The Associated Press

From Bethlehem to Beijing, people around the world are celebrating the Christmas season. A polar bear mascot boards an elevator during holiday revelry. Swimmers plunge into frigid waters off Northern Ireland for a charity event. Singers fill a stadium in Indonesia.

Associated Press photographers have captured diverse, mesmerizing images such as these as they chronicle a holiday period abounding in joy, reverence and dazzling lights.

This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

People drive up to the top of the Feldberg mountain near Frankfurt, Germany, to join the traditional Christmas Eve meeting of tractor and motorbike drivers early Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
People take to the sea at Helen’s Bay, Northern Ireland, for the annual Christmas Eve swim in the cold waters in Belfast Lough to raise money for Dementia NI & Air Ambulance NI, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
People gather at Roemerberg square to attend the city’s bell ringing on Christmas Eve in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
People wearing traditional Ukrainian clothes sign carols on the Christmas Eve at a subway station in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
Christians attend prayer on Christmas Eve, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, at St. Mary Cathedral in Yangon, Myanmar. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
Catholic clergy walk in procession next to the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, on Christmas Eve, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, is received by local community while crossing an Israeli military checkpoint from Jerusalem ahead of celebrations at the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, on Christmas Eve, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
People hold electric candles as they sing during a Christmas Eve service at Indonesia Arena stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
Ukrainian servicemen attend a parade on Orthodox Christmas eve in downtown Lviv, Ukraine, on Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Mykola Tys)
Wearing Santa Claus costumes, children watch the 40th annual Christmas parade heading towards the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Israel, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A man walks past an illuminated church on the eve of Christmas in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
Children celebrate Christmas Eve in the southern Lebanese border village of Alma al-Shaab, near the Israeli border, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A piece of meat is thrown to the buyer in the crowd during the annual Christmas Eve meat auction at Smithfield Market in London, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

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By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — A planned Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Kennedy Center, a holiday tradition dating back more than 20 years, has been canceled. The show’s host, musician Chuck Redd, says that he called off the performance in the wake of the White House announcing last week that President Donald Trump’s name would be added to the facility.

As of last Friday, the building’s facade reads The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. According to the White House, the president’s handpicked board approved the decision, which scholars have said violates the law. Trump had been suggesting for months he was open to changing the center’s name.

“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd told The Associated Press in an email Wednesday. Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player who has toured with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Ray Brown, has been presiding over holiday “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William “Keter” Betts.

The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to email seeking comment. The center’s website lists the show as canceled.

President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him. Kennedy niece Kerry Kennedy has vowed to remove Trump’s name from the building once he leaves office and former House historian Ray Smock is among those who say any changes would have to be approved by Congress.

The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

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Trump, a Republican, has been deeply involved with the center named for an iconic Democrat after mostly ignoring it during his first term. He has forced out its leadership, overhauled the board while arranging for himself to head it, and personally hosted this year’s Kennedy Center honors, breaking a long tradition of presidents mostly serving as spectators. The changes at the Kennedy Center are part of the president’s larger mission to fight “woke” culture at federal cultural institutions.

Numerous artists have called off Kennedy Center performances since Trump returned to office, including Issa Rae and Peter Wolf. Lin-Manuel Miranda canceled a planned production of “Hamilton.”

Tim Pawlenty was the last Republican to win statewide office after he was re-elected to his second term as Minnesota’s governor in 2006.

The former governor thinks 2026 might be Minnesota Republicans’ “best chance” to achieve the same feat 20 years later, he told Forum News Service in November.

The GOP race is crowded, with MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, House Speaker Lisa Demuth, state Rep. Kristin Robbins, attorney Chris Madel, and previous gubernatorial candidates Kendall Qualls and physician Scott Jensen.

“The 2026 elections are the best chance for Republicans to win statewide here in a long time. Those chances will be impacted by (President Donald) Trump and (Gov. Tim) Walz’s popularity a year from now, the state of the economy, whether key consumer items are affordable, the quality of our candidates, and the growing sense things are off track in Minnesota,” Pawlenty wrote in an email.

‘Political climate more polarized’

Last year, a few Republicans and former Republicans declared themselves in support of former Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

Pawlenty was not one of them, but when asked to reflect on the “Republicans for Harris wave,” he said, “If you haven’t closed a sale with your product in nearly 20 years, it’s long past the time to get a better product, better marketing, or both.”

Pawlenty said he thinks Republicans currently in office have done a good job addressing “concerns about illegal immigration, crime, out-of-control wokeness and more,” but that more efforts are needed toward affordability.

“Almost nothing stays the same in politics for long, and recent changes have featured MAGA taking over the Republican Party and socialists taking over the Democratic Party. The political climate is now markedly more polarized than when I was governor,” he wrote.

During his tenure, Pawlenty focused on not raising taxes. He turned a budget deficit into a surplus — that later turned into a budget deficit. He passed a concealed carry law, and oversaw major infrastructure projects like the Northstar Commuter Rail and Target Field.

Before he was governor, he served 10 years in the Minnesota Legislature. He also had an unsuccessful run for the 2012 Republican nomination for president in 2010. He finished second to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be U.S. Sen. John McCain’s presidential running mate in 2008. Pawlenty sought a third term as governor in 2018 but lost the Republican primary to Jeff Johnson.

