AP-Newswatch

Tibet earthquake kills at least 126 people and leaves many trapped

BEIJING (AP) — A strong earthquake has shaken a high-altitude region of western China and areas of Nepal. Tuesday’s quake damaged hundreds of houses, littered streets with rubble and killed at least 126 people in Tibet. Many others were trapped as dozens of aftershocks shook the remote region. State media reported that at least 188 people have been injured in Tibet. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said more than 1,000 homes were damaged in the barren and sparsely populated region. Nepalese authorities said people in the country’s northeast strongly felt the earthquake, but there were no initial reports of injuries or damage.

The next round of bitter cold and snow will hit the southern US

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The next round of bitter cold is set to envelop the southern U.S., after the first significant winter storm of the year blasted a huge swath of the country with ice, snow and wind. The immense storm system brought disruption even to areas of the country that usually escape winter’s wrath, downing trees in some Southern states and threatening a freeze in Florida. The National Weather Service said the wind chill temperature was 16 at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport early Tuesday. A low-pressure system is then expected to form as soon as the next day, bringing snow to parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Jimmy Carter will be honored in Washington, a city where he remained an outsider

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jimmy Carter’s state funeral moves to Washington after observances in his native Georgia. The 39th president’s remains will leave the Carter Presidential Center on Tuesday morning and fly to Washington aboard Special Air Mission 39. The Carter family and former president will arrive at Joint Base Andrews, with a motorcade following to the U.S. Navy Memorial. Carter’s flag-draped casket will be transferred to a horse-drawn caisson for his final journey to the Capitol. Carter is the only U.S. Naval Academy graduate to become president. Members of Congress will honor Carter in the Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday afternoon. The ceremonies carry some irony for the one-term president who campaigned as an outsider in 1976 and never mastered the city.

Trump’s praise of Carter in death after jeering him in life deepens a contradictory relationship

WASHINGTON (AP) — Living to 100 let Jimmy Carter fulfill his wish to vote for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris against Republican Donald Trump in November. Carter’s death means flags at the White House will be at half-staff when Trump regains the presidency on Jan. 20. Carter and Trump are starkly different figures in their political beliefs and personal lives and in their actions as president and after leaving office. But they will again be intertwined as the memory and legacy of one linger while the other is inaugurated for a second time. It’ll be another example of how Carter and Trump have continued to overlap in often contradictory ways.

Immigration is a higher priority for Americans than it was a year ago, an AP-NORC poll shows

WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans say immigration should be a top focus for the U.S. government in 2025, as the country heads toward a new Republican administration in which President-elect Donald Trump has promised the mass deportations of migrants and an end to birthright citizenship. A December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds about half of U.S. adults named immigration and border topics in an open-ended question that asked respondents to share up to five issues they want the government to work on this year. That’s up from about one-third who mentioned the topic in an AP-NORC poll the previous year. About three-quarters want the government to focus on addressing broad economic concerns.

Who will replace Justin Trudeau?

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation after facing an increasing loss of support both within his party and in the country. Now Trudeau’s Liberal Party must find a new leader while dealing with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs on Canadian goods and with Canada’s election just months away. Trudeau plans to stay on as prime minister until a new leader of the Liberal Party is chosen. The political upheaval comes at a difficult moment for Canada. Trump keeps calling Canada the 51st state and has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods.

Long silenced by fear, Syrians now speak about rampant torture under Assad

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The system of detention, torture and death run by Syria’s former ruler, Bashar Assad, is starting to come out into the open. Since Assad’s ouster, Syrians are starting to talk about the conditions inside his regime’s prisons and detention centers. Activists and rights groups say the brutality was systematic and well-organized, growing to more than 100 detention facilities where torture, sexual violence and mass executions were rampant. More than 150,000 people are believed missing from more than a decade of Assad’s crackdown on dissent. Most are presumed dead, but families want a full accounting of what happened to their relatives.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right leader known for fiery rhetoric against immigration, dies at 96

PARIS (AP) — Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-right National Front who was known for fiery rhetoric against immigration and multiculturalism that earned him both staunch supporters and widespread condemnation, has died. He was 96. A polarizing figure in French politics, Le Pen was convicted numerous times of antisemitism, discrimination and inciting racial violence. Le Pen routinely countered that he was simply a patriot protecting the identity of “eternal France.” Yet, despite those convictions and his eventual political estrangement, the nativist ideas that propelled his decades of popularity remain ascendant in today’s France, across Europe and beyond.

Meta replaces fact-checking with X-style community notes

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta says it’s scrapping its third-party fact-checking program and replacing it with Community Notes written by users similar to the model used by Elon Musk’s social media platform X. Starting in the U.S., Meta will end its fact-checking program with independent third parties. The company said it decided to end the program because expert fact checkers had their own biases and too much content ended up being fact checked. The social media company also said plans to allow “more speech” by lifting some restrictions on some topics that are part of mainstream discussion in order to focus on illegal and “high severity violations” like terrorism, child sexual exploitation and drugs.

What would Bonhoeffer do? Anti-Nazi pastor’s legacy claimed, debated across political spectrum

Shortly before he was hanged by the Nazis in 1945 at age 39, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reportedly told a fellow prisoner: “This is the end — for me the beginning of life.” It was – more than he knew. Even as the German theologian was anticipating eternal life in heaven, his death marked the beginning of his ever-growing reputation as a martyr and hero to the cause of anti-Nazi resistance. He’s been widely quoted – and misquoted. People across the ideological spectrum have claimed Bonhoeffer would support their side on issues ranging from the Vietnam War to same-sex marriage.