What to know about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and 2025 Oscars buzz: Morning Rundown

A Guide to the 98th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Meet Ukraine’s “Witches of Bucha” – the all-female fire crews guarding the skies from Russian drones. And what has got the Oscars going in 2025 so far.

Here’s what you need to know today.

 What you need to know about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Happy Thanksgiving! Today is for spending time with loved ones, eating good food — and watching a lot of TV, starting with the 98th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

NBC’s “TODAY” show stars Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Al Roker will host this year’s show, which includes 22 large balloons, 34 amazing floats, seven wheeled “balloon uncles” and more. In between, expect to see dozens of artists including Jennifer Hudson, T-Pain, Idina Menzel, The Temptations and more. And don’t forget the 11 marching bands and 28 clown crews.

The parade will be broadcast on NBC and simulcast on Peacock from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. ET, and replays at 14. We also follow the action and share great moments and pictures along the way.

Follow our live blog for the latest. (CHECK LINK – NOT SCHEDULED YET)

When the parade ends, there won’t be much “paws” in the action. The 23rd Annual National Dog Show presented by Purina will see over 205 different breeds compete for the prestigious “Best in Show” title. How to watch the showwhich is scheduled for

And don’t forget all the sports. The Chicago Bears take on the Detroit Lions at 12:30 p.m., as Bears quarterback Caleb Williams tries to extend his hot streak. The New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys square off at 4:30 PM in a game our sports reporter called “the kind of matchup only a mother could love.” And in prime time, The Miami Dolphins face a big test against the Green Bay Packers.

Read more about the holiday games.

More on Thanksgiving:

• A round of wintry weather is expected over the holidays, which is likely to affect flights and busy roads. Here’s what you need to know.
• In an interview with Lester Holt, NASA astronaut Suni Williams shared her Thanksgiving plans in space – and said she is not “stranded”.
• Didn’t catch the northern lights? Parts of the United States may catch a glimpse of them Thanksgiving through Friday. Here you can see them.
• Looking for last minute cooking ideas? Swap in these Korean accessories for your typical Thanksgiving pages.
• Five Latino families share how they prepare for Thanksgiving – with a twist.

RFK Jr. compared vaccination of children to sex abuse by the Catholic Church

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has a dark view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is part of HHS. In 2019, he called the federal agency’s vaccine division a fascist enterprise and accused it of deliberately harming children. He also compared what he saw as a widespread conspiracy to hide harm from the childhood vaccination program to the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Kennedy made the remarks and others — most previously unreported — over several years of appearances at AutismOne, a parent-run autism conference. The comments, which date back to 2013, include claims that the CDC is a “cesspool of corruption,” filled with profiteers who harm children in a way he also likened to “Nazi death camps.”

Brandy Zadrozny reports on the extreme language and metaphors Kennedy has used when talking about vaccines, which offers new insight into what Kennedy might do with the CDC if the Senate confirms him, from disbanding panels that study vaccine safety to misrepresenting government data in a way that undermines public trust or causes manufacturers to pull vaccines from the market.

Read more:

• Several of Trump’s administration appointees were suspended that bomb threats and “swatting” attacks.
• When Trump takes the oath of office next month, the relationship between the US and China is clear to be one of the biggest foreign policy challenges for the new administration.
• John Phelan, a businessman with no military experience, was appointed Navy Secretary by Trump.
• Trump chose retired General Keith Kellogg to serve as assistant to the president and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine’s ‘Witch from Bucha’ volunteers to shoot down Russian drones

A volunteer civil defense force in Ukraine, made up of 90% women, has been tasked with helping to defend the country against a constant bombardment of Russian missiles and drones. They call themselves “Bucha’s witches”.

The group is already on patrols, but like so many others in Ukraine, they expect the fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces to be put on hold soon, though not done for good.

Many of the women are from the town of Bucha, a suburb of Kiev where some of the worst atrocities took place in the early days of the war, including street executions of civilians. A woman in the volunteer group told NBC News that her husband and her brother have both been killed in the war, and the group gives her a way to channel her rage.

As Ukraine’s military struggles with battlefield setbacks and dwindling morale, the specter of a peace deal promised by President-elect Donald Trump has added another layer of uncertainty.

Do you hear that? That’s the sum of the early Oscars buzz

The presidential election may be over, but campaign season has just begun in Hollywood. The 97th annual Academy Awards are scheduled for March 2, which means a number of film industry publicists and executives will be mobilizing to enlist the support of the nearly 10,000 members who vote on the Academy Awards. (See “For Your Consideration” ads all over Los Angeles).

This year, the best picture race lacks a clear front-runner — unlike the previous two Oscar cycles, when “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Oppenheimer” established clear and early advantages. A handful of films are in the 2025 Oscar conversation, leaving a “wide open field” for things to change in the coming months, according to an awards expert. Maybe “Anora,” the Sean Baker-directed film about a Brooklyn stripper who marries the spoiled heiress of a Russian oligarch, will go all the way. Or the sci-fi blockbuster “Dune: Part Two” could build on the success of the first part of the series, which won six awards in 2022.

Take a look of some of the leading candidates and why they have so much buzz before the first ballots are even cast.

NBC Select: Online shopping, simplified

Tomorrow is Black Friday, but plenty of sales from your favorite retailers are already underway. NBC Select’s editors rounded up the best early Black Friday deals to shop:

 Sign up for The Selection newsletter for hands-on product reviews, expert shopping tips and a look at the best deals and sales every week.

Read all about it

• Sean “Diddy” Combs’ bid to be released on bail before the holidays was dismissed by a New York judge.
• Wendy Williams is ‘permanently incapacitated’ as a result of early dementia, according to her court-appointed guardian.
• The US Federal Trade Commission has opened a broad antitrust investigation of Microsoft.
• Democratically controlled cities is finalizing plans to oppose mass deportation.

Staff selection: A $6 million apology

Palm Springs is one of Los Angeles’ weekend playgrounds, a desert oasis filled with mid-century architecture, golf courses, quirky shops and hip restaurants. But to make way for these attractions, over a period of several years in the late 1950s, the city government directed the bulldozing and burning of the one neighborhood where blacks were allowed to live. Lucille McFarland, now 101 years old, was a resident of the area dubbed Section 14. She had moved west from Mississippi in the assumption that the racial terror that characterized her upbringing would be less of a constant threat. Her son recalls the “traumatizing” moment when their family were told they had the weekend to pack up and move out.

This is the remarkable story of a California town’s assault on its black residents and how earlier this month it tried to fix it.

— Michelle Garcia, NBC BLK Editor-in-Chief

Thank you for reading the Morning Review. Today’s newsletter is curated for you by Elizabeth Both.