NEW YORK — Did someone invite a spy into your home over the holidays? Maybe so, if a friend or family member gave you a voice-controlled speaker or some other smart device.

The days of passengers bringing rabbits, turtles and birds on planes as emotional-support animals could be ending.

“Recipe for a Perfect Wife,” Dutton, by Karma Brown

“House on Fire,” Dutton, by Joseph Finder

“The Hollows,” Minotaur Books, by Jess Montgomery

“How Quickly She Disappears,” Berkley, by Raymond Fleischmann

"The Prized Girl: a Novel," Dutton, by Amy K. Green

“The Better Liar: a Novel,” Ballantine Books, by Tanen Jones

“Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia,” Tim Duggan Books/Random House, by Joshua Yaffa

“The Poison Garden,” Penguin, by Alex Marwood

Who hasn’t felt the shame of a refrigerator purge? You’re sentenced to face the forgotten leftovers, fuzzy produce and years-old salad dressing that you swear must have come with the fridge. But it didn’t. You paid money for all these things, and now you have to throw them away.

AP National Writer

SILVERTHORNE, Colo. — Simon Beck carefully plots his course before shuffling through a windswept snowfield high in the Rocky Mountains.

"The Courage to be Happy: Discover the Power of Positive Psychology and Choose Happiness Every Day," Atria Books, by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

“Long Bright River,” Riverhead Books, by Liz Moore

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite escalating pressure ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Facebook reaffirmed its freewheeling policy on political ads Thursday, saying it won’t ban them, won’t fact-check them and won’t limit how they can be targeted to specific groups of people.

A new year typically brings new resolutions. While making resolutions is easy, sticking with them is not. Exercise-related resolutions consistently make the top 10 list, but up to 80 percent of resolutions to be healthier, including promises to exercise more, are tossed aside by February.

NEW YORK (AP) — New technology. Same furry faces.

“Mr. Nobody,” Penguin Random House, by Catherine Steadman

“Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains,” Ballantine Books, by Cassie Chambers

NORTH HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Guess who's getting used to working with robots in their everyday lives? The very same warehouse workers once predicted to be losing their jobs to mechanical replacements.

“Good Girls Lie,” Mira, by J.T. Ellison

“Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge” (Sarah Crichton Books; Farrar, Straus and Giroux), by Sheila Weller

“A Small Town,” Mysterious Press, by Thomas Perry

NEW YORK (AP) — On low-carb diets, meat and cheese are OK.

NEW YORK (AP) — A powerful Argentine big-game hunter and a sociable French water dog have made the American Kennel Club’s list of recognized breeds.

Reporting for jury duty. Standing in line at the DMV. Going to the dentist. Making a budget.

Spending the entire winter trapping in Wyoming’s remote Thorofare Valley — just southeast of Yellowstone National Park — produced a big pay day for a young Indiana man in 1918.

“Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park that Changed the World,” Scribner, by Richard Snow

HAVANA — At midday on Dec. 17, 2014, the sound of church bells echoed in Havana as presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced that the United States and Cuba would reestablish diplomatic relations and end nearly 60 decades of hostility.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Police departments around the U.S. are asking citizens to trust them to use facial recognition software as another handy tool in their crime-fighting toolbox. But some lawmakers — and even some technology giants — are hitting the brakes.

NEW YORK — Homeowners are clamoring to power through blackouts that have become a regrettably frequent part of life in California. The cost of solar panels and batteries has fallen. And a new California law will require all new homes to produce as much energy as they consume beginning in January.

Long gone are the days of the leather shell and single-bar face mask.

POCATELLO — Don Aslett introduced one vacuum after another with enthusiasm, humor and amazement Wednesday.

SEATTLE (AP) — As the country looks for ways to deal with mass shootings at schools, some have responded by saying more people should carry guns, including teachers.

Background checks on gun purchases in the U.S. are climbing toward a record high this year, reflecting what the industry says is a rush by people to buy weapons in reaction to the Democratic presidential candidates’ calls for tighter restrictions.

NEW YORK — A documentary on Taylor Swift will kick off the next Sundance Film Festival, where new films including the Will Ferrell-Julia Louis Dreyfus remake of the Swedish film “Force Majeure” and Benh Zeitlin’s long-awaited follow-up to “Beasts of the Southern Wild” are set to premiere.

WASHINGTON — Melania Trump is celebrating American patriotism at the White House this Christmas, incorporating red and blue into the traditional holiday green, adding a timeline of American design, innovation and architecture and studding a Christmas tree with her family’s annual ornament, t…

“From Sea to Stormy Sea: 17 Stories Inspired by Great American Paintings,” Pegasus Books, edited by Lawrence Block

Add facial cuts, bruises and fractures to the risks from cellphones and carelessly using them.

FINNEYTOWN, Ohio — The concrete bench in a small northern Cincinnati suburb depicts a guitar, with the message “My Generation” just below it.

“Snow: A Scientific and Cultural Exploration,” Atria, by Giles Whittell

“A Single Light,” Atria, by Tosca Lee

“The Hero,” TLS, by Lee Child

Associated Press

“Life isn’t everything: Mike Nichols, as remembered by 103 of his closest friends,” Henry Holt and Co., by Ash Carter and Sam Kashner

LAVA HOT SPRINGS — The Home Hotel in Lava Hot Springs has for over 100 years continuously provided lodging opportunities for those vacationing to the world-famous hot pools, and it more than lives up to its name.