Brazil to allow Yule lights despite energy rationing

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Things are looking brighter in Brazil, where the government relaxed its rationing of electricity so people can turn on their Christmas lights.

"That should help improve people's humor," said Euclides Scalco, head of the company that runs huge Itaipu hydroelectric dam.

Top energy officials said cities are getting an extra 14 megawatts for holiday lights, which still must be shut off by midnight except on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Years of drought have shrunk reservoirs and shackled the world's ninth-largest economy, which depends almost exclusively on hydroelectric power.