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| ===== The winter solstice is almost here, the Northern Hemisphere's darkest day ===== | ===== International Women's Day protests demand equal rights and an end to discrimination, sexual violence ===== |
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| By The Associated Press undefined | By MEHMET GUZEL and ANDREW WILKS Associated Press |
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| 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. | ISTANBUL (AP) — Women took to the streets of cities across Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere to mark International Women's Day with demands for ending inequality and gender-based violence. |
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| 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. | On the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city, a rally in Kadikoy saw members of dozens of women's groups listen to speeches, dance and sing in the spring sunshine. The colorful protest was overseen by a large police presence, including officers in riot gear and a water cannon truck. |
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| 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. | The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared 2025 the Year of the Family. Protesters pushed back against the idea of women's role being confined to marriage and motherhood, carrying banners reading "Family will not bind us to life" and "We will not be sacrificed to the family." |
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| Here's what to know about how the Earth's march around the sun splits up the year. | Critics have accused the government of overseeing restrictions on women's rights and not doing enough to tackle violence against women. |
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| **What is the solstice?** | Erdogan in 2021 withdrew Turkey from a European treaty, dubbed the Istanbul Convention, that protects women from domestic violence. Turkish rights group We Will Stop Femicides Platform says that 394 women were killed by men in 2024. |
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| As the Earth travels around the sun, it does so at an angle. For most of the year, the Earth's axis is tilted either toward or away from the sun. That means the sun's warmth and light fall unequally on the northern and southern halves of the planet. | "There is bullying at work, pressure from husbands and fathers at home and pressure from patriarchal society. We demand that this pressure be reduced even further," Yaz Gulgun, 52, said. |
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| The solstices mark the times during the year when the Earth is at its most extreme tilt toward or away from the sun. This means the hemispheres are getting very different amounts of sunlight — and days and nights are at their most unequal. | **Women across Europe and Africa march against discrimination** |
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| During the Northern Hemisphere's winter solstice, the upper half of the Earth is tilted away from the sun, creating the shortest day and longest night of the year. The winter solstice falls between December 20 and 23.. | In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific health care, equal pay and other issues in which they don't get the same treatment as men. |
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| Meanwhile, at the summer solstice, the Northern Hemisphere is toward the sun, leading to the longest day and shortest night of the year. This solstice falls between June 20 and 22. | In Poland, activists opened a center across from the parliament building in Warsaw where women can go to have abortions with pills, either alone or with other women. |
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| **What is the equinox?** | Opening the center on International Women's Day across from the legislature was a symbolic challenge to authorities in the traditionally Roman Catholic nation, which has one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws. |
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| During the spring and fall equinoxes, the Earth's axis and its orbit line up so that both hemispheres get an equal amount of sunlight. | From Athens to Madrid, Paris, Munich, Zurich and Belgrade and in many more cities across the continent, women marched to demand an end to treatment as second-class citizens in society, politics, family and at work. |
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| The word equinox comes from two Latin words meaning equal and night. That's because on the equinox, day and night last almost the same amount of time — though one may get a few extra minutes, depending on where you are on the planet. | In Madrid, protesters held up big hand-drawn pictures depicting Gisele Pélicot, the woman who was drugged by her now ex-husband in France over the course of a decade so that she could be raped by dozens of men while unconscious. Pélicot has become a symbol for women all over Europe in the fight against sexual violence. |
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| The Northern Hemisphere's spring — or vernal — equinox can land between March 19 and 21, depending on the year. Its fall – or autumnal — equinox can land between Sept. 21 and 24. | Thousands of women marched in the capital Skopje and several other cities in North Macedonia to raise their voices for economic, political and social equality for women. |
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| **What's the difference between meteorological and astronomical seasons?** | Organizers said only about 28% of women in the country own property and in rural areas only 5%, mostly widows, have property in their name. Only 18 out of 100 women surveyed in rural areas responded that their parents divided family property equally between the brother and sister. "The rest were gender discriminated against within their family," they said. |
