On that evening, the “NORAD Tracks Santa” is updated every hour when it is midnight in a different time zone while the videos show Santa flying over famous landmarks. Almost 9 million people from more than 200 countries are expected to check in with NORAD’s Santa-tracking website before they go to bed on Christmas Eve.
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Violence casts a pall over Christmas in Bethlehem
Annual festivities in the city’s Manger Square were not postponed or canceled due to the violence, the network reported . But vendors and hotel owners in the city have already complained of sagging business this Christmas season.
As it has for the past 60 years, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) will track Santa’s yuletide journey at www.noradsanta.org.
Warm temperatures carrying into Christmas Day
Many people are donning T-shirts instead of ugly Christmas sweaters, and lawn-mowers may even be rumbling instead of snow-blowers. In fact, the temperature on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will be higher in New York City than in Los Angeles and Phoenix.
“Throughout the year, we can be pretty cynical”, Matthew Quinlan, marketing director for Bing, Microsoft s search engine, said in a blog post. All aircraft have a code to identify themselves. NORAD, after it detects and validates any hostile aerospace incursions, alerts the two leaders and fighter jets are scrambled.
PM Narendra Modi’s Pakistan visit was pre-planned, says Congress
During the Cold War India was the Soviet Union’s closest military ally and a major importer of its military hardware. Before heading for the Kremlin, Modi laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier here.
Luckily, Santa is good at keeping in touch with NORAD, Gordinier said.
“Our constellation of defense satellites uses infrared tracking to keep pinpoint accuracy on the heat signature from Rudolph’s nose”, the agency says.
EADS’ Battle Control Center (BCC) will monitor Santa constantly as he travels across the eastern USA delivering toys and gifts. He then works his way west in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Usually, Alaska is his last stop before returning home.
It takes 1,500 volunteers to man the hundreds of thousands of phone calls and emails from children wondering when their presents will arrive. They’re both also offering games themed for the holiday, some of which are educational. Volunteers answered calls from an estimated 125,000 children around the globe looking for Santa’s whereabouts. The tradition started from a mistake in a print advertisement.
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The children instead reached another hotline instead: the operations hotline of Col. Harry Shoup, the crew commander on duty at what was then known as the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center, an organization that helped guard North America against potential air attack. So staff checked the radar for signs of Santa making his way south from the North Pole and gave kids updates on his location.
