O tickler RSS não funciona ao usar uma coleção de links em vez de textos: o que há de errado?

Estou usando uma solução em: https://www.cssscript.com/rss-feed-scroller-marquee/ para criar um tickler para minha página da web. Tudo bem, exceto pelo fato de o tickler apenas mostrar os textos do feed rss mas era impossível clicar neles para ir para o artigo. Então, tentei adulterá-lo, construindo um url adequado e tentando animá-lo. Mesmo assim, o item parece bem construído, mas quando o animo, nada acontece. Este é o código da classe js modificada:

/*!
* RSS Marquee
*
* Licensed under MIT
* Copyright (c) 2020 [Samuel Carreira]
*/
class RSSMarquee {
/**
 * 
 * @param {string[]} feedURLs Feed URLs
 * @param {object} elementContainer the selector of the marquee container
 * @param {number} options.speed duration in ms per character. Bigger values = slow speed
 * @param {number} options.maxItems specify max number of titles to show (useful to debug)
 * @param {object} options.hostnameSelector The selector of the element where you want to  show the URL of the news feed source (usefull for copyright atttribution)
 */
constructor(feedURLs, elementContainer, options = { speed: 110, maxItems: null, hostnameSelector: null }) {
    this._feedURLs = new Array();

    if (Array.isArray(feedURLs)) {
        this._feedURLs = feedURLs;
    } else {
        this._feedURLs[0] = feedURLs;
    }

    const URLvalidation = this._feedURLs.every(this.validateURL);

    if (!URLvalidation) {
        throw new TypeError('Invalid URL on list');
    }

    this._urlIndex = 0;

    this._anim = null;

    this._newsText = '';

    this._lastTime = Date.now();

    if (elementContainer === null) {
        throw new TypeError('Invalid element selector');
    }

    this._elementContainer = elementContainer;
    this.styleElementContainer();

    this._options = {
        speed: this.validateSpeed(options.speed),
        maxItems: options.maxItems,
        hostnameSelector: options.hostnameSelector,
        // ...options
    };

    this.getRSS();
}


validateSpeed(speed) {
    if (!Number(speed) || speed < 50 || speed > 300) {
        return 110; // default safe value
    } else {
        return speed;
    }
}

/**
 * Set the animation speed
 * @param {number} speed value between 50-300
 */
set setSpeed(speed) {
    this._options.speed = this.validateSpeed(speed);
}

get getSpeed() {
    return this._options.speed;
}

/**
 * Validate URL (uses URL interface)
 * 
 * @param {string} url Url to check
 * @returns {boolean} true if valid
 */
validateURL(url) {
    try {
        const u = new URL(url);
        return true;
    } catch (e) {
        return false;
    }
}

/**
 * Get Hostname from url string
 * 
 * Sample: "http://www.dnoticias.pt/rss/desporto.xml"
 *         returns -> www.dnoticias.pt
 * 
 * @param {string} url url string
 * @returns {string} hostname
 */
getHostname(url) {
    try {
        const u = new URL(url);
        return u.hostname;
    } catch (e) {
        return '';
    }
}

getRSS() {
    const url = this._feedURLs[this._urlIndex];

    this.fetchRSS(url)
        .then((xmlText) => {
            this._newsText = this.parseXMLFeed(xmlText);

            this.showMarquee(this._newsText);

            this.showHostname(url);
        })
        .catch((err) => {
            console.error(err);

            this.handleErrors();
        });

}

handleErrors() {
    const diffTime = Date.now() - this._lastTime;

    if (diffTime > 5000) {
        console.log('Trying next feed URL...');

        this.nextURL();
        this._lastTime = Date.now();
    } else {
        if (this._newsText === '') {
            console.log('delay...');
            setTimeout(() => {
                this.nextURL();
            }, 5000);
        } else {
            console.log('show again cached saved news');
            this.showMarquee(this._newsText);
        }
    }
}


nextURL() {
    this.increaseIndex();

    this.getRSS();
}

styleElementContainer() {
    this._elementContainer.style.overflow = 'hidden';
    this._elementContainer.style.whiteSpace = 'nowrap';
}

showHostname(url) {
    if (!this._options.hostnameSelector) {
        return;
    }

    this._options.hostnameSelector.innerText = this.getHostname(url);
}


showMarquee(aCollection) {
    
    try {
        const animKeyframes = [{
            transform: 'translateX(0)'
        },
        {
            transform: 'translateX(-100%)'
        }
        ];

