Snowzilla rises again despite Anchorage order

Snowzilla rises again despite Anchorage order

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A giant snowman named Snowzilla has mysteriously appeared again this year — despite the city’s cease-and-desist order.

Someone again built the giant snowman in Billy Powers’ front yard in an east Anchorage neighborhood. Snowzilla reappeared before dawn Tuesday.

Powers is not taking credit. When questioned Tuesday afternoon, he insisted Snowzilla just somehow happened, again.

For the last three years, Snowzilla — to the delight of some and the chagrin of others — has been a very large feature in Powers’ yard. In 2005, Snowzilla rose 16 feet. He had a corncob pipe and a carrot nose and two eyes made out of beer bottles.

This year, Snowzilla is estimated to be 25 feet tall.

Eldorado Elf returns

LOS ANGELES — While carmakers have their hands out to Congress, a kindly soul showed up in a car to deliver his own bailout to those on Skid Row.

The anonymous donor continued a holiday tradition by handing out $10 bills to people at The Midnight Mission. The shelter estimated that $13,000 was distributed this year.

“It’s the highlight of my year,” the donor said.

Hundreds lined up around the building Tuesday, and some said they waited as long as eight hours for the benefactor nicknamed the Eldorado Elf.

The tradition of handing out money at the mission around Christmas dates to the early 1980s when car dealer Ronald Moran began showing up in a Cadillac to pass out thousands of dollars.

Christmas Eve in Iraq

BAGHDAD — The Christmas Eve Mass for Baghdad’s small and beleaguered Christian community started before dusk Wednesday instead of at the traditional midnight, a reflection of continued security concerns in the Iraqi capital.

About 50 people attended the Mar Yusif Chaldean Catholic Church’s service, which started in the late afternoon — as on the previous five Christmas Eves — even though the overall number of attacks in the city has plummeted this year.

The worshippers quietly received communion and many lit candles at a nativity scene at the altar.

Fewer than 3 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people are Christians — the majority of them Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians, with a small number of Roman Catholics. The exact number of Christians left in Iraq is unclear but they are thought to number several hundred thousand.

Headscarf sensitivity

ATLANTA — City court workers in an Atlanta suburb will undergo sensitivity training and post courtroom dress code signs after police arrested a Muslim woman for refusing to remove her religious headscarf before attending a hearing.

A judge ordered Lisa Valentine, 40, to serve 10 days in jail for contempt of court after the Dec. 16 incident. She was released in less than a day.

Muslim rights activists have asked the Department of Justice to investigate the incident that triggered a protest in Douglasville, a city of about 20,000 people on Atlanta’s west suburban outskirts.

Smuggling mummies

CAIRO, Egypt — An Australian teacher who allegedly stuffed his luggage with 2,000-year old animal mummies and religious figurines wrapped as gifts was arrested Wednesday and charged with smuggling antiquities, an Egyptian airport security official said. The 61-year teacher was heading to Thailand when a security official became suspicious of the wrapped figurines that were placed amid souvenir ceramic pots in his suitcase.

Associated Press