NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-02-2025 8PM EST

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

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What's in store for the music, TV and film industries for 2025? We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. President Biden says the man who rammed a truck into New Year's revelers in New Orleans, killing 14 people, acted alone. And as of yet, investigators have found no links between that attack and the cyber truck explosion hours later in Las Vegas.

As NPR's Tamara Keith reports, Biden convened his Homeland Security team for an update. Investigators initially thought that Shamshoudine Jabbar had help in executing the attack because they found improvised explosive devices in coolers elsewhere in the French Quarter. Now President Biden confirms Jabbar had a remote detonator in the vehicle he used to target pedestrians. We have no information that anyone else is involved in the attack. They've established that the attacker is the same person who planted the explosives in those ice coolers in two nearby locations. Biden said he asked his team to accelerate their investigations to try to get answers to remaining questions and he promised to provide updates when he knows more.

Tamara Keith, NPR News, The White House. Four years after a man was caught on video placing pipe bombs outside the offices of Democratic and Republican national committees near the U.S. Capitol, the FBI is releasing new information about the suspect. Investigators say they believe the individual was about 5 feet 7 inches tall. The FBI also posted previously unreleased video of the suspect near the DNC building on January 5, 2021. That was the night before Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. The Bureau says it has not established a clear link but hopes the new information may generate

fresh leads into the case. The bombs failed to detonate. A cold front known as an arctic outbreak is spreading through much of the U.S. as NPR's Rachel Triesman reports the central and eastern parts of the country could see their coldest air of the season. The National Weather Service says blasts of air from Siberia have reached the northern plains and will spread east and south into next week. The cold front is likely to bring below average temperatures as far south as Florida and the Gulf Coast. Forecasters are also warning of a weekend

storm that could dump heavy snow and hazardous ice from the central plains to the mid-Atlantic and northeast. They're encouraging people to the mid-Atlantic and northeast. They're encouraging people to stock up on three days worth of provisions, insulate their pipes, monitor emergency alerts, and check in on their loved ones. Rachel Triesman, NPR News. Never think Apple's virtual assistant, Siri, can be a bit too nosy. Apparently, a California federal appeals court agrees with you, granting preliminary approval for the device maker to pay $95 million in cash to settle a proposed class action lawsuit. Users had complained Apple routinely recorded their private conversations after they unintentionally

activated Siri, then disclosed those conversations to third-party advertisers. Two plaintiffs said their mentions of products triggered ads through those products, class members numbering in the tens of millions could receive up to $20 per device. On Wall Street, the Dow was down 151 points. This is NPR. Israeli airstrikes are now being blamed for at least 26 deaths across Gaza. Israel says the strikes in a seaside humanitarian zone were aimed at Hamas security officers. The strikes also hit an area where thousands

of displaced people have been seeking shelter from damp, wintry weather. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his office has authorized a delegation to continue negotiations in Qatar toward reaching a ceasefire. One of President Jimmy Carter's significant pieces of legislation would have changed mental health care.

And here's Katie Riddle as more. President Carter and his wife Rosalynn worked together to pass something called the Mental Health Systems Act in 1980. Months later, it was dismantled. Stephen Sharfstein worked on the legislation. When it was repealed the following year by then President Reagan, and let me tell you, elections matter, there was a lot of dismay among the mental health community, the patients, the various professional organizations.

However, over time, particularly the next decade or so, a number of the provisions of the act were re-legislated. Sharfstein says even though it was not realized as Carter imagined it, it set forth a vision for policymakers for decades. Katie Ariddle in Pure News. For electric vehicle maker Tesla, a rare global sales miss. While the company's seen its stock soar since the election,

when CEO Elon Musk became a policy advisor to the president-elect, shares tumbled to day on word that for the first time in more than a dozen years, the automaker missed global sales targets. 1.1% drop from the previous year came despite incentives. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington. 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.