.K.-based grocery chain Tesco said it halted production at a factory in China on Sunday after a British newspaper reported the factory used forced labor to produce charity Christmas cards for the supermarket.
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A Georgia family got a real hoot from its Christmas tree: More than a week after they bought it, they discovered a live owl nestled among its branches.
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President Donald Trump held his “Merry Christmas” rally Wednesday in Michigan, where he was gifted applause and cheers from Santa hat-wearing supporters as a vote in Washington made him the fourth president in U.S. history to be impeached.
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It’s been 120 years since New York ornithologist Frank Chapman launched his Christmas Bird Count as a bold new alternative to what had been a longtime Christmas tradition of hunting birds. Today, the annual count continues, stronger and more important than ever.
Read moreSanta Claus is at it again, answering thousands of Christmas letters from children around the world at a special post office in the northern German town of Himmelpfort.
Read moreBerlin’s unwanted Christmas trees have ended their days as a festive snack for zoo elephants and stocking fillers for some of their fellow residents.
Read moreAuthorities say an armed man who held off SWAT members for 10 hours surrendered after one of them sang him a Christmas carol.
Read morePresident Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump on Christmas Eve took calls from children anxious to find out where Santa was on his gift-giving journey.
Read morePalestinians are preparing to host pilgrims from around the world in celebrating Christmas in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Read moreThe American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of an Indiana man claiming Fulton County put up a Christian nativity scene outside of its courthouse in violation of the First Amendment’s ban on the endorsement of a particular religion.
Read moreWhen I was a child, the most thrilling day of my year was the day the Sears and J.C. Penney holiday catalogs arrived in the mail. Always the size of a coffee-table edition of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” the catalogs held the secrets of how to make a child’s Christmas merry and bright – in high-color glossy detail.
Read moreThe Archdiocese of Washington is seeking an en banc review of a D.C. Circuit ruling that said a metropolitan transit authority was within its rights when it imposed a 2015 ban on religious ads.
Read moreThe Seventh Circuit found an Indiana high school’s Christmas Spectacular concert constitutional after the school added Hanukkah and Kwanzaa songs and replaced its live nativity with mannequins.
Read moreAuthorities in Serbia’s capital are facing outrage over the purchase of a plastic Christmas tree that reportedly cost the equivalent of $98,000 and has sparked corruption allegations. An anti-corruption website has described the 59-feet tree as the most expensive in the world — four times the price of the one outside Rockefeller Center in New York.
Read moreThe D.C. Circuit on Wednesday denied the Archdiocese of Washington’s request for an injunction while it appeals a federal judge’s ruling that the Capitol’s regional transit authority does not have to display the church’s Christmas advertisements on buses.
Read moreA shrinking number of Americans actually believe in the biblical stories surrounding Christmas and a growing number see the holiday as a cultural one, not a religious celebration, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday.
Read moreA federal judge on Friday rejected the Archdiocese of Washington’s request that she force the D.C. regional transit authority to post its Christmas advertisements on its buses.
Read moreA federal judge heard oral arguments Tuesday from the Archdiocese of Washington about whether the court should force the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to run its Christmas-themed advertisements on public buses.
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