NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-01-2026 9PM EST

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. Swiss investigators are ruling out an attack as the cause of a deadly fire during a New Year's Eve party at a popular Swiss Alps ski resort. Dozens have died, more than 100 others are injured. Esme Nicholson has more. Police say the fire tore through Le Constellation, the crowded bar where skiers were seeing in the new year at 1.30 a.m. local time. They also confirm that the blaze was not caused by an explosive device.

A number of media outlets report that a birthday candle held too close to the ceiling may have started the fire, although investigations are ongoing. Regional government head, Mathieu Renard, says the evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare. Grand Montana is a well-known ski resort in the Swiss canton of Vallet, a destination that draws many international celebrities. For NPR News, I'm Esme Nicholson in Berlin. Zoran Mamadani has been sworn in as the new mayor of New York City,

At his inauguration on the steps of City Hall today, he told the city of some 8.5 million people, he stands alongside them. Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you, and never, not for a second, hide from you. And he says he's not lowering expectations. In writing this address, I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations, that I should use this opportunity. to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and expect even less. I will do no such thing.

He was sworn in once officially in a private ceremony and an underground unused subway station entrance to City Hall earlier today and then again publicly on the steps of City Hall. Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor and the first of South Asian descent. The inauguration is being followed

by a public block party. Starting today, China is placing a 13-13 tax on contraceptive items, including condoms. And here's Emily Fang reports it's one of the many measures China's taking to try to boost birth rates. For more than three decades, contraceptive products had no tax on them in China because officials said the country was in the midst of family planning under the one-child policy that limited families to just one child. That was back when Chinese leaders feared the country could not support a large population. But they now have the opposite problem, a shrinking working age population. In 2016, that one child limit was raised to

two children and now it's three children as China contends with a falling birth rate. Chinese state media have suggested that some of the revenue from the new 13% tax on contraceptives could go to funding policies that encourage families to have more children or defraying the cost of child care. Emily Fang and Peer News. Asia markets are trading mostly higher at this hour. The Hangsang in Hong Kong is up. 1.2 percent. This is NPR. In Iran, protests sparked by the country's troubled economy have spread beyond Tehran and into rural provinces. At least seven people are dead. These protests are the biggest since 2022, fueled by economic pressures, inflation, and currency fluctuations. Protesters

are also chanting against Iran's theocracy. Thousands of copyrighted works enter the public domain today. And Peres Netta Ulibe reports, copyrights, expire for works from 1930 and sound recordings from 1925. 95 years have passed since the publication of books, now in the public domain, books like William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and the first four Nancy Drew detective novels. Movies from 1930 include a Marx Brothers classic, Animal Crackers, and the epic war film, all quiet on the Western Front. It's set in the trenches of World War I. Music, entering the public domain in 2026, includes a few compositions by George Gershwin and the first recording of Sweet Georgia Brown by Ben Burney and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra.

This means the work is available for anyone to use, reuse, or remix without paying a fee. Netta Ulippi, NPR News. In the college football playoffs, Orange Bowl near Miami, Oregon-Toppel Texas Tech, 23-0, at the Rose Bowl, Indiana beat Alabama, 383, and at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, which is underway between Georgia and Ole Miss. Last night at the Cotton Bowl, Miami upset Ohio State 24 to 14. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News, in Washington.