NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-25-2024 7AM 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. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Louise Schiavone. Christmas celebrations have been underway all over the world. This is the sound of the choir at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, where Pope Francis led the Vatican's annual Christmas Eve service. In his Christmas sermon,

the Pope preached, hope is not dead, hope is alive, and it envelopes our lives forever. But the bright lights and festive marching bands were missing in Bethlehem, where midnight services at the Church of the Nativity were subdued as the Holy Land mourns the loss of tens of thousands in a conflict triggered two years ago by a Hamas terror attack inside Israel. Syrian Christians took to the streets yesterday in the capital Damascus after a Christmas tree was burned. This comes as the new Syrian leadership tries to assuage worries that minorities and religious sects will be protected under their leadership.

And PR's Hadil Al-Shalshi 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. The UN's food agency is reporting more than 40 million people across West and Central Africa are now struggling to feed themselves with the situation expected to become more severe in the coming months. Analysts blame climate, economic instability and conflict. In Sudan, a brutal civil war between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary group has fueled a near-unpre unprecedented humanitarian crisis. NPR's Emmanuel Akinwatu has more.

Both sides of the war have been accused of blocking aid in the areas that they each control, and that's the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. For example, the RSF control most of Darfur, and that's the region where there was a genocide 20 years ago, and there's been region where there was a genocide 20 years ago, and there's been an outbreak of similar ethnic violence against African ethnic groups since the war started. There are millions of displaced people in this region, but they're almost completely isolated. Danielle Pletka NPR's Emmanuel Akinwatu. In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, two reporters and one

police officer were killed in a gang attack on a news conference on Christmas Eve. The media conference had been called to announce the reopening of the country's biggest public hospital after street gangs had forced the hospital's closure earlier this year. This is NPR News in Washington. In Kazakhstan, an Embraer 190 aircraft flown by Azerbaijan Airlines and carrying 67 people, including crew, crash-landed today. Kazakhstan's emergency ministry is reporting that at least 29 people survived the crash and have been hospitalized. At least 30 people are likely dead and some bodies have been recovered.

In June, President Biden issued a blanket pardon for veterans kicked out of the military for homosexuality. But as NPR's Quill Lawrence reports, very few veterans have been able to take advantage of it. Before laws were repealed in 2011, tens of thousands of Americans got kicked out of the military for being gay, leaving them with no military benefits or honors. In connection with other clemency granted this month,

the White House has mentioned a blanket pardon of gay vets. But advocates say only a handful of veterans have accessed the pardon since it was issued in June because of daunting Pentagon red tape. The Pentagon did not respond to NPR's query about the exact number. The Department of Veterans Affairs has a relatively much easier process and has encouraged gay veterans of any era to contact VA where they can likely qualify for health care and benefits they earned for serving in the military.

Quill Lawrence, NPR News. Officials and scientists are monitoring Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, which was active again yesterday. Molten lava from the volcano on Hawaii's Big Island has stayed within the mountain summit, Caldera. Inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, no homes were threatened. The eruption occurred in an area that has been closed to the public since 2007. I'm Louise Schiavone, NPR News, Washington.