Christmas

One week after a controversy broke out over New York's Department of Education's (DOE) policy of suggesting that school test publishers avoid certain topics and words while preparing the tests- words like "evolution," "birthday" and any topics related to religion - the department announced earlier this week that it is abandoning the much-criticized practice.

"After reconsidering our message to test publishers and the reaction from parents, we will revise our guidance and eliminate the list of words to avoid on tests," Shael Polakow-Suransky, the city's chief academic officer, said in a statement emailed to the press Tuesday. "We will continue to advise companies to be sensitive to student backgrounds and avoid unnecessary distractions that could invalidate test scores and give an inaccurate assessment of how students are doing."

"New York City schools teach the broadest, richest curriculum in the nation and we can't let this distract from the important work going on our classrooms," the official said, alluding to criticism that limiting the list of possible test topics is equivalent to providing children with bad education. more >>

This week marked the 200th birthday of renowned author Charles Dickens, and across the world many were looking back at all he has given to culture and society.

Charles Dickens made huge contributions to English Literature with novels like Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, among many others. But did Dickens contribute more than literature to modern society? There is evidence that Christmas as we know it would not exist without Dickens and his heartwarming tale, "A Christmas Carol."

While it's hard to imagine Christmas as anything but a day of exchanging gifts under the tree with family and loved ones- that was not always the case. In fact, Christmas was a somewhat unpopular holiday in the early 19th century. According to Historian David Cannadine, this is because the puritans "equated [Christmas] with the twin evils of popery and royalty, and they feared it meant people might enjoy themselves too much." more >>

A baby Jesus figurine from a Nativity display was found vandalized with satanic imagery in Bangor, Pa., in one of many Christmas vandalism acts that have been reported around the country.

The incident occurred at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bangor, where Pastor Franklin Stinner received several calls Tuesday morning informing him that a baby Jesus statue was hanging outside the church on a tree.

A red permanent marker was used to draw devil horns on the statue’s head, as well as dots on the hands and feet, most likely representing Christ's wounds from the Crucifixion. A red "A" with the message "I am the Antichrist" was written on the statue’s front, while the number "666" and "Demonization is religious oppression" was found on the back. more >>

Angelina Jolie has bestowed her long-time partner Brad Pitt with a waterfall in California as well as the land surrounding it.

Reports indicate that the purchase was not only a Christmas gift, but a birthday present to Pitt who turned 48 on Dec. 18.

Sources close to the couple say that Jolie's gift was influenced by architect Frank Lloyd Wright's classic house, Fallingwater. more >>

A Texas gunman who carried out a Christmas Day massacre in a Santa Claus costume called police on from the Grapevine, Tx. apartment where he killed seven people, admitting to his crime.

“Help, help … I am shooting people,” Azizolah Yazdanpanah whispered to police dispatcher in a 911 call he placed at the Texas apartment where he shot his estranged wife, his two teenage children, and three other family members before turning the gun on himself.

The police dispatcher was unable to hear Yazdanpanah’s words and police believed that they were responding to an open call when they found seven dead bodies in the apartment. more >>

Emergency phone calls from the deadly Christmas day fire that broke out in Stamford, Ct. have been made public, only days after the holiday fire claimed five lives.

The Christmas day fire broke out at the home of advertising executive and founder of the New York City-based Badger & Winters Group, Madonna Badger, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Of the five people killed in the deadly blaze were Badger’s three children and her parents, Lomer and Pauline Johnson. more >>