RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Santa Claus has arrived in Rio de Janeiro – under water.
Starting from last Saturday, he was spotted at AquaRio Marine Aquarium swimming with sharks during their daily fish feeding sessions as part of the city’s holiday festivities.
Nine-year-old Guilherme Martins Matos said he’d seen Santa – or at least an impersonator – at the mall. That was cool, he said, but this was better.
“Imagine him under water feeding the fish? It’s even cooler,” Guilherme told The Associated Press.
This version of Santa Claus is Felippe Luna, 39, a senior animal handler at AquaRio. What began as a joke among staff has become an annual tradition.
Dressed as Santa, Luna dives into the aquarium’s 924,602-gallon tank to feed marine animals, including sharks.
“For the kids, seeing Santa Claus under water is already incredible. And Santa feeding a shark by hand? That’s unforgettable,” Luna said.
ABOVE & BELOW: Photos show diver Felipe Luna, dressed in a Santa Claus suit, swimming inside a tank at the AquaRio Marine Aquarium as part of an annual tradition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. PHOTO: APPHOTO: AP
MELBOURNE (AFP) – Australian authorities urged people in dozens of rural communities to leave home “immediately” yesterday to escape an out-of-control bushfire tearing through a national park.
About 600 firefighters were battling the blaze in the Grampians National Park 240 kilometres west of Melbourne, a Victoria state emergency services spokesperson said.
The blaze has persisted for more than a week in hot, windy conditions, scorching 55,000 hectares – about one-third of the park – so far without causing deaths or destroying homes.
State emergency services warned residents to leave home immediately in more than two dozen mostly small rural communities, with populations ranging from as few as six to as many as several hundred.
People in several other communities were told to take shelter indoors because it was unsafe to leave. Firefighters expected shifting winds to complicate their task during the day, said Victoria state control centre spokesman Luke Hegarty.
“We are reaching a critical part of the day when we see the wind change moving through the western part of the state,” he said in an afternoon update.
“We’re expecting strong winds and variable winds to be a concern for us over the next few hours.”
A total fire ban was declared across the whole of Victoria, barring any fires in the open air.
Country Fire Authority personnel watch as smoke billows from an out of control bushfire in the Grampians National park, in Victoria state, Australia. PHOTO: AP
ASTANA (AFP) – Azerbaijan began a national day of mourning yesterday after a passenger jet from the flag carrier crashed in western Kazakhstan on December 25, killing 38 of the 67 people onboard.
The Embraer 190 aircraft was supposed to fly northwest from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the city of Grozny in Chechnya in southern Russia, but instead diverted far off course across the Caspian Sea. It crashed on Wednesday near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
Azerbaijan Airlines reported that 67 people were on board the jet – 62 passengers and five crew members. Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev told Russia’s Interfax news agency that 38 people had been killed, while the Kazakh emergency situations ministry reported “29 survivors, including three children, have been hospitalised”.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared yesterday a day of mourning and cancelled a planned visit to Russia for an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Aliyev’s office said the president “ordered the prompt initiation of urgent measures to investigate the causes of the disaster”.
“I extend my condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the crash… and wish a speedy recovery to the injured,” Aliyev said.
The Flight Radar website showed the plane deviating from its normal route, crossing the Caspian Sea and then circling over the area where it eventually crashed near Aktau on the eastern shore of the sea.
Azerbaijan state news agency AZERTAC reported the aircraft’s black box, which records the flight data, has been recovered.
The Kazakh Transport Ministry said the plane was carrying 37 nationals from Azerbaijan, six from Kazakhstan, three from Kyrgyzstan and 16 from Russia.
Azerbaijan Airlines said the plane “made an emergency landing” around three kilometres from Aktau.
Emergency specialists work at the crash site of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet near the western Kazakh city of Aktau. PHOTO: AFP
PERALIYA (AFP) – Just inland from the crashing waves on Sri Lanka’s palm-fringed shores, the train slowly came to a stop yesterday – marking the moment a deadly tsunami hit 20 years ago.
Sri Lanka’s Ocean Queen Express became a symbol of the biggest natural disaster to hit the South Asian nation in living memory, when the train was struck by the giant waves of December 26, 2004.
About 1,000 people were killed – both passengers and local residents, who had clambered inside desperately seeking shelter after the first wave hit.
