NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-22-2025 4PM EST

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

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Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Dua Lysa Kautau. The White House says President Trump will hold an event today about the Navy, but offered no details. NPR's Deepa Shivram reports the announcement comes as the U.S. has ramped up its posture towards Venezuela. Over the weekend, the U.S. seized a second Venezuelan oil tanker after Trump announced a blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of the South American country. the U.S. announced it's pursuing the seizure of a third tanker. Venezuela has disputed the U.S.'s actions and called them criminal. The seizures come as the Trump administration also continues to launch strikes on boats off the shore of Venezuela that they say are carrying drugs. More than 100 people have died in those strikes. Trump, who's spending the rest of the year in Florida,

is holding the event with Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth and Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan. Deepa Shiverom and PR News. a dozen staff members at the Heritage Foundation have left the influential conservative organization. They're joining a think tank founded by President Trump's first VP, and Pierre Sera McCammon reports. The Heritage Foundation has recently had to grapple with the boundaries of the conservative movement and the role of right-wing influencers who promote anti-Semitism and other extremist ideas. Advancing American Freedom, a group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, says it's hired more than a dozen former Heritage staffers, including leaders of the group's legal,

economic, and data teams. In a statement, Pence says they bring a, quote, deep commitment to the Constitution and Conservative movement. Heritage, meanwhile, issued a statement accusing some of the staff members who left of disloyalty. A task force focused on fighting anti-Semitism recently cut ties with Heritage over related concerns. Sarah McCammon, NPR News. Park Ranger. Betty Reid Sonskin has died. Long before she began working at the World War II Home Front National Historical Park. In her 80s, she worked for an all-black boilermakers union in Richmond. Later, she got involved with the civil rights movement. Here she is telling in PR about her outlook has evolved. I don't any longer expect the world to be as cohesive as I once

did. I think now that every generation has to recreate democracy because it will never stay fixed. That one of our rights is to be wrong and that that's a protected right. One of our rights is to be a bigot. One of our rights is to recognize that the only thing that corrects a bad idea is a good idea. Betty Reed-Soskin died at her home in Richmond, California at the age of 104. You're listening to NPR News from New York. Danish and European officials are responding with outrage to the fact that President Trump has appointed Louisiana governor Jeff Landry to be a special envoy for Greenland. Terry Schultz reports on the reaction to the announcement.

The Danish and Greenlandic prime ministers put out a joint statement aimed at Washington, emphasizing national borders and sovereignty are matters of international law that other countries can't simply be annexed, as President Trump has suggested of Greenland in the past. European Commission spokesman, Anwar Alanuni, issued a similar response from Brussels. Preserving the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark, its sovereignty, and the inviolability of its borders is essential for the European Union. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Luka Rasmussen summoned U.S. Ambassador Ken Howry to issue a formal complaint. The foreign ministers of Finland, Norway and Sweden all expressed strong support

for their Nordic neighbor. For NPR news, I'm Terry Schultz in Brussels. While Israel and Hamas continue to negotiate an advancement on the agreed peace process, Israel has approved 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. The government's far-right finance and defense ministers both said the recognition is directly to block the establishment of a Palestinian state. Settlements in the West Bank are illegal, according to international law. The UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez has long said, Israel's relentless settlement expansion fuels tension and threatens the viability of a sovereign Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia and the UK condemn this latest announcement.

I'm Dwa Ali Saikoutal, NPR News in New York.