Sponsors of the annual holiday festival near Roseburg have commissioned a whopper of a centerpiece — a wooden nutcracker intended to stand 41 feet tall, weigh more than 16,000 pounds and work its jaw with enough force to crush coconuts.

The statue was created by a Willamette Valley woodworker using chain saws, The News-Review (http://bit.ly/1AoMDx3) reported.

Enrique Iglesias picked up his first Latin Grammy in more than a decade Thursday, winning three trophies including song of the year for his platinum hit, "Bailando," while Calle 13 set a record for most Latin Grammy wins with 21.

Iglesias accepted his awards from Paris, where he was tour. "Bailando" also won best urban song and performance, beating out Latin Grammy favorites Calle 13. Iglesias won his first Latin Grammy — and only one before Thursday — in 2003 for best male pop vocal album for "Quizás."

A new feminist comic book, the Jewelry Box, has emerged in Egypt, the latest addition in a blossoming scene of alternative comics, as artists seek freer outlets of expression in a country where independent voices are finding it harder to speak.

Cartoons and political satire go back over a hundred years in Egypt, and are a staple in newspapers that have often lampooned social mores and officials in public office. But a new generation of young comic artists is finding space to express what is often a hard sell in mainstream media. Building on the region's spirit of rebellion over the past four years, they are experimenting with new and more subversive style to look at Egypt's realities.

Officials said Thursday that studies have determined a $40 billion inter-oceanic canal across Nicaragua will have minimal impact on the environment and society, and construction is to begin next month.

Work will start Dec. 22 as planned with a port on the country's southern Pacific coast, said Zhu Xiaoya, an official with China's HKND Group, which was picked to build the canal.

Grieving family members laid to rest a beauty queen and her sister amid drenching rains Thursday, pleading for divine justice after the women were shot to death in what police say was a jealous rage by the sister's boyfriend.

Miss Honduras, 19-year-old Maria Jose Alvarado, and her sister Sofia, 23, were interred in two cement graves at a tiny cemetery in this hamlet north of their hometown of Santa Barbara. About 300 people, including mourners and security forces, trudged through the mud for the ceremony.

France striker Olivier Giroud is fit after three months out with a broken leg and could make his return for Arsenal in the Premier League match against Manchester United on Saturday.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says Giroud has made a quicker-than-expected recovery from a small break to his tibia during the 2-2 draw at Everton on Aug. 23.

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal says Daley Blind faces a "long" spell out after the midfielder hurt his left knee playing for the Netherlands in a European Championship qualifier.

Van Gaal says Thursday that Blind's knee is in a brace and that the player will go for a scan after 10 days of rest.

Phil Klay's "Redeployment," a debut collection of searching, satiric and often agonized stories by an Iraq war veteran, has won the National Book Award for fiction.

Klay was chosen Wednesday night over such high-profile finalists as Marilynne Robinson's "Lila" and Emily St. John Mandel's "Station Eleven." His book was the first debut release to win in fiction since Julia Glass' "The Three Junes" in 2002, the first story collection to win since Andrea Barrett's "Ship Fever" in 1996 and the first fiction win for an Iraq veteran.

The parents of Formula One driver Jules Bianchi say he has been taken out of an artificial coma and repatriated from Japan to a French hospital.

Bianchi, who crashed during last month's Japanese Grand Prix, remains in a critical condition with severe head injuries, his parents said in a statement.

Adrien Brody has long had a flair for fashion, but don't mistake the beard the actor is currently sporting as a bow to trend. It's for his latest movie role as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in the upcoming film "Emperor."

The Oscar-winning actor told a black tie gala to celebrate the 2015 Pirelli calendar that he's "Charles V by day, Adrien Brody by night."