After they boarded, two bigger waves smashed into the train, ripping it from the tracks and tumbling it onto its side more than 100 metres from the shoreline.
Each year since then, the Ocean Queen has stopped on the tsunami anniversary at the spot in Peraliya, a sleepy village some 90 kilometres south of the capital Colombo, to commemorate those killed.
“To me, it all brings back the very hard memories,” said Tekla Jesenthu, whose two-year-old daughter died as the waves hit the area. “I don’t want to think about or talk about it – it hurts that much.”
“Monuments won’t bring them back,” she added.
Survivors and relatives of the dead boarded the train in Colombo early in the morning before it headed south with national flags fluttering on its front and then slowed to a creaking halt in commemoration.
Villagers came out, the line was closed and a few moments of quiet settled.
Mourners offered flowers and lit incense at a beachside memorial for 1,270 people buried in mass graves, with religious ceremonies held. “When I saw the first wave, I started running away from the waves,” said UA Kulawathi, 73, a mother whose daughter was killed, her body swept out to sea.
“The water reached the roof levels and people climbed the roofs to save themselves.”
The 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the western coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island triggered huge waves that swept into coastal areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other nations around the Indian Ocean basin.
A total of 226,408 people died as a result of the tsunami according to EM-DAT, a recognised global disaster database. Of those, 35,399 were in Sri Lanka.
Sarani Sudeshika, 36, a baker whose mother-in-law was among those killed, recalled how “animals started making strange noises and people started shouting, saying, ‘Sea water is coming’”.
Railway workers carry flowers to offer at a memorial built in memory of those who died during 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Peraliya, Sri Lanka. PHOTO: AP
QUITO (AFP) – An attack using explosives at the construction site of a maximum security prison in southwestern Ecuador killed one person, the government said, calling it a “terrorist act”.
“In the early morning of this December 25, 2024, a group of armed men perpetrated a terrorist act by violently entering the construction site of the new Santa Elena prison, where they detonated explosive devices,” the presidency said in a statement.
The statement said one person had been killed, with the attorney general’s office identifying the man as a worker at the site.
Another worker was wounded, officials said.
Ecuador President Daniel Noboa’s government began the construction of the prison in the rural town of Juntas del Pacifico in June.
It will have a capacity of 800 prisoners, and is being built at a cost of USD52 million.
The new prison will be one of two penitentiaries that the government plans to build as part of its plan to separate the most dangerous inmates from others, and to combat organised crime.
The presidency condemned the “terrorist attack” which it attributed to “organised crime groups” that “seek to sow terror, weaken the state and halt the government’s commitment to restore peace and security.”
The construction of the prison has sparked protests from local inhabitants, who reject the project and say that it affects the biodiversity of the area.
A week ago, the government reversed its plan to build a second prison in the Amazonian town of Archidona, after two weeks of protests that included road closures.
That prison will now be built in the coastal town of Salinas, also in Santa Elena province.
Organised crime violence has transformed Ecuador, a country of 17 million, into one of the most violent nations in the world in recent years.
Soldiers patrol the perimeter of a prison in Ecuador. PHOTO: AFP
AP – A man accused of attempting to assassinate United States (US) President-elect Donald Trump in South Florida won’t be tried until September 2025, a federal judge ruled this week.
Ryan Routh’s trial will begin on September 8 instead of the previously scheduled February 10, 2025 start date, US District Judge Aileen Cannon said in an order released.
Routh, 58, a Hawaii resident, has pleaded not guilty.
Routh’s attorneys had asked the judge to delay the trial until no earlier than next December, saying they needed more time to review the evidence against him and decide whether to mount an insanity defence.
Routh owned 17 mobile phones and numerous other electronic devices, and there are hundreds of hours of police body camera and surveillance videos that have been provided to the defence, Routh’s attorneys argued during a hearing two weeks ago in Fort Pierce, Florida.
In her order, Cannon said she wanted to err on the side of providing more time given the seriousness of the allegations, but that starting the trial no earlier than December would be an excessive amount. A September trial date didn’t amount to an “unreasonable delay”, she said.
The judge said that any insanity defence or any request related to Routh’s mental competency must be made by early February. Any visit to the scene of the assassination attempt must be made by the end of February.
MEXICO CITY (AFP) – More than 400,000 pills containing the deadly opioid fentanyl were seized and destroyed by Mexico’s Attorney General’s office, along with six tons of chemical precursors for the drugs, the agency said.
