Hanukkah — also spelled Chanukah or other transliterations from Hebrew — is Judaism’s “festival of lights.” On eight consecutive nightfalls, Jews gather with family and friends to light one additional candle in the menorah — a multibranched candelabra. (Dell’Orto, AP News)
Read MoreEnglish Wikipedia raked in more than 84 billion views this year, according to numbers released Tuesday by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit behind the free, publicly edited online encyclopedia. And the most popular article was about ChatGPT (yes, the AI chatbot that’s seemingly everywhere today). (Grantham-Philips, AP News)
Read MoreBrenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” just topped the charts 65 years after its initial release. Debuting in 1958, with a 13-year-old Lee belting the holiday classic, the song has finally reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Although it didn’t take off upon its first release, the upbeat song did break into the top 20 in late December 1960. (St. Martin, Los Angeles Times)
Read MoreThe presidents of Harvard, UPenn and MIT testified on Capitol Hill about rising antisemitism on their campuses, an issue that has plagued institutions of higher learning across the country in recent months. (Treisman, NPR)
Read MoreA life-size crèche representing the Nativity will be unveiled at St. Peter’s Square on Saturday (Dec. 9), celebrating the 800th anniversary of a Catholic tradition long since adopted by Christians across denominations. (Giangravé, Religion News Service)
Read MoreTaylor Swift towers over the top 10 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Dec. 9), as she holds a whopping five titles in the region. She is the first living act to have five albums concurrently in the top 10 since the Billboard 200 was combined from its previously separate mono and stereo album charts into one all-encompassing list in August of 1963. Caulfield, Billboard)
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