‘A chilling effect on our discourse’

Now, Pawlenty serves on various boards, periodically writes and speaks about policy and politics, and sometimes appears on cable news shows.

Two of those appearances were on Twin Cities-based KARE 11 in the wake of the June 14 Minnesota lawmaker shootings.

In one appearance on June 18, he provided context on misinformation regarding the appointment of accused assassin Vance Boelter to a government board. In another appearance on June 14, he said Minnesota’s “civic and political fabric seems to be so torn.”

“It’s going to have a chilling effect on our discourse, on our political leaders, but importantly, also their families,” Pawlenty said on KARE 11. “Can you imagine being the child or a spouse, a significant other, of a political leader in this environment — every time you open the door, every time you go to the grocery store, you don’t know who is just going to question you or who might harm you?”

Fraud cases

On Dec. 5, he weighed in on Minnesota’s fraud investigations and the rhetoric about Minnesota’s Somali community that has followed.

“Over 80 people have been charged … criminally for that fraud, and the vast majority of almost all of them are, in fact, Somali,” he said on News Nation. “So we don’t want to stigmatize any group because they belong to an ethnic group or another group, but we also don’t want to excuse illegal behavior or misconduct because they’re in that group.”

When asked about how the current administration has handled the issue, Pawlenty responded, “There’s no question … that the early signals around this fraud were ignored.”

When Forum News Service asked what’s ahead for him, Pawlenty didn’t rule out all elected office but did comment on one 2026 race.

“While I’ve been asked to run for the U.S. Senate, I don’t think I could win my party’s endorsement at the convention or in a primary because I guess I’m now viewed as too ‘mainstream’ — which I find kinda funny,” he wrote.

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By MARLON GONZÁLEZ and MEGAN JANETSKY

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Trump-backed candidate Nasry Asfura won Honduras’ presidential election, electoral authorities said Wednesday afternoon, ending a weeks-long count that has whittled away at the credibility of the Central American nation’s fragile electoral system.

The election is continuing Latin America’s swing to the right, coming just a week after Chile chose the far-right politician José Antonio Kast as its next president.

Asfura, of the conservative National Party received 40.27% of the vote in the Nov. 30, edging out four-time candidate Salvador Nasralla of the conservative Liberal Party, who finished with 39.53% of the vote.

Asfura, the former mayor of Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa, won in his second bid for the presidency, after he and Nasralla were neck-and-neck during a weeks-long vote count that fueled international concern.

On Tuesday night a number of electoral officials and candidates were already fighting and contesting the results of the election. Meanwhile, followers in Asfura’s campaign headquarters erupted into cheers.

“Honduras: I am prepared to govern,” wrote Asfura in a post on X shortly after the results were released. “I will not let you down.”

The results were a rebuke of the current leftist leader, and her governing democratic socialist Liberty and Re-foundation Party, known as LIBRE, whose candidate finished in a distant third place with 19.19% of the vote.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Asfura on Wednesday, writing on a post on X: “The people of Honduras have spoken … (the Trump administration) looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”

A number of right-leading leaders across Latin America, namely Trump-ally Argentine President Javier Milei, also congratulated the politician.

Asfura ran as a pragmatic politician, pointing to his popular infrastructure projects in the capital. Trump endorsed the 67-year-old conservative just days before the vote, saying he was the only Honduran candidate the U.S. administration would work with.

Nasralla has maintained that the election was fraudulent and called for a recount of all the votes just hours before the official results were announced.

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On Tuesday night, he addressed Trump in a post on X, writing: “Mr. President, your endorsed candidate in Honduras is complicit in silencing the votes of our citizens. If he is truly worthy of your backing, if his hands are clean, if he has nothing to fear, then why doesn’t he allow for every vote to be counted?”

He and others opponents of Asfura have maintained that Trump’s last-minute endorsement was an act of electoral interference that ultimately swung the results of the vote.

The unexpectedly tumultuous election was also marred by a sluggish vote count, which fueled even more accusations.

The Central American nation was stuck in limbo for more than three weeks as vote counting by electoral authorities lagged, and at one point was paralyzed after a special count of final vote tallies was called, fueling warnings by international leaders.

Ahead of the announcement, Organization of American States Secretary General Albert Rambin on Monday made an “urgent call” to Honduran authorities to wrap up a special count of the final votes before a deadline of Dec. 30. The Trump administration warned that any attempts to obstruct or delay the electoral count would be met with “consequences.”

For the incumbent, progressive President Xiomara Castro, the election marked a political reckoning. She was elected in 2021 on a promise to reduce violence and root out corruption.

She was among a group of progressive leaders in Latin American who were elected on a hopeful message of change in around five years ago but are now being cast out after failing to deliver on their vision. Castro said last week that she would accept the results of the elections even after she claimed that Trump’s actions in the election amounted to an “electoral coup.”

But Eric Olson, an independent international observer during the Honduran election with the Seattle International Foundation, and other observers said the rejection of Castro and her party was so definitive that they had little room to contest the results.

“Very few people, even within LIBRE, believe they won the election. What they will say is there’s been fraud, that there has been intervention by Donald Trump, that we we should tear up the elections and vote again,” Olson said. “But they’re not saying ‘we won the elections.’ It’s pretty clear they did not.”

Janetsky reported from Mexico City.