NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-22-2025 2AM EST

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Wilman. Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at Turning Point USA's yearly conference in Phoenix on Sunday. It was the first national conference the Young Voter Organization is hosted since its founder. Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in September. M. Pairsalina Moore reports. Vice President Vance used his speech as a call to action, alluding to recent intra-party riffs. We have far more important work to do than canceling each other. we have got to build.

It comes after conservative commentator Ben Shapiro called out several right-wing media personalities for entertaining conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk's death and singled out Tucker Carlson for his recent interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Carlson later disputed those claims and said he's not anti-Semitic, but the pushback comes as leaders deal with a larger fight over spreading misinformation and amplifying people with anti-Semitic views. Elena Moore, NPR News, Phoenix. Israel's security cabinet has approved the recognition of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank.

This latest move comes days after the United Nations said the expansion of Israeli settlements had reached its highest level in eight years. The BBC's Shaima Khalil reports. This decision brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, according to the Israeli finance minister Bezal Smotrich, who proposed the move alongside the defense minister, Israel, Katz. The approvals come just days after the United Nations said settlement expansion had reached its highest level since 2017. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law. Mr. Smotrich, a settler himself and a vocal advocate of expansion, said the decision was about blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state.

That's the BBC's Shima Khalil with our reports. Trump administration officials say the Coast Guard is in pursuit of another ship in the Caribbean, that it says is violating U.S. sanctions. Officials say the vessel is operating under what's called a false flag and is included in a judicial seizure order. It's not clear, though, what ship the U.S. is pursuing. The U.S. has already seized two ships involved with oil deliveries from Venezuela as part of a pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Many legal experts say the detentions of the oil-carrying vessels violate international law. Washington Governor Bob Ferguson has sent National Guard troops to King County, where river levees failed last week and led to the flooding of hundreds of homes.

Ferguson says the troops will be patrolling the levees and looking for other problems. This natural disaster that we are facing as a state and that we continue to go through is truly historic in nature. In California, meanwhile, evacuation orders are in place for some parts of Shasta County in the northern part of that state because of major flooding along the Yuba River. there. You're listening to NPR News. Avatar Fire and Ash is blazing a little less fiercely than expected at movie box offices this weekend. NPR's Bob Mondello has our details. The Avatar three-quel is definitely dominating the weekend at Cinemas.

You want to spread your fire across the world. You need me. But it's not hot enough to be setting records at $88 million for its first three days in North America and another 257 million overseas. It's running more than 20% behind Avatar Way of Water two years ago. Second place finisher, David, which tells the biblical story of David and Goliath, will take in $21 million, the highest opening ever for a faith-based animated film, and Timothy Chalameh's Marty Supreme will easily set this year's record for per theater average, with more than $145,000 in ticket sales at each of its six theaters.

Bob Mondello, NPR News. Actor James Ranson has died. Ranssen was best known for playing Ziggy's Sobodka in the HBO series The Wire. He also had roles in the Black Phone and Black Phone 2, and he also appeared in other television programs, including in the detective series Bosch. The Los Angeles Medical Examiner's Office says he died of suicide. He was 46 years old.

Power has returned to most of the 130,000 businesses in homes affected by an outage in northern San Francisco overnight. The outage began Saturday afternoon. It's caused a still under investigation, but a fire at an electrical substation contributed to the problem. The outage disrupted transit in the area and caused many shops and restaurants to shut down. I'm Dale Wilman, NPR News. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.

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