NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-24-2024 9PM EST

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

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Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autographcollection.com. Jack Spear Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. Syrian Christians took to the streets today in the capital Damascus after a Christmas tree was burned. It comes as the new Syrian leadership there tries to assuage worries about minorities

and religious sects and whether they'll be protected under their leadership. I'm Beerus Hadil, Al Shaltry reports from Damascus. Videos posted online showed pro-Christian armed men in pickup trucks waving flags and loudly honking their car horns. Raise your cross up high, they chanted. The video of a Christmas tree being set on fire in a central Syrian city went viral, stoking worry and anger among Christians. The group currently in charge of Syria is Hey Et Harir Hashem, or HTS.

It has roots in al-Qaeda and is a designated terrorist organization by the United States. Local HTS officials said that the culprits were not Syrian and that the tree would be put back up. The new Prime Minister also announced that December 25th and 26th would be public holidays in Syria. Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Damascus. One of the busier travel days of the holiday season got off to a difficult start after American Airlines was forced to ground flights nationwide due to a technical glitch. While it was not a lengthy outage, thousands of flights were delayed as a result, some canceled.

Americans said the problem was fixed within about an hour, with the FAA ending a national ground stop. Bad weather in some parts of the country today is also leading to canceled or delayed flights. Civil rights groups are praising President Biden for commuting some prison and death row sentences. The NAACP is also asking for more commutations. If you're Sandra Dirks says more. The policies of the war on drugs and the 1994 crime bill

left a legacy of mass incarceration that disproportionately impacted Black people, says the NAACP's Patrice Willoughby. One example, she says, longer, harsher sentences for the possession of crack cocaine than for powdered cocaine. She says that sentencing disparity was fixed, but it wasn't retroactive. That population is still in prison. As a matter of justice, we're asking the president to give clemency to that population. Willoughby says it's an opportunity to address systemic racism, which is one major reason that Black people, who make up 14% of the U.S. population, comprise 40% of the federal

prison population. Sandhya Dirks, NPR News. Trade groups that represent some of the nation's biggest banks have filed suit against the Federal Reserve over what they contend is the opaque process used by the central bank to test the resiliency of financial institutions. Suit filed a day after the Fed said it's overhauling its stress test regime for banks. The groups representing big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and others say they can't be certain the Fed's actions will fix the harms they believe are being caused by the current system

put in place after the 2008 financial crisis. Stocks close higher on Wall Street. This is NPR. Starbucks workers at more than 300 cafes across the country have walked off the job. The strike began last Friday in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle. It's since expanded to stores in Portland, Boston, and Dallas. And Barisolina Seljuk reports, Starbucks Workers United are trying to reach an agreement for the first collective bargaining contract. It took more than two years for Starbucks and the union to finally begin negotiating a contract this spring. Now the union has staged an escalating strike over what it says is a lack of progress and the company's wage offer.

The strikes began in three cities and were slated to peak right before Christmas with more than 5,000 Starbucks workers planning to walk off their jobs nationwide. The union points to the compensation offer to the new Starbucks CEO worth more than a hundred million dollars. Unionized workers demand a bigger commitment to raise their wages now and over time. Starbucks for its part argues it was the union that prematurely ended negotiations and that the union's demands are not feasible. Alina Seluk, NPR News. A portrait of the eight angels painted at a historic Boston church in the early 18th century have been uncovered. The angels at Boston's Old North Church were apparently painted over in 1912 as part of a renovation but have been painstakingly uncovered over

a period of four months by conservators. The angels are located on the balcony arches in the historic church's sanctuary. The church over its long history has counted Paul Revere as a bell ringer and played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. Critical futures prices were up more than 1 percent today. Oil gained 86 cents a barrel to settle at 70 ten a barrel in New York. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington. This message comes from Wondery Kids and the number one kids science podcast, Wow in the World. Be wowed by fascinating companion audio stories that come exclusively with each Wow in the World STEM toy.

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