President Joe Biden on Monday introduced the newest member of his family, a purebred German shepherd puppy named Commander, while the first lady's office said the cat she promised more than a year ago to bring to the White House will finally join them in January.

But the news wasn't as "paws-itive" for another member of the Biden animal family. The family decided it was best for their other German shepherd, Major, to live in a quieter environment with friends after some biting incidents.

In the darkest days of the year, in a very dark time, there is a longing for illumination.

And so, all around the world, the holiday lights go on — some of them humble, some of them spectacular, all of them a welcome respite from the dark.

Lebanon's religious leaders met Monday with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during his visit to Lebanon.

A joint communique was issued after the talks in which the conferees confirmed their "commitment to openness, tolerance and coexistence as the essence of Lebanon’s identity and stability."

Pope Francis celebrated his 85th birthday on Friday, a milestone made even more remarkable given the coronavirus pandemic, his summertime intestinal surgery and the weight of history: His predecessor retired at this age and the last pope to have lived any longer was Leo XIII over a century ago.

Yet Francis is going strong, recently concluding a whirlwind trip to Cyprus and Greece after his pandemic-defying jaunts this year to Iraq, Slovakia and Hungary. He has set in motion an unprecedented two-year consultation of rank-and-file Catholics on making the church more attuned to the laity, and shows no sign of slowing down on his campaign to make the post-COVID world a more environmentally sustainable, economically just and fraternal place where the poor are prioritized.

Syrian national Issa Shamma expressed gratitude and hope as he is getting ready to leave Cyprus to start a new life in Italy barely a week before Christmas.

Pope Francis who visited Cyprus earlier this month, would take 50 migrants from Cyprus to Italy, including Muslims, in a gesture of "solidarity," Cypriot authorities said.

Beirut in December was once a shopping extravaganza, where day-long traffic jams clogged streets decked out with flashing Christmas lights and building-sized billboards advertising champagne and jewelry.

An architect-designer in southern Finland has returned to a frozen lake with a snow shovel to draw a large animal on the ice for the sixth year in a row to create a short-lived artwork that he hopes will "make people happy and encourage them to go out to hike in a beautiful nature."

On Dec. 4, Pasi Widgren drew a fox that measures about 90 meters (295.3 feet) from edge to edge on Lake Pitkajarvi, north of Helsinki. In previous years, he used a shovel to sketch a bear and an owl, always using the same lake as his canvas.

Over a dozen unmarried women huddled in a jail cell south of Dubai last year, locked up for the crime of giving birth, when a guard entered and declared them free.

The incident, described by one of the women, was among the first concrete signs that the United Arab Emirates had decriminalized premarital sex in an overhaul of its Islamic penal code.

The two journalists who shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize received their awards Friday during a pomp-filled ceremony in Norway, where both warned that the world needs independent reporting to counter the power of authoritarian governments.

Maria Ressa of the Philippines and fellow laureate Dmitry Muratov of Russia gave their Nobel lectures at Oslo City Hall. The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded them the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for their separate fights for freedom of expression in countries where reporters have faced persistent attacks, harassment and killings.

A prominent LGBTQ activist in Tunisia has reported that two men, one dressed in police uniform, threw him to the ground, beat and kicked him during an assault they said was punishment for his "insulting" attempts to file complaints against officers for previous mistreatment.

"This was not the first time that I had been attacked by a policeman, but I was really surprised. The attack was horrifying," Badr Baabou, president of the Tunisian Association for Justice and Equality, or Damj, said. "They aimed for my head... at a moment they stood on my neck. This was very symbolic for me, as if they wanted to reduce me to silence."