NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-29-2024 6AM EST

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

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Jile Snyder 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. Giles Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. The head of the World Health Organization says he and colleagues who were at Yemen's

main airport last week escaped death narrowly when an Israeli airstrike targeted the facility. Here's NPR's Scott Newman with more. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says he's lucky to be alive after Israeli airstrikes hit the Sanaa International Airport on Thursday, including a missile that struck the terminal where he was waiting for a flight. There was a very heavy explosion, very close. It felt like actually he was just next to me. Israel's military says the strike was aimed at infrastructure used by Iran and Yemen's

Houthi rebels. The military says it wasn't aware of the presence of the UN delegation at the airport. Scott Newman, NPR News. Nearly all the 181 people on board a passenger plane that crashed on landing at an airport in South Korea are believed to be accounted for. Officials now say at least 176 people were killed, two people were pulled to safety and three are still missing. The plane was returning from Bangkok when it skidded off a runway, slammed into a concrete wall and burst into flames. Here's the BBC's Jonathan

Head. They're updating the death toll as they recover bodies from the burnt fuselage, but the official assumption is that aside from the two survivors who came out of the very back of the plane, the tail section, they're believed both to be flight attendants, one male and one female who've been taken to hospital, they do not believe there will be any more survivors from this crash. The fires have long since been put out and it is just a matter now of recovering the bodies, recovering of course the data and voice recorders which

ought to have survived the crash and then beginning the painstaking process of piecing together what went so catastrophically wrong. To Florida now where authorities are investigating a crash involving a fire truck that was split in two by an oncoming high-speed passenger train. Emanuel Emeral heard the crash in Delray Beach and saw emergency responders rushing to help the injured. The most traumatic thing was when all those police officers were like 400 feet away from me and they were doing the CPR and there were so many firefighters and police officers around,

the firefighters that were laying on the grass. I guess the ones that needed the most attention. Videos of the crash show the fire truck with its lights flashing, waiting for another train to pass, and then driving around a railroad crossing arm and into the path of the high-speed train. Authorities say three firefighters are in stable condition and that a dozen train passengers were injured. Tens of thousands of customers remain without power from Texas to Alabama after a severe storm swept through the region yesterday. Several tornadoes are reported to have touched down in Texas and Mississippi. At least two people were killed. This is NPR. President-elect Donald Trump has weighed into

the debate over H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers. Speaking to the New York Post, he appeared to side with Elon Musk and tech industry supporters in the dispute that has divided his base. The debate blew up online with Musk saying he will go to war on the issue. Trump has criticized the visa program in the past, but told the Post that he has always liked the visas and is a believer in them. Most of the top-grossing movies of 2024 were huge franchise films with familiar names and characters, and as NPR's Neda Ulibi 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. Nta Ullibi, NPR News. A prestigious chess championship in New York moving forward without the world's top player, defending champion Magnus Carlsen left the world rapid chess competition after refusing to abide by a dress code. This is NPR News.