The winter solstice is Saturday, bringing the shortest day and longest night of the year to the Northern Hemisphere — ideal conditions for holiday lights and warm blankets. For those who would rather have more sunlight, you can try to make your way to the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summer. Or be patient: Starting Sunday, days will get a little bit longer in the Northern Hemisphere every single day until late June. These annual changes in sunlight as the Earth revolves around the sun have been well known to humans for centuries. Monuments such as Stonehenge in England and the Torreon at Peru’s Machu Picchu were designed in part to align with solstices. Here’s what to know about how the Earth’s march around the sun splits up the year. What is the solstice?

Judges of the Jerusalem District Court, who are overseeing the trial of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, confirmed on Wednesday morning that Netanyahu’s testimony was postponed on Tuesday due to his tour of the Syrian Golan Heights. The confirmation was made in response to the repeated requests of several media outlets to disclose what was said in the closed part of the discussion in the court that took place on Monday, during which Netanyahu requested to cancel his hearing scheduled for Tuesday. Some media outlets speculated that the delay was due to an impending hostage deal with Hamas amid rumors that the prime minister had flown to Cairo, a claim that his office denied.

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday said it will soon require hotels, vacation rental platforms and live event promoters to disclose any fees up front when they list prices. The FTC said consumers often see advertised prices for hotel rooms, short-term rentals, and tickets to sporting events and concerts only to be surprised later by so-called “junk fees,” including resort fees, cleaning fees, processing fees and other extra charges. “People deserve to know up front what they’re being asked to pay without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement. The rule is scheduled to go into effect in 120 days.

A Russian woman who was arrested after she stowed away on a flight from New York City to Paris last month has been arrested again in Buffalo, authorities said. Svetlana Dali, 57, was scheduled to appear Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Buffalo, said Barbara Burns, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for western New York. Authorities say Dali evaded security at John F. Kennedy International Airport and flew to Paris as a stowaway on a Delta Air Lines flight on Nov. 26. French law enforcement met Dali at the gate and detained her when the plane landed in Paris early on Nov. 27. Dali, a legal U.S. resident, was flown back to New York and was arraigned on Dec. 5 in federal court in Brooklyn on a charge of being a stowaway. At a bail hearing the following day, U.S.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. swept onto Capitol Hill late Monday as the anti-vaccine health guru from the famous political family reintroduced himself to senators, this time as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s Health and Human Services Department. It was a soft-opening debut for Kennedy, whose wide-ranging views — yes to raw milk, no to fluoride, Ozempic and America’s favorite processed foods — are raising alarms in the scientific community and beyond. In the Senate he’s facing a mix of support, curiosity, skepticism and downright rejection among the senators who will be asked to confirm him to Trump’s Cabinet.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said Tuesday he believes unidentified drones recently spotted over New Jersey and New York may be “spy drones” from China, even as Biden administration officials downplay the concerns, claiming many of the sightings involve commercial or benign aircraft. “We want answers, but the response I’m getting is we don’t know whose drones these are,” McCaul told reporters ahead of a classified briefing for the House Intelligence Committee. “I was with the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson. He said these drones have been reported over military sites, military bases. I would not think those are friendly. I would think those are adversarial,” McCaul said.

Up in the sky, is that a drone, a plane or a helicopter? Experts who study unmanned aircraft systems — better known as drones — say it can be tough to tell from miles away. But there are clues. A light in the sky at night can easily be misinterpreted, according to John Slaughter, director of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research and Operations Center at the University of Maryland. “You can’t just walk outside and say, ‘Oh, that’s not a drone,’ or ‘That is one.’ All you can really factually say is ‘I saw a light in the sky,’” Slaughter said. Dozens of mysterious nighttime flights first spotted in New Jersey last month and now being seen across the U.S. have raised concerns among residents and officials.

Notorious drug lord Osiel Cárdenas Guillén has been returned to Mexico after serving a U.S. sentence and was quickly re-arrested and sent to a maximum security prison to face Mexican charges. There had been nervousness about the impending return of Cárdenas Guillén, who once led the feared Gulf cartel in northeastern Mexico before he was arrested and extradited to the United States in 2007. The U.S. Homeland Security Department confirmed in its social media accounts Monday that Cárdenas Guillén had been returned after serving 14 years in U.S. custody, most of his 25-year U.S. prison sentence. He is a Mexican citizen, so presumably he was deported.

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake that struck off Vanuatu killed at least 14 people, injured hundreds more and caused widespread damage across the South Pacific island nation, officials said early Wednesday. Frantic rescue efforts got underway after the quake hit early on Tuesday afternoon, and rescuers worked through the night, trying to reach people screaming for help from under the rubble. The earthquake hit at a depth of 57 kilometers (35 miles) and was centered 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of Port Vila, the largest city in Vanuatu, a group of 80 islands home to about 330,000 people. A tsunami warning was called off less than two hours after the quake, which was followed by large aftershocks. The Red Cross said early Wednesday that 14 had died, citing government information.

Fewer than 20% of Israelis rate the country’s overall situation as “good” or “very good,” according to the 2024 Israeli Democracy Index published by the Israel Democracy Institute. Despite this, two-thirds of Israelis still view the country as a good place to live. The survey reveals a strong sense of belonging to the state among a majority of Jewish respondents, while a smaller majority of Arabs share similar sentiments, albeit with lingering challenges. The survey was first conducted in May 2024 and revisited in October, meaning it does not reflect more recent developments such as the Lebanon ceasefire or the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria.