Dec 16 (Reuters) - U.S. Health Secretary Robert F.

With a runway of smoking-hot coals laid out before them, residents in San Pedro Manrique, Spain, steel themselves as thousands of onlookers cheer them on. Although the walkers and the crowd perform very different roles during the annual June ritual, they report similar feelings: an ineffable feeling of togetherness, as if the entire group becomes one, said Dimitris Xygalatas, a cognitive anthropologist at the University of Connecticut, who witnessed the Spanish ritual years ago as a researcher.

Brazilian authorities on Tuesday railed against comments by Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz in which he appeared to look down on Belem, a city on the edge of the Amazon rainforest where the United Nations' Climate Summit is taking place. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Para state Gov. Helder Barbalho, Belem Mayor Igor Normando, and several lawmakers have pushed back against Merz, who traveled to Brazil earlier in November to discuss climate measures with other leaders.