Holiday Lights Come Alive

A helicopter pilot and a meteorologist who worked for a North Carolina television station died following the crash of the station’s helicopter next to an interstate highway in the Charlotte area. WBTV broadcasters who had been reporting on the crash identified their colleagues on air Tuesday about three hours following the deadly incident. The men were identified as meteorologist Jason Myers and pilot Chip Tayag. The crash occurred along Interstate 77. Johnny Jennings, chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, said no vehicles were involved in the incident. The chief said preliminary witness accounts indicate that the pilot made some “diversionary” maneuvers and “probably saved some lives."

A historically Black university in North Carolina says it has filed a complaint with the Department of Justice seeking a review of a search of a bus carrying students during a traffic stop in South Carolina last month. Shaw University President Paulette Dillard has accused law enforcement officers of racially profiling students traveling to a conference in Atlanta. Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright called the accusations false, saying officers stopped the bus because it was swerving. Dillard says the issue is how the alleged minor violation turned into a drug search. The complaint states that a lane violation would be insufficient justification for a search and students’ privacy was violated because they didn’t consent to a luggage search.

Police say a vehicle towing a float for a holiday parade in North Carolina crashed, killing a girl participating in the event. A Raleigh Police Department news release says the driver who lost control of the vehicle and struck the child was charged with reckless driving and other offenses. Witnesses told WTVD-TV that people attending the Raleigh Christmas Parade heard the truck’s driver screaming that he had lost control of the vehicle and couldn’t stop it before the crash. Nobody else at the parade was injured in the collision.

Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, has started to erupt for the first time in nearly four decades, prompting volcanic ash and debris to fall nearby. The U.S. Geological Survey says the eruption began late Sunday night in the summit caldera of the volcano on the Big Island. Early Monday, it said lava flows were contained within the summit area and weren’t threatening nearby communities. The agency warned residents at risk from Mauna Loa lava flows should review their eruption preparations. Scientists had been on alert because of a recent spike in earthquakes at the summit of the volcano, which last erupted in 1984.

Merriam-Webster has chosen “gaslighting” as its word of the year for 2022. Lookups for “gaslighting” on the dictionary company's website increased this year by 1,740% over 2021. Merriam-Webster's Peter Sokolowski tells The Associated Press exclusively ahead of Monday's unveiling that lookups were pervasive all year long. Typically there's a single event that drives searches. The word refers to a form of psychological coercion. Merriam-Webster, chooses its word of the year based solely on data. Sokolowski and his team weed out evergreen words most commonly looked up to gauge which word received a significant bump over the year before.

Stocks are opening lower on Wall Street as protests spread in China calling for President Xi Jinping to step down amid growing anger over severe restrictions imposed as part of his “zero COVID” strategy in the world's second-largest economy. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%. Energy stocks fell along with crude oil prices. Technology companies were also lower. Bond yields were holding steady. Markets will get another key piece of data on the economy later this week when the Labor Department issues its monthly jobs report.

Officials say more than 2 million people in the Houston area remain under a boil order notice after a power outage caused low water pressure at a water purification plant. The order — which means water must be boiled before it’s used for cooking, bathing or drinking — also prompted schools in the Houston area to close Monday. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says the city believes the water is safe but a boil order was required because of the drop Sunday in water pressure. He says water sampling will begin Monday morning and the boil order could be lifted 24 hours after the city is notified the water is safe.

Don’t look for plastic partitions or faraway benches when visiting Santa Claus this year. The jolly old elf is back, pre-pandemic style. Santa booker HireSanta.com has logged a 30% increase in demand over last year after losing about 15% of its performers to retirement or death during the pandemic. Most Santa experiences have moved back to kids on laps and aren’t considering COVID-19 in a major way. Inflation has taken a bite out of Santa. Many are older, on fixed incomes and travel long distances to don the red suit. They spend hundreds on their costumes and other accoutrements. And Santa bookers this year say there's a higher demand for inclusive Santas, including Black, deaf and Spanish-speaking Santas.

Authorities say two people have been rescued more than six hours after their single-engine plane crashed and got stuck in some live power lines in Maryland. The crash caused widespread outages in Montgomery County. Fire Chief Scott Goldstein says responders were able to safely remove both people after disconnecting the lines and securing the plane to the tower early Monday. He says both suffered “serious injuries” from the crash and that hypothermia had set in while they waited to be rescued. The Federal Aviation Administration says the crash happened around 5:40 p.m. Sunday near Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg.