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Episode Date: January 1, 2025

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The Indicator is a podcast where daily economic news is about what matters to you. Workers have been feeling the sting of inflation. So as a new administration promises action on the cost of living, taxes, and home prices, The S&P 500 biggest post-election day spike ever. Follow all the big changes and what they mean for you. Make America affordable again. Listen to The Indicator, the daily economics podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dan Ronan.

49 of the 50 states have now welcomed in 2025. Alaska is the latest just a few minutes ago. Hawaii will celebrate 2025 in two hours when it strikes midnight. This is what it sounded like four hours ago when more than one million people were in New York City's Times Square to watch the crystal ball drop down as the crowd chanted down the seconds and a Frank Sinatra classic played. I want to be a part of it. New York, New York. Police say security was very tight with thousands of extra officers on duty for the event.

Russian gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine have ceased marking an end to an era in the European Union. Ukraine's President Zelensky refused to allow further transit, which he said were fueling Russia's war machine. The BBC's Central European correspondent Nick Thorpe reports. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave the European Union a year to prepare for this unilateral move, the closing down of a major pipeline which has for decades funneled cheap Russian gas to the EU. Ukraine says it can

no longer tolerate EU payments worth 5 billion euros a year to its Russian enemy. Slovakia is the most upset. It will not only lose cheap gas but lucrative transit fees as the gas used to supply Austria, Hungary and Italy. The BBC's Nick Thorpe. Beginning today a new law in Texas says drivers will no longer need to get an annual vehicle inspection. Pablo Arruz-Pena from member station KERA Dallas reports. The Texas legislature passed the law last year which got rid of mandatory safety inspections. Now it's up to the driver not the state to keep up with maintenance. Sergeant Billy Ray is with

the Texas Department of Public Safety. We urge people to still take care of their vehicles, still check your tires, make sure your brakes are working, headlights, taillights, and mirrors are still safe before you drive. Emissions tests are still required in the most populous and fastest growing Texas counties. That's because the air quality in those counties doesn't meet the federal standards set by the EPA. The law goes into effect January 1st.

I'm Pablo Arauz-Beña in Dallas. Wall Street is taking Wednesday off for the New Year's Day holiday. They had a shortened session on Tuesday in New York City. All three of the indexes finished the year with double-digit increases with the NASDAQ leading the way up 28 percent year over year. You're listening to NPR News. President-elect Donald Trump has announced that Justin Carawall will join the White House as the executive producer for major events and public appearances. He was with the campaign

staff and produced Trump's Madison Square Garden rally as well as the Wisconsin photo op of Trump riding in a garbage truck wearing a safety vest. Copperwald was identified by NPR as one of the two staffers who got into an altercation with officials at Arlington National Cemetery in August when Trump laid a wreath for American service personnel killed in Afghanistan. Nearly 800 people have gotten sick with gastrointestinal illnesses and five separate outbreaks on cruise ships in the month of December. This year has seen the highest number of outbreaks on cruise ships in a dozen years.

NPR's Yuki Noguchi has more. December alone has seen an escalation in both the frequency and severity of outbreaks of gastrointestinal disease on board cruise lines, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most recently, nearly 13 percent of passengers aboard the Queen Mary 2 were sickened by an unknown illness. That brings the total number of on-board GI-related infectious outbreaks to 16 this year. Recent infections have prompted the Queen Mary's parent company, Cunard, and other cruise lines, including Holland America, to increase cleaning and sanitation of ships, as well as to isolate sick crew members.

Yuki Noguchi, NPR News. Investigators from the U.S. have arrived in South Korea to help that government investigate Sunday's plane crash. This is NPR News.