NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-01-2025 4PM EST

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Louise Schiavone. The FBI is calling the deadly truck attack in New Orleans' French Quarter an act of terrorism and now says the driver of that truck likely did not act alone. 42-year-old Shamsuddin Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas, had been identified by the FBI as the suspect. He died in a shootout with police after authorities say he killed at least 10 people and injured 35 more by plowing his Ford pickup into pedestrians at high speed. NPR's Martin Costey tells us that considering major events like a College Bowl football playoff and the Super Bowl, attention is focusing on security in the city of New Orleans.

At around 315 in the morning, the pickup truck veered off Canal Street and drove onto the narrower Bourbon Street. The city's been criticized for not having functioning bollards to protect that tourist area, but New Orleans Police Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick says her department had taken precautions. This particular terrorist drove around onto the sidewalk and got around the hard target where he did have a car there, we had barriers there, we had officers there, and they still got around. The FBI is investigating the incident as a terrorist attack and it identified the driver as an Army veteran from Texas named Shamsadeen Jabbar.

He was killed in a shootout with police. Martin Kosty, NPR News. Russia has halted its last major pipeline providing Russian gas directly to Europe, and NPR's Charles Maines has details. All we know is that when the plant was not able to send energy out, it protected itself by shutting down. That's supposed to happen, but what we haven't seen in a long time is that without the major disasters going on, all the other power plants went down also in a chain reaction. That's reporter Alex Figueroa of newspaper El Nuevo Día and San Juan who reports the lights are on for 67% of customers in Puerto Rico,

including hospitals, according to Luma Energy, who oversees electricity transmission. More than a million people were in the dark yesterday and it's been feared restoration could take as long as two days. Here's that report from Charles Mainz. It may surprise to hear that Russia has continued to export natural gas to Europe through Ukraine, despite Russia's invasion of its neighbor in 2022. The continued flow came thanks to a five-year transit agreement between Moscow and Kiev that expired January 1.

In announcing the stoppage, Russian energy giant Gazprom blamed Ukraine for refusing to renew the transit deal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had long warned Europe of the cutoff, saying Ukraine would no longer allow Russia to quote quote earn additional billions on our blood. Europe sharply decreased its dependence on Russian gas in the wake of the war in Ukraine, but several countries including Austria, Slovakia and Hungary still rely heavily on Russian supply. Charles Mainz, MPR News. This is NPR. President-elect Donald Trump says he is planning to attend the funeral of former president Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, asked about it as he walked into a New Year's Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Trump responded, I'll be there. He wouldn't say if he'd spoken to members of Carter's family. A state funeral for the late president will be held at Washington National Cathedral on January 9th. This week's Billboard charts are out and holiday songs have done something they've never done before. NPR's Stephen Thompson reports. The Christmas season is behind us, which means this may be the last time you hear Santa Tell Me for almost 11 months. But there are still two holiday milestones worth noting from this week's Billboard charts. One for the first time ever, the entire top ten consists of holiday music. In fact, the

top 16 songs are all shouting at us to be of good cheer. That's a product of the streaming era which has pushed Christmas to the top of the pop charts. Also for the first time ever, a holiday song from this century has hit the Billboard Top 5. You heard it just seconds ago, it's Ariana Grande's Santa Tell Me, which joins Mariah Carey, Brenda Lee, Wham!, and Bobby Helms at the top of the Christmas canon. Steven Thompson, NPR News. There's a new Instagram account in CyberTown. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, can be found at atMeghan. It's her first return since 2020 when she and husband Prince Harry stepped back from

their official royal roles in the United Kingdom. I'm Louise Schiavone, NPR News, Washington.