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| These are just two different ways to carve up the year. | In Nigeria's capital, Lagos, thousands of women gathered at the Mobolaji Johnson Stadium, dancing and signing and celebrating their womanhood. Many were dressed in purple — the traditional color of the women's liberation movement. |
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| Meteorological seasons are defined by the weather. They break down the year into three-month seasons based on annual temperature cycles. By that calendar, spring starts on March 1, summer on June 1, fall on Sept. 1 and winter on Dec. 1. | In Russia, the women's day celebrations had a more official tone, with honor guard soldiers presenting yellow tulips to girls and women during a celebration in St. Petersburg. |
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| Astronomical seasons depend on how the Earth moves around the sun. | **German president warns of backlash against progress already made** |
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| Solstices kick off summer and winter. Equinoxes mark the start of spring and autumn. | In Berlin, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for stronger efforts to achieve equality and warned against tendencies to roll back progress already made. |
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| The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | "Globally, we are seeing populist parties trying to create the impression that equality is something like a fixed idea of progressive forces," he said. He gave an example of " large tech companies that have long prided themselves on their modernity and are now, at the behest of a new American administration, setting up diversity programs and raving about a new 'masculine energy' in companies and society." |
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| | **Marchers in South America denounce femicides** |
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| ===== Will New Year's Eve be loud or quiet? What are the top 2025 resolutions? AP-NORC poll has answers ===== | In South America, some of the marches were organized by groups protesting the killings of women known as femicides. |
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| | Hundreds of women in Ecuador marched through the streets of Quito to steady drumbeats and held signs that opposed violence and the "patriarchal system." |
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| | "Justice for our daughters!" some demonstrators yelled in support of women slain in recent years. |
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| | In Bolivia, thousands of women began marching late Friday, with some scrawling graffiti on the walls of courthouses demanding that their rights be respected and denouncing impunity in femicides, with less than half of those cases reaching a sentencing. |
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| | Kirsten Grieshaber contributed to this report from Berlin. |
| | ===== How a canoe helped turn Hawaiian culture into a source of pride and even influenced Hollywood ===== |
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| | By AUDREY McAVOY Associated Press |
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| | KANEOHE, Hawaii (AP) — Hawaii's American colonizers once banned the Hawaiian language in schools. Some Native Hawaiians tried to lighten their skin with lye. Many people believed Polynesian voyagers had simply lucked into finding the islands by drifting on logs. |
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| | But a canoe launched half a century ago helped turn Hawaiian culture from a source of shame to one of pride, reviving the skill of traveling the seas by decoding the stars, waves and weather. That vessel — a double-hulled sailing canoe called the Hokulea, after the Hawaiian name for the star Arcturus — would even influence the Disney blockbuster "Moana" decades later. |
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| | To mark the anniversary, the Hokulea's early crew members gathered Saturday for ceremonial hula and kava drinking at the Oahu beach where the canoe launched on March 8, 1975, and where they began their first training sails. |
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| | "It's a vehicle of exploration. It's a vehicle of discovery," Nainoa Thompson, the CEO of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, said in an interview. "It's also been our vehicle for justice as Native Hawaiians, as Pacific Islanders, as a very unique, special culture of the Earth." |
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| | In 1980, Thompson became the first Hawaiian in six centuries to navigate to Tahiti without a compass or other modern instruments — a span of about 2,700 miles (4,300 kilometers). |
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| | **Hawaiian culture had long been repressed** |
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| | Thompson, 71, remembers stories from his grandmother, born less than a decade after the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893. Teachers beat her for speaking Hawaiian, and her uncle tried to wash the brown off his skin with lye. |
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| | When she had children, she didn't teach them Hawaiian. |
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| | "If her children tried to be Hawaiian, they would get hurt in the new society," Thompson said. "And so you have to become something else." |