A statement said the narcotics were seized in multiple operations in the western Mexico state of Jalisco, where the powerful New Generation cartel operates.
The agency seized “416,751 tablets and 6.9 kilogrammes of fentanyl, 990 acetaminophen tablets” and more than six tonnes of twenty different chemical precursors, all of which were destroyed.
Mexico has ramped up its operations against the trafficking of synthetic narcotics, especially fentanyl, with United States (US) President-elect Donald Trump ramping up pressure on the issue.
The Republican, who will begin his second term on January 20, has threatened to levy 25-per-cent tariffs on Mexican exports if the country fails to contain drug trafficking and the influx of illegal immigrants to the US. Earlier in December, the Mexican government announced the seizure of over one million fentanyl pills, described as “the largest seizure of fentanyl in history” by Mexican Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin, has been linked to tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the US.
Mexico is one of the main trafficking routes for the drug and for the chemicals to manufacture it.
Trump has also threatened tariff hikes on Canada over illegal migration and their alleged role in the US opioid crisis.
National Guard troops patrol a street in Mexico. PHOTO: AFP
KAHULUI (AP) – Maui police are investigating the discovery of a dead body in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane after it landed in Maui in the United States (US) the airline and police department said in statements on Wednesday.
The body was found in the wheel well of one of the main landing gears on flight 202, which arrived at Kahului Airport from Chicago on Tuesday, United said in an e-mailed statement.
The airline said the wheel well of the Boeing 787-10 was only accessible from the outside of the aircraft, and that it was unclear how or when the person accessed it.
In an e-mailed statement, the Maui Police Department said it was “actively investigating” the discovery of the dead body.
Neither United nor the Maui Police Department shared further information.
The Associated Press called Kahului Airport on Wednesday and was directed to a public affairs officer for the state department of transportation.
A spokesperson for the department said in an e-mail that it had no additional details beyond what United had confirmed.
File photo of United Airlines planes at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, United States. PHOTO: AFP
LILLE (AFP) – French authorities said they rescued 107 migrants trying to cross the Channel from France to England on Wednesday.
Over the course of the holidays, 12 rescue operations were staged along the coast of northern France, including of a boat experiencing engine trouble, France’s Channel and North Sea maritime prefecture said in a statement.
In the morning, 30 passengers were rescued from a boat near Dunkirk, while the others onboard wished to continue onwards and were taken into British custody once they reached British waters, the maritime authorities said.
Another boat experiencing engine damage was spotted later in the day, also near Dunkirk, and all 51 passengers were rescued.
Later, 26 people were taken off a boat experiencing difficulty near Calais.
The English Channel is “a particularly dangerous area, especially at the height of winter for precarious and overloaded boats”, the statement said.
At least 73 migrants have died trying to cross the Channel to Britain this year, according to the Pas-de-Calais authorities, making 2024 the deadliest year on record for the crossings.
Tens of thousands more have reached Britain, where the government has vowed to crack down on people-smuggling gangs.
In November, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for greater international cooperation against the gangs, which he described as a “global security threat similar to terrorism”.
File photo of migrants rescued by French authorities in Dunkirk in northern France. PHOTO: AFP
BELGRADE (AP) – Serbia’s striking university students rallied outside the chief prosecutor’s office to demand justice over a concrete canopy collapse that killed 15 people last month in the country’s north.
More than 1,000 students symbolically left letters on the doorstep of the public prosecutor’s office, telling chief prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac that “students expect you to fight for law and justice, without political abuse or corruption”.
Dolovac’s office later responded with a statement inviting a student delegation to a meeting. Serbia’s universities have been blockaded for weeks as part of a wider movement demanding accountability over the November 1 tragedy in Novi Sad when a huge concrete construction at the railway station crashed onto the people below.
Many in Serbia blame the collapse on widespread corruption and sloppy work on the building renovation. Prosecutors have arrested 13 people over the Novi Sad tragedy, including a government minister whose release later fuelled public scepticism about the honesty of the investigation.
Striking students have received wide support in Serbia from their professors, farmers, actors and others. Tens of thousands joined a student-led protest in Belgrade on Sunday that also reflected wider discontent with populist President Aleksandar Vucic’s rule.
Protesting students on Wednesday carried banners featuring red handprints – a protest symbol telling the authorities they have “blood on their hands”.
