NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-28-2024 7PM EST

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Herbst. Israel detained the director and hundreds of staff and others at the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza after shutting it down earlier this week. The Israeli military suspects them of being involved in terrorist activities. NPR's Emily Fang reports. Kamal Adwan Hospital had been the target of deadly Israeli strikes and shelling at or near the hospital for nearly three months. And on Friday, Israel's military closed it down.

240 people out of the approximately 350 doctors, patients, and their families at the hospital were taken in for questioning because they were suspected of terrorism. That is an accusation the hospital's director vehemently denied. That director, Hussam Abu Safiyah, had been one of only a handful of doctors left at Kamal Adwan Hospital after a previous Israeli raid in October led to dozens of medical staff being arrested. This week, five of his staff were killed in an Israeli strike. Emily Fang and Peer News, Tel Aviv, Israel. President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to delay the law that requires

a ban in the U.S. on the short video sharing app, TikTok. Trump filed a brief with the court saying he wants to pursue a political resolution. The court is set to hear arguments early next month on whether the ban violates free speech. And here's Bobbi Allen reports. In a brief supporting TikTok groups, including Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute, compare the TikTok ban to China's Great Firewall, which makes popular news sites and social media services like X, Instagram, and YouTube inaccessible. But the Department of Justice says TikTok poses a unique national security threat because its corporate parent company is based in Beijing and thus Americans are vulnerable to foreign

manipulation. TikTok says it has cordoned off the American version of TikTok from Chinese influence. President-elect Donald Trump has at times voiced support for saving TikTok, and the law would grant Trump leeway to interpret its enforcement. Bobby Allen, NPR News. Texas' Attorney General Ken Paxton has blocked the Biden administration from disposing border wall materials before President-elect Trump takes office.

Texas Public Radio's Jerry Clayton has more. A federal judge on Friday granted Paxton's request to halt the Biden administration from disposing of any more of the raw material for 30 days. Despite Paxton's claim that Biden is trying to thwart Trump's immigration agenda, the sale of the material was approved by Congress in 2023. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the states of Texas and California received around 60 percent of the material through a donation process, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Paxton told Fox News recently that Texas purchased an additional $12 million of the unused material this past summer, enough to build about four miles of border wall.

I'm Jerry Clayton in San Antonio. And you're listening to NPR News from Washington. Most of the top-grossing movies of 2024 were huge franchise films with familiar names and characters. As NPR's Neda Ulubi reports, the year's biggest box office hits included Deadpool and Wolverine and Despicable Me 4. Unlike last year, when originals like Barbie and Oppenheimer were among the top-grossing films, we saw lots of number twos at the movies this year. Moana 2, Dune Part 2, and Inside Out 2, about a young girl named Riley and the squad of emotions inside her mind. I'm Anxiety. I'm one of Riley's new emotions, and we are just super jazzed to be here.

Anxiety was likely not far from the minds of Hollywood executives who backed the year's biggest flops. Those included the latest Joker movie that barely broke even and the video game adaptation Borderlands. It cost more than $100 million to make and sold only slightly more than $30 million worth of tickets. Neda Ulibi, NPR News. British actor Olivia Hussey, who starred in the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet, has died. She was 73 years old. On Instagram, her family says she died yesterday at home, surrounded by her loved ones. Hussey was 15 when director Franco Zeffirelli cast her in his adaptation of the William

Shakespeare tragedy. The film won two Oscars and she won a Golden Globe for best new actress for her part as Juliet. Decades later, she and her co-star sued Paramount Pictures over nude scenes in that film, but that case was dismissed last year. I'm Janene Herbst, NPR News in Washington.