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| By MARK KENNEDY and LINLEY SANDERS Associated Press | A resurgence of Hawaiian pride and identity starting in the late 1960s and 1970s set off a cultural renaissance. Artist Herb Kane began painting ancient canoes based on drawings from European explorers and got the idea to build a double-hulled canoe with tall, triangular sails similar to those his ancestors had used hundreds of years earlier. |
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| NEW YORK (AP) — If you're planning on ringing in the new year quietly at home, you're not alone. | **Debunking the drifting log theory** |
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| A majority of U.S adults intend to celebrate New Year's Eve at home, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. | At the time, many people accepted the notion that Polynesians settled islands by accident. |
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| "As I've gotten older over the last few years, it's like if I don't make it to midnight, it's not a big deal, you know?" says Carla Woods, 70, from Vinton, Iowa. | Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl had theorized that Polynesians arrived from South America, pushed west by the prevailing winds and currents. In 1947, he set out to prove it by floating from Peru on a log raft. He landed in the Tuamotu Islands north of Tahiti and wrote a best-seller. |
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| Nearly 2 in 10 will be celebrating at a friend or family member's home, and just 5% plan to go out to celebrate at a bar, restaurant or organized event, the poll found. | Heyerdahl's theory took hold even though Hawaiians for generations had passed down stories of people who traveled from the distant lands -- including Kahiki, possibly what is today known as Tahiti — by canoe, bringing with them edible plants such as ulu, or breadfruit. |
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| But many U.S. adults will celebrate the new year in a different way — by making a resolution. More than half say they'll make at least one resolution for 2025. | Kane, University of Hawaii archaeologist Ben Finney and Honolulu surfer Tommy Holmes wanted to challenge the drifting log concept. They started the Polynesian Voyaging Society, intent on sailing a canoe to Tahiti without modern instruments. |
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| There's some optimism about the year ahead, although more than half aren't expecting a positive change. About 4 in 10 say 2025 will be a better year for them personally. About one-third don't expect much of a difference between 2024 and 2025, and about one-quarter think 2025 will be a worse year than 2024. | They needed a navigator. Traditional long-distance voyaging skills had all but disappeared, but a Peace Corps volunteer on the isolated atoll of Satawal in Micronesia told them about Pius "Mau" Piailug, who had been taught navigation from childhood. Over about a month in 1976, Piailug guided the Hokulea from Hawaii to Tahiti — about the same distance from Hawaii to California. |
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| **Relaxed New Year's Eve plans for many** | Some 17,000 people thronged the Tahitian shore to greet them and witness what one crew member called "the spaceship of our ancestors." |
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| Kourtney Kershaw, a 32-year-old bartender in Chicago, often fields questions from customers and friends about upcoming events for New Year's Eve. She said this year is trending toward low-key. | Former Hawaii Gov. John Waihe'e was in his 20s then, and a delegate to the 1978 state Constitutional Convention. The Hokulea's success spurred delegates to make Hawaiian an official state language even though few residents still spoke it, he said. They also created the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to improve the well-being of Native Hawaiians. |
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| "A majority of who I've spoken to in my age range, they want to go out, but they don't know what they're going to do because they haven't found anything or things are just really expensive," she said. "Party packages or an entry fee are like a turnoff, especially with the climate of the world and how much things cost." | "It helped us believe in everything that we were doing," Waihe'e said. |
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| As expected, younger people are more interested in ringing in the new year at a bar or organized event — about 1 in 10 U.S. adults under 30 say they plan to do that. But about 3 in 10 older adults — 60 and above — say they won't celebrate the beginning of 2025 at all. | Today, two dozen schools have Hawaiian language immersion programs, and Census data show more than 27,000 people in Hawaii, and 34,000 in the U.S., speak Hawaiian at home. |
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| Anthony Tremblay, 35, from Pittsburgh, doesn't usually go out to toast the arrival of the new year, but this year he's got something special cooked up: He and his wife will be traveling through Ireland. | **Bringing dignity to the elders** |
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| "I don't do anything too crazy for New Year's, usually. So this is definitely a change," he said. "I wanted to do something unique this year, so I did." | In 1978, an ill-prepared crew set out for Tahiti in poor weather, and the Hokulea capsized just hours after leaving port. Crew member Eddie Aikau paddled his surfboard to get help. The Coast Guard rescued the canoe, but Aikau was never found. |
