NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-25-2025 1AM EST

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dan Ronan. President Trump on Christmas Eve made telephone calls to some children across the country as the North American Aerospace Defense Command tracks Santa's annual journey from the North Pole. On a call with a child from Kansas, the president asked what they wanted for Christmas and the call pivoted to energy policy. What would you like Santa to bring? Not cold. Not cold, no, you don't want, well, coal is, you mean clean, beautiful coal.

I had to do that, I'm sorry. Another child told the president they wanted a Kindle for Christmas. He responded, you must be a high IQ person. We need more high IQ people in the country. Days after the Friday deadline, the Justice Department continued to release thousands of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. NPR's Ashley Lopez reports. Many of those documents have been released. So far, they are heavily redacted.

In some cases, it wasn't done properly. Parts of the Epstein document release from the Justice Department include hastily redacted information that could be easily read by simply copying and pasting some of the redacted sections. So far, this new information has not shed any significant new light on the case of the disgrace financier, but it has raised more questions about the process and decision-making behind how the DOJ decided to redact and release information. In a letter to Congress earlier this week, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the agency created a protocol to properly and legally work through the thousands of documents related to Epstein.

He also said the agency is committed to full transparency. Ashley Lopez, NPR News. The Department of Homeland Security is changing the rules for the H-1B visas set to take effect in late February. It's a kind of visa that allows skilled foreign workers to come to the United States. The Trump administration says the H-1B visas. H-1Bs have been abused by companies trying to staff up on cheap workers. NPR's John Rewich has more. The new rules will be in place for the 2027 fiscal year.

The big change is that they do away with the lottery system that has four years determined who gets H-1B visas. Instead, there will be a weighted selection process that favors people with higher skills and higher salaries. The idea is to prevent employers from using the program to import low-wage foreign labor and to protect wages and job opportunities for U.S. workers. The cap on the number of H-1B visas will stay at 65,000 with an additional 20,000 for foreigners with advanced U.S. degrees. H-1Bs have been widely used in the tech sector, and analysts say changes to the way they're issued, including a $100,000 fee per visa announced by the Trump administration in the fall could be disruptive. John Rewich, NPR News.

As 2025 comes to a close, a new report on crime in the U.S. shows it fell significantly in all regions of the country, murders were down 20%. This is NPR. Nearly a month after elections were held in Honduras, the Electoral Commission has declared a U.S.-backed candidate the winner. The candidate who came in second says the declaration is illegal. NPR's Evander Peralto reports. Voters went to the polls on November 30th. Since then, counting has been halted many times due to what the Electoral Commission said were catastrophic technical issues. One of the three members of the Electoral Commission has quit claiming fraud. The two leading candidates both say they have independently counted and are declaring victory.

Via Zoom, the commission said Nasri Asfura, the conservative candidate backed by President Trump, won by less than 1% of the vote. Salvador Nasrada, the centrist candidate who had been favored to win, said he does not accept the results. This was a robbery, he shouted at reporters. Adir Palta, in Pierre News, Mexico City. At the Vatican, Pope Leo celebrated the first Christmas midnight mass as leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. The Catholic News Agency said the mass was celebrated for the first time.

In more than 30 years at St. Peter's Basilica, something no Pope has done since 1994. We have a winner. Someone in Arkansas got all of the numbers correct in Wednesday night's Powerball Lottery, and that person has won the $1.8 billion prize before the taxes and fees are deducted. The winning numbers were 4, 25, 3152, and the red Powerball number was 19. This is NPR News from Washington. Support for 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.

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