AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST

Bruno Jacquelin, of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals, told The Associated Press that she died Sunday at her home in southern France, and would not provide a cause of death. He said no arrangements have yet been made for funeral or memorial services. She had been hospitalized last month.

Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teen bride in the 1956 movie “And God Created Woman.” Directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.

At the height of a cinema career that spanned some 28 films and three marriages, Bardot came to symbolize a nation bursting out of bourgeois respectability. Her tousled, blond hair, voluptuous figure and pouty irreverence made her one of France’s best-known stars.

Such was her widespread appeal that in 1969 her features were chosen to be the model for “Marianne,” the national emblem of France and the official Gallic seal. Bardot’s face appeared on statues, postage stamps and even on coins.

Zelenskyy to meet with Trump as efforts to end Russia-Ukraine war remain elusive

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) — President Donald Trump will host his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Sunday to try to close out a peace agreement that would end nearly four years of war that began with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The two will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida, where the U.S. president is spending the holidays and has an agenda mostly filled with daily rounds of golf. Zelenskyy said the two planned to discuss security and economic agreements and he will raise “territorial issues” as Moscow and Kyiv remain fiercely at odds over the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

In the days before the meeting, Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukraine's capital, using missiles and drones to attack Kyiv and try to increase the pressure on Zelenskyy.

“Ukraine is willing to do whatever it takes to stop this war,” Zelenskyy posted Saturday on X. “We need to be strong at the negotiating table.”

In response to the attacks, he wrote: “We want peace, and Russia demonstrates a desire to continue the war. If the whole world — Europe and America — is on our side, together we will stop" Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nigerian villagers are rattled by US airstrikes that made their homes shake and the sky glow red

JABO, Nigeria (AP) — Sanusi Madabo, a 40-year-old farmer in the Nigerian village of Jabo, was preparing for bed on Thursday night when he heard a loud noise that sounded like a plane crashing. He rushed outside his mud house with his wife to see the sky glowing a bright red.

The light burned bright for hours, Madabo said: “It was almost like daytime."

He did not learn until later that he had witnessed a U.S attack on an alleged camp of the militant Islamic State group.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced late Thursday that the United States had launched a “powerful and deadly strike” against IS militants in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has since confirmed that it cooperated with the U.S government in its strike.

Nigerian government spokesperson Mohammed Idris said Friday that the strikes were launched from the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean shortly after midnight and involved “16 GPS-guided precision" missiles and also MQ-9 Reaper drones.

What to know about the militants targeted by US airstrikes in northwest Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — The United States airstrikes that targeted Islamic State group militants in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday marked a major escalation in an offensive that the West African's overstretched military has struggled with for years.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on social media that the “powerful and deadly” strikes in the state of Sokoto were carried out against IS gunmen who were “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians.” Residents and security analysts have said Nigeria’s security crisis affects both Christians, predominant in the south, and Muslims, who are the majority in the north.

In an interview Friday with Politico, Trump said he decided on the timing of the strikes. “They were going to do it earlier,” he said. “And I said, ‘Nope, let’s give a Christmas present.’"

Nigeria, which is battling multiple armed groups, said the U.S. strikes were part of an exchange of intelligence and strategic coordination between the two countries.

The Associated Press could not confirm the extent of the strikes' impact. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a post on X about the airstrikes, said, “More to come...”

Winter storm snarls holiday travel across US Northeast, Great Lakes

BOSTON (AP) — More than a thousand flights were canceled or delayed across the Northeast and Great Lakes regions due to snow as thousands took to roads and airports during the busy travel period between Christmas and New Year’s.

New York City received about 4 inches (10.2 centimeters) of snow Friday night into early Saturday — slightly under what some forecasts had predicted. At least 1,500 flights were canceled from Friday night, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. But by the morning, both the roads and the skies were clearing.

“The storm is definitely winding down, a little bit of flurries across the Northeast this morning,” said Bob Oravec, a Maryland-based forecaster at the National Weather Service.

Oravec said the storm was moving from the northwest toward the Southeast, with the largest snowfall in the New York City area reaching over 6 inches (15 centimeters) in central eastern Long Island. Farther north in the Catskills, communities saw as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters).

Newark Liberty International, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports posted snow warnings on the social media platform X on Friday cautioning that weather conditions could cause flight disruptions.

Polls open for Myanmar's first election since military seized power

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Voters went to the polls Sunday for the initial phase of Myanmar ’s first general election in five years, held under the supervision of its military government while a civil war rages throughout much of the country.

