NPR 2010-12-26

Winter weather is disrupting holiday travel in the southern US, where some parts are having a rare white Christmas. Hundreds of flights are canceled in and out of Atlanta. And National Weather Service meteorologist Brian Korty says the East Coast should get ready to face the same storm.

"The heaviest amounts from this system are probably gotta occur, probably in eastern portions of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, and then across the northern Mid-Atlantic region which may include the New York City area, for instance, and then a lot of New England."

Korty predicts snowfall will be so significant that people going to or leaving New England should do it today.

In Bethlehem, thousands gathered in Manger Square in unseasonably warm weather to celebrate the holiday. Officials say crowds are the biggest in a decade. US troops celebrating Christmas in Afghanistan today enjoyed a special meal, but amidst the comradery, many say it's tough being away from home for the holiday.

"It's an honor to serve my country, but it’s also - I hate to miss my family at the same time, so it's 50-50."

Pope Benedict delivered his Christmas message to the world this morning from a balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square. The BBC's David Willey reports the Pope asked for prayers for those suffering religious and political repression 1.

Pope Benedict prayed for comfort, for oppressed Christian 2 communities in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. He prayed for Catholics in mainland China, for nations suffering from natural disasters in Latin America.

And the bureau estimates in the last two years the size of ransoms 3 has doubled. Naval 4 warships 5 are trying to provide security in the area and do make arrests, but Captain Pottengal Mukundan of the Maritime 6 Bureau says the area is just too big.

"The Indian Ocean is so vast. There'll simply never be enough warships to come to the systems of ships in this area."

This year, pirates staged attacks as far as 1,400 nautical 7 miles off the Somali coast. Mukundan says he expects pirate attacks to grow in 2011. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Nairobi.

Thousands gathered in frigid 8 temperatures and light rain to hear Pope Benedict deliver his Christmas Day message from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. He called for peace in the Middle East and urged Roman Catholics in China and Iraq to resist persecution 9.

The top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, is spending Christmas Day crisscrossing Afghanistan to visit coalition 10 troops stationed at some of the major battle fronts. His first stop today was the northern province of Kunduz, where he told troops there's nowhere else he'd rather be than where the focus of the US effort is.

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The Pakistani army is in the second day of large-scale fighting near the Afghan border. Officials say helicopter gunships and artillery 11 have killed 40 Islamist militants 12. And in another northwest province, a female suicide bomber 13 killed at least 40 people when she detonated an explosives-laden vest at a food aid distribution center.

India's space agency has suffered a second failure for this year. A rocket carrying a communication satellite exploded just after liftoff today. A similar rocket failed in flight in April. India's planning a manned space flight in 2016.

This year's holiday shopping season is bringing increased sales in e-books and e-book reading devices. Details from NPR's Lynn Neary.

As the holiday shopping season wound down, a widely circulated Bloomberg report estimated that Amazon may sell as may as eight million Kindles 14 in 2010. And it wasn't just the sale of digital reading devices that boomed; sales of e-books also soared. Just six months ago, Amazon reported that it was selling more e-books than hardcovers. And in a year-end letter to employees, the CEO of Random 15 House predicted its worldwide e-book sales would increase by 250 percent over last year. Google entered the e-book market in 2010, getting Amazon some competition and allowing independent bookstores to sell e-books from their own websites. Amazon also got some competition from other digital devices. The Apple iPad, which can also be used to read books, was introduced in the spring. And Barnes & Noble came out with a color version of its e-reading device, the Nook. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.