The U.S. Midwest was hit by a snowstorm, leaving at least 18 people dead on the roads, traffic chaos and hundreds of flights cancelled, while people attempted to travel to spend Christmas eve with family or friends.

The Airbus A330, flight AF 447 Air France, which fell on June 1 into the Atlantic ocean, and was going from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France, with 228 people aboard, recovered only 51 bodies, and the searches continues, even today, because for various reasons, especially climates, they could not find the black box of the plane.

Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is making negotiations with telephone companies in order to give 11 million free mobile phones to poor Brazilian families.

A ceremony restricted to about 500 families and a few guests remembered Saturday Air France flight 447’s accident that took place in June a few hours after it took off for Paris.

The reunions getting underway are the 17th in a series organized by the Red Cross. They began after a historic 2000 inter-Korean summit thawed relations between the two sides. They have been on hold for two years amid tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons development.

Clashes erupted about dawn when police ordered the eviction of more than 50 Palestinians, including 19 children.

Turin newspaper La Stampa, published that “In the last weeks the Brazilian cardinal Claudio Hummes, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, promoted a series of meetings to study the problem.

Air France will compensate through its insurers the families of the victims of a June 1 crash in which 228 people died, the company’s chief executive said on Friday.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says the French government will compensate the families of the Air France crash victims.