Typhoon Phanfone meanwhile brought a wet, miserable and terrifying holiday season to the central Philippines, stranding tens of thousands of people. In her traditional Christmas Day message later on Wednesday, Queen Elizabeth was to describe 2019 as “quite bumpy” after a year of crises in the royal family. “He started throwing money out of the bag and then said, ‘Merry Christmas!” witness Dion Pascale told local media. “At Christmas, all the world looks to us, to Bethlehem,” he said. Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral, ravaged by fire in April, was unable to hold its traditional Christmas Eve Mass for the first time in more than 200 years, with the faithful gathering at other nearby churches instead.

Source: The Express Tribune December 25, 2019 16:41 UTC