Final results will not be known until after two more rounds of voting are completed later in January. It is widely expected that Min Aung Hlaing, the general who has ruled the country with an iron hand since an army takeover in 2021, will then assume the presidency.

The military government has presented the vote as a return to electoral democracy, but its bid for legitimacy is marred by bans on formerly popular opposition parties and reports that soldiers have used threats to force voters to participate.

While more than 4,800 candidates from 57 parties are competing for seats in national and regional legislatures, only six are competing nationwide with the possibility to gain political clout in Parliament. The well-organized and funded Union Solidarity and Development Party, with its support from the military, is by far the strongest contender.

Voting is taking place in three phases, with Sunday’s first round being held in 102 of Myanmar’s 330 townships. The second phase will take place Jan. 11, and the third on Jan. 25. Final results are expected to be announced by February.

Thailand and Cambodia sign a new ceasefire agreement to end border fighting

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand and Cambodia signed a ceasefire agreement on Saturday to end weeks of fighting along their border over competing territorial claims.

The agreement took effect at noon and calls for a halt in military movements and airspace violation for military purposes.

Only Thailand has carried out airstrikes, hitting sites in Cambodia as recently as Saturday morning, according to the Cambodian Defense Ministry.

The deal also calls for Thailand, after the ceasefire has held for 72 hours, to repatriate 18 Cambodian soldiers it has held as prisoners since earlier fighting in July. Their release has been a major demand of the Cambodian side.

Within hours of the signing, Thailand's Foreign Ministry protested to Cambodia that a Thai soldier sustained a permanent disability when he stepped on an anti-personnel land mine it charged had been laid by Cambodian forces.

Russia strikes Ukraine's capital and kills at least 1 person a day before Zelenskyy-Trump meeting

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Ukraine's capital with ballistic missiles and drones on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 27, a day before talks between the leaders of Ukraine and the United States, authorities said.

Explosions boomed across Kyiv as the attack began in early morning and continued for hours.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for further talks on ending the nearly four-year war. Zelenskyy told reporters that he and Trump plan to discuss several matters including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

“This attack is Russia’s answer on our peace efforts. It really shows that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin doesn’t want peace,” Zelenskyy said after stopping in Canada to meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Carney announced $1.8 billion worth of economic assistance to Ukraine that helps unlock financing from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for reconstruction and development.

“The barbarism that we saw overnight, the attack of Kyiv, shows just how important that we stand with Ukraine during this difficult time," Carney said.

Hundreds mourn in Syria's Homs after deadly mosque bombing

HOMS, Syria (AP) — Hundreds of mourners gathered Saturday in the rain and cold outside of a mosque in the Syrian city of Homs for the funeral of eight people killed in a bombing, as an imam warned that the attack could spark more sectarian violence.

The crowd assembled next to the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque, the target of Friday's attack that also wounded 18 others. The population of the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood, where the mosque is located, is predominantly from the Alawite minority. They later drove in convoys to bury the victims.

Officials have said the preliminary investigations indicate explosive devices were planted inside the mosque but have not yet publicly identified a suspect.

A little-known group calling itself Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its Telegram channel, in which it indicated that the attack intended to target members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam whom hard-line Islamists consider to be apostates.

The same group had previously claimed a suicide attack in June in which a gunman opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest inside a Greek Orthodox church in Dweil’a, on the outskirts of Damascus, killing 25 people as worshippers prayed on a Sunday.

Millions of Afghans face hunger as aid cuts deepen a humanitarian crisis

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — For 10 hours a day, Rahimullah sells socks from his cart in eastern Kabul, earning about $4.5 to $6 per day. It's a pittance, but it’s all he has to feed his family of five.

Rahimullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, is one of millions of Afghans who rely on humanitarian aid, both from the Afghan authorities and from international charity organizations, for survival. An estimated 22.9 million people — nearly half the population — required aid in 2025, the International Committee for the Red Cross said in an article on its website Monday.

But severe cuts in international aid — including the halting of U.S. aid to programs such as food distribution run by the United Nations’ World Food Program — have severed this lifeline.

More than 17 million people in Afghanistan now face crisis levels of hunger in the winter, the World Food Program warned last week, 3 million more than were at risk more than a year ago.

The slashing in aid has come as Afghanistan is battered by a struggling economy, recurrent droughts, two deadly earthquakes and the mass influx of Afghan refugees expelled from countries such as Iran and Pakistan. The resulting multiple shocks have severely pressured resources, including of housing and food.