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| Woods will be working New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. She answers calls on The Iowa Warmline, a confidential, noncrisis listening line for people struggling with mental health or substance use issues. | The voyaging society overhauled itself in response, setting clear goals and training requirements. Thompson studied at a Honolulu planetarium and spent over a year under the tutelage of Piailug. In 1980, he navigated to Tahiti. |
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| "Holidays are really hard for people, so I don't mind working," she said. "I'm passionate about it because I have mental health issues in the family and so being able to help people is rewarding to me." | Thompson said he felt a deep obligation to fulfill Aikau's wish to follow the path of his ancestors and "pull Tahiti out of the sea." But he didn't celebrate when the Hokulea got there. |
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| **Younger Americans are more likely to make a resolution** | "I just went into a quiet, dark place and just told Eddie we pulled it out of the sea," Thompson said. "There's no high fives. It's too profound." |
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| Every New Year's also triggers the eternal debate about resolutions. A majority of U.S. adults say they intend to make a New Year's resolution of some type, but millennials and Gen Z are especially likely to be on board — about two-thirds expect to do so, compared to about half of older adults. Women are also more likely than men to say they will set a goal for 2025. | In decades since, the society has sailed the canoe around the Pacific and world, including New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and New York. |
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| Tremblay hopes to lose some weight and focus more on self-care — more sleep, meditation and breathing exercises. "It's probably a good year to focus on mental health," he said. | It inspired other Pacific Island communities to revive or newly appreciate their own wayfinding traditions. |
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| Many others agree. About 3 in 10 adults choose resolutions involving exercise or eating healthier. About one-quarter said they'll make a resolution involving losing weight and a similar number said they'll resolve to make changes about priorities of money or mental health. | In Rapa Nui, Chile — also known as Easter Island — islanders have embarked on long-distance canoe voyages. The University of Guam has a navigation program. Similar trends have surfaced in the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Samoa and Tonga, said Mary Therese Perez Hattori, the director of the Pacific Islands Development Program at the East-West Center. |
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| Woods' resolutions are to stay social and active. As a mental health counselor, she knows those are key to a happy 2025 and beyond: "Probably one of my biggest resolutions is trying to make sure I stay social, try to get out at least once a week — get out and either have coffee or do something with a friend. That's not only for the physical but also for the mental health part." | "We come from very, very ancient societies," said Hattori, who is Chamorro, the Indigenous people of the Mariana Islands. "Hokulea sort of helped us remind the world of this." |
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| Kershaw, the bartender, says weight loss and better health are the top resolutions she hears people make. "Mental health is the new one, but I think it's high up there as well as with regular health," she said. | **Hollywood makes a blockbuster** |
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| She prefers more goal-oriented resolutions and, this time, it's to do more traveling and see more of the world: "I don't know if that's really a resolution, but that's a goal that I'm setting." | Hokulea's influence spread in 2016 when Disney released "Moana," an animated film about a 16-year-old girl who learns wayfinding about 3,000 years ago. |
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| And how will she welcome the arrival of 2025? Usually, she takes the night off and stays home watching movies with plenty of snacks, but this year Kershaw has a different plan, maybe one of the most Chicago things you can do. | Thompson spoke to hundreds on the movie's creative team about wayfinding and the importance of canoes to Pacific culture, said Aaron Kandell, a Hawaii-born writer who worked on the movie. |
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| This die-hard sports fan will be at Wrigley Field on Tuesday watching the Chicago Blackhawks take on the St. Louis Blues. "Hockey's my favorite sport. So I will be watching hockey and bringing in the new year," she said. | Kandell, who is not Native Hawaiian, spent a year studying navigation with the Polynesian Voyaging Society during his 20s and incorporated that into the script, including where Moana learns to use her outstretched hand to track the stars and runs her hand in the ocean to feel the currents. |
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| | Crew members taught animators about coconut fiber ropes so they would look right when Moana pulls on them, Kandell said. |
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| The AP-NORC poll of 1,251 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. | The Polynesian Voyaging Society's initial plan was to sail to Tahiti once, supporting a documentary, book and research papers. Thompson remembers pushing Hokulea's hull into the water with the crew back in 1975. |
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| Sanders reported from Washington. | "It was really a moment — I didn't recognize it — but this was going to change everything," he said. |
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