Emily Fang

The number of new babies born in 2025 dropped by 17 percent from the year before.

And most crucially, the ratio of babies born per 1,000 women dropped to its lowest level since 1949.

China now has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, well below the ratio needed to maintain its current population of more than 1 billion people.

Starting in the 1970s, China enforced a one-child policy, driven by fears that the country could not support a population that grew too quickly.

But in 2016, China removed that cap, eventually lifting it to the maximum of three children per family now.

But despite more generous maternity policies, subsidies to make preschool more affordable, and publicity campaigns extolling the virtues of family life,

Chinese women are having fewer and fewer children.

Emily Fang, NPR News.

On Sunday, Israel's energy minister wrote on the social media site X that he'd moved to implement legislation passed in December to cut off utilities to UNRWA.

That's the agency that for decades has provided many social services in Palestinian communities in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Though in 2024, Israel banned it from Israeli territory.

Israel has accused UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas.

And while the agency has denied the allegations, it fired around two dozen of its employees as a result.

Last week, Israeli security forces raided an UNRWA health care center in East Jerusalem.

UNRWA still runs facilities in the occupied West Bank, but says that those schools and health care facilities will close down soon if their water and power are cut.

Emily Fang, NPR News, Tel Aviv.

Israel's communications ministry told NPR in a statement it has not allocated frequencies for 4G networks to the Palestinian Authority, which governs much of the West Bank, meaning they will not be able to upgrade their phone service networks.

The West Bank has been trying to get 4G for years, but negotiations to get approval from Israel have foundered ever since the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023.

In Gaza, another Palestinian territory, most people only have access to an even older and slower standard, 2G.

And when the winter weather turns windy and rainy, as it has been in Gaza this past week, people can lose signal entirely.