Anaheim, California - Authorities have arrested a 19-year-old Anaheim woman in the death of a newborn girl who was found wrapped in plastic in a trash bin in Stanton on Wednesday. Authorities found the woman when she entered West Anaheim Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon in need of treatment. “Her stories were inconsistent,” Amormino said. “She denied giving birth several times.” More…

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BRECKENRIDGE, Colorado - A 41-year-old Tampa, Fla., man has died after skiing into a tree at Breckenridge Ski Resort. Summit County Coroner Joanne Richardson says the man was on an intermediate trail, lost control and crashed into a tree where the trail merges with another. At least two other people have died while riding at Colorado resorts this season, including a 14-year-old girl who died after hitting a tree at Breckenridge on Nov. 20.  More…

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LOS ANGELES, California - Thousands of people in Los Angeles area homeless shelters will get free shoes for Christmas, footwear confiscated from counterfeiters, police said. An estimated 10,000 pairs of fake athletic shoes confiscated by the Los Angeles Police Department anti-piracy unit — including knockoffs of Adidas and Nikes — have been seized. The LAPD and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office plan to hand out sneakers to about 1,800 people staying at the Union Rescue Mission downtown, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.  More…

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Bremerton  - Police were dispatched to a Kitsap Way diner early Thursday after a woman allegedly stabbed people with a fork and was threw things off the table. An officer who arrived at about 3 a.m. found an employee trying to control the woman, who was bleeding from the nose and mouth and had a swollen nose and lips. An employee said she heard a commotion and found two women in a booth, one of them “going ballistic” because she couldn’t find her wallet. She socked the employee in the mouth, stabbed somebody with a fork, and threw glasses and things off the table.  More…

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Vail, Colorado - A living nativity scene in near the Colorado ski resort of Vail almost had to go without two crucial actors when two donkeys escaped. The nativity scene is an annual tradition for Eagle River Presbyterian Church in the Vail Valley. Pastor Rob Wilson says two borrowed donkeys were being held in a fenced-in pen for the event Wednesday night, but the animals pushed their way through it, the Vail Daily reports. A church member who stopped by the church Wednesday morning noticed the donkeys were gone.  More…

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ORLANDO, Florida - An anonymous Vietnam veteran donated a Disney honeymoon to a stranded serviceman who missed his Orlando, Fla., wedding, the bride said. The business manager at Disney’s Shades of Green resort, however, called Hodge and said a man who identified himself only as a veteran had provided the couple a three-night stay, including meals and park tickets. The manager said that veteran and others make many such donations to military personnel when they’re on leave after a deployment. ”This individual doesn’t like to be named and sent a card. It says, ‘Thank you, Merry Christmas. A Vietnam vet and his wife.’ It’s like our Disney happily ever after,” said Hodge.   More…

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VATICAN CITY - A woman jumped the barriers in St. Peter’s Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday. The 82-year-old pope quickly got up and was unhurt, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini. Footage aired on Italy’s RAI state TV showed a woman dressed in a red, hooded sweat shirt vaulting over the wooden barriers and rushing toward the pope before being swarmed by bodyguards. Video shot by a witness showed the woman grabbing the pope’s vestments as she was taken down, with Benedict seemingly falling on top of her. Benedict lost his miter and his staff in the fall. He remained on the ground for a few seconds before being helped back up by attendants. At that point a few shouts of “viva il papa!” (long live the pope!) rang out, followed by cheers from the faithful, witnesses said. After getting up, Benedict, flanked by tense bodyguards, resumed his walk to the basilica’s main altar to start the Mass.  More…

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USA - The pay of Walt Disney’s chief Robert Iger fell 28% to $29m (20.2m euros) in 2009, a company filing to regulators has showed. Disney’s earnings have suffered this year because of the economic slowdown. However the board praised Mr Iger for “his rapid response to exceptionally challenging economic conditions”. Disney’s earnings fell 25% to $3.3bn in 2009 as the recession meant fewer people went to its amusement parks and companies spent less money advertising on its TV networks. More…

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Hawaii - There’s one common Christmas practice not on the First Family’s schedule: a visit to Christmas Eve church services. Church, in fact, has been a surprisingly tough issue for the Obamas. They resigned their membership with Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in 2008 after Obama renounced the church’s controversial former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. And while the First Family intended to find a local church to attend when they moved to Washington, concerns about crowds and displacing regular worshippers has prevented them from finding a new religious home during their first year here.  More…

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The Vatican - The Pope is to break with tradition this year and celebrate Midnight Mass at 10 p.m., instead of midnight, Sky News reported. The decision was taken two months ago to “ease the Pope’s fatigue at a time when there are many ceremonies and commitments” during Christmas holidays, said Vatican spokesman the Rev Frederico Lombardi. There was no reason to worry about 82-year-old Benedict XVI’s health, the spokesman said.  More…

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UK - Police are investigating the murder of a 20-year-old man who was stabbed after a snowball fight in Denbighshire. Anthony Finbar Burke was injured in the abdomen by a kitchen knife near his home in Clos-y-Berllan in Rhuddlan at around 2230 GMT on Wednesday. North Wales Police said he died later in Glan Clwyd hospital at Bodelwyddan. A local man, 19, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. More…

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Global warming skeptics are blasting Build-A-Bear Workshop for being anything but soft and cuddly, accusing the well-known toy company of trying to indoctrinate young children with a series of videos warning of the effects of climate change. The three-part video series, “Under the North Star: An Uplifting Christmas Experience,” features a cartoon polar bear who warns Santa Claus that global warming is a “serious situation,” one that could wreak havoc on the environment and potentially cause the North Pole to vanish by Christmas.  More…

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