NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-24-2025 7PM EST

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Jail Snyder. California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles. A powerful holiday storm is lashing southern California with heavy rain and gusty winds. Parts of L.A. scorched by wildfires nearly a year ago under evacuation warnings. Kavish Harjai is with L.A.S., the NPR member station in Los Angeles. Of course, with any storm in this area, burn scar areas are of concern. concern. So these are portions of land where because of wildfires, vegetation has been removed and the nature of the soil has changed. And as a result, water isn't absorbed by that burned land as it usually might be. And so that creates dangerous runoff conditions for the land below and makes those burn scar areas susceptible to debris flows. Much of the state under weather warnings forecasters warning of white out conditions in parts of the Sierra Nevada. The Justice Department says it's having to sift through

more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case. The DOJ announced on this Christmas Eve that the FBI and federal prosecutors in Manhattan have uncovered more than a million additional documents and that it could take a few more weeks to make the legally required redactions. The Trump administration has stripped legal status from 1.6 million immigrants in 11 months, including those who came into the country under various visa and parole programs, NPRC, and MNAPA. reports. The largest group affected includes those under a program called temporary protected status. It provides deportation, protection, and grants work permits to people from specific countries

affected by war, natural disaster, political instability, or any other condition that makes the country unsafe for its nationals to return to. The administration has ended TPS for 10 countries, impacting an estimated 1 million people. The Trump administration argues that parole programs like TPS are meant to only be temporary. TPS for CPS for six more countries expire next year. And if they're not extended, the U.S. may have no one under the program for the first time since it was created in 1990. Humana Bustillo, NPR News, Washington. New research suggests that drugs for ADHD don't work the way scientists once thought they did. MPR. John Hamilton has more on a study in the journal cell.

Scientists analyzed brain scans from thousands of adolescents, including hundreds who were taking drugs like Ritalin and Adderall for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Dr. Benjamin K. of Washington University in St. Louis says he expected the drugs to act on brain areas involved in attention. What I actually found was that those were the parts of the brain that were least affected. Instead, the drugs acted on areas that modulate alertness and motivation. The researchers say this appears to improve a child's performance by making them less sleepy and more interested in doing mundane tasks like homework. John Hamilton, NPR News. This is NPR News.

The Federal Health and Human Services Department is facing a new lawsuit. The American Academy a pediatric sued today, alleging HHS terminated nearly $12 million in grants to the doctors group. The group alleges the cuts are retaliatory because it spoke out against actions taken by the Trump administration. The funding supported a number of public health programs. At least five people have been killed and scores injured in a suicide bombing at a mosque in northeast Nigeria, to local officials. The blast struck during evening prayers on Christmas Eve, as Empires of Menyalk and Water reports. Several worshippers were hit in the blast at a crowded mosque on Wednesday evening and taken to nearby hospitals. The attack is the first in years in Meduguri, the capital

of Borno state, where the insurgency by Boko Haram began in 2009. The city has been largely fortified by a heavy military presence, but in recent months, local officials have warned that in rural areas across the region, militants have a growing foothold. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which local officials have called a suicide bombing, but militants have previously targeted mosques and crowded areas. Immanuel Ackinwatu, NPR News, Lagos. Moving now to Wall Street, US stocks closed higher on a holiday shortened day of trading. The S&P 500 rose to three-tenths of a percent, adding 22 points to close at 6,932. The Dow was up six-tenths, and the NASDAQ composite climbed two-tenths. Trading was light as the markets closed early for Christmas Eve and will

remain closed on Christmas Day. This is NPR. 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. Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. and Cs apply.