        const animOptions = {
            duration: 25000, // The number of milliseconds each iteration of the animation takes to complete. Defaults to 0. Although this is technically optional, keep in mind that your animation will not run if this value is 0.
            easing: 'linear', // The rate of the animation's change over time. Accepts the pre-defined values "linear", "ease", "ease-in", "ease-out", and "ease-in-out", or a custom "cubic-bezier" value like "cubic-bezier(0.42, 0, 0.58, 1)". Defaults to "linear".
            iterations: 1, // The number of times the animation should repeat. Defaults to 1, and can also take a value of Infinity to make it repeat for as long as the element exists.
            delay: 0, // The number of milliseconds to delay the start of the animation. Defaults to 0.
            endDelay: 0 // The number of milliseconds to delay after the end of an animation. This is primarily of use when sequencing animations based on the end time of another animation. Defaults to 0. 
        };

        animOptions.duration = aCollection.length * this._options.speed;

        const elementChildNode = document.createElement('span');
        elementChildNode.style.display = 'inline-block';
        elementChildNode.style.paddingLeft = '100%';

        //const textNode = document.createTextNode(text);
        console.log(aCollection.lenght);
        aCollection.forEach(function(item, index, array) {
            elementChildNode.appendChild(item)
        })
        console.log("totale:");
        console.log(elementChildNode);
        //elementChildNode.appendChild(textNode);

        //this._elementContainer.appendChild(elementChildNode);
        
        this._anim = elementChildNode.animate(animKeyframes, animOptions);
        console.log('start animation');
        this._anim.onfinish = () => {
            console.log('end');
            while (this._elementContainer.firstChild) {
                this._elementContainer.firstChild.remove();
            }
            delete this._anim.onfinish;

            this.nextURL();
        };

        this._lastTime = Date.now();
    } catch (err) {
        console.error(err);
    }
}

increaseIndex() {
    this._urlIndex += 1;
    if (this._urlIndex > this._feedURLs.length - 1) {
        this._urlIndex = 0;
    }
}

/**
 * Fetch RSS 
 * @param {string} feedURL RSS XML url
 */
fetchRSS(feedURL) {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        console.info(`Start fetching ${feedURL}...`);

        fetch(feedURL, { mode: 'cors', redirect: 'follow' })
            .then((response) => {
                return response.text();
            })
            .then((xmlTxt) => {
                return resolve(xmlTxt);
            })
            .catch(() => {
                console.error('Error in fetching the RSS feed');
                reject();
            })
    });
}

/**
 * Parses RSS XML feed
 * 
 * - Select title elementContainer
 * - add dot separator between "headlines"
 * - remove <![CDATA[ string
 * - remove html tags
 * 
 * @param {string} xmlText 
 * @returns {string} parsed feed
 */
parseXMLFeed(xmlText) {
    try {
        const parser = new DOMParser();
        const doc = parser.parseFromString(xmlText, "text/xml");

        let news = '';
        let aCollection=[];
        let totals = 0;

        for (let item of doc.querySelectorAll('item')) {
            let title = item.getElementsByTagName("title")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
            // let description = item.getElementsByTagName("description")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
            let link = item.getElementsByTagName("link")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
            if (title) {
                if (news.length) {
                    news += '\xa0' + ' • ' + '\xa0';
                }
                title = this.remoteCData(title);
                title = this.stripTags(title);
                news += title;
                var a = document.createElement('a');
                var linkText = document.createTextNode(title);
                a.appendChild(linkText);
                a.title = title;
                a.href = link;
                aCollection.push(a);
                totals += 1;
            }


            if (this._options.maxItems !== null && totals >= this._options.maxItems) {
                console.info('Maximum items reached!');
                break;
            }
        }
        //console.log(aCollection);
        //console.log(news);
        console.info(`Parsed ${totals} title(s)`);
        return aCollection;
    } catch (err) {
        console.error(err);
        return '   ';
    }
}

stripTags(textWithTags) {
    return textWithTags.replace(/<(.|\n)*?>/g, '');
}

remoteCData(originalText) {
    return originalText.replace("<![CDATA[", "").replace("]]>", "");
}
}

A animação que não ocorre está em função: showMarquee (aCollection). O site original mostra como testá-lo.

Obrigado,