NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-02-2026 12AM EST

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

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Fall in love with new music every Friday at All Songs Considered. That's NPR's Music Recommendation podcast. Fridays are where we spend our whole show sharing all the greatest new releases of the week. Make the hunt for new music a part of your life again. Tap into New Music Friday from All Songs Considered, available wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shea Stevens. With the new year comes new laws. 18 states now have restrictions on what SNAP recipients can buy with their benefits, and soda, candy, and energy drinks are not allowed. In Colorado, the state is offering extended paid leave to families with infants receiving care in neonatality units, and a new Virginia law limits social media

use for minors unless a parent agrees otherwise. Progressive Democrat Zora Mamdani has taken office as mayor of New York City. Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders administered the oath during the swearing-in ceremony. In his inaugural remarks, Mamdani promised to confront resident concerns audaciously beginning day one. 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.

Mamdani says City Hall will no longer be shy about using its powers to improve the lives of New Yorkers. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is indicating a willingness to negotiate an agreement with the U.S. on fighting drug trafficking. In a taped interview aired on state television, Maduro said the U.S. wants to force his nation to change its government in order to take Venezuela's oil. The U.S. has carried out nearly three dozen strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and East Pacific since early September, killing at least 115 people. China is imposing a 13% surcharge for contraceptives as one of many efforts to try to boost that nation's birth rates. Details from NPR's Emily Fang. 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. Taiwan is vowing to defend its sovereignty and wage. of China's live military exercises around the island. President Lai Ching-Tai vows to defend his nation against what he calls China's expansionist ambitions. China's military drills were held amid anger over U.S. plans to sell a massive arms package to the

island, which Beijing considers a renegade province. On Asian market, shares are mostly higher but down a fraction in Tokyo. You're listening to NPR. Swiss authorities are not speculating on a possible cause for the fire that killed at least 40 people and injured some 115 others on New Year's Eve. The blaze broke out at a ski resort bar in the city of Cronz, Montana. Archaeologists have found what they say is the oldest known cremation pyre used to burn the body of an adult. NPR's Nell Greenfield-Bois reports that the pyre was found in Africa, and it dates back nearly 10,000 years. At the base of a mountain in Malawi, archaeologists uncovered a big pile of ash and in the middle was the burned bones of a small adult woman. Jessica Sarazo-Roman is an anthropologist with the University of Oklahoma.

She says it's rare to find any evidence of cremation in hunter-gatherer communities that lived in the Stone Age. And cremation pires, the wooden structures used to burn bodies, are almost never preserved. They are very difficult to find in the archaeological record. In the journal Science Advances, she and her colleagues say the large amount of wood collected suggests this cremation was a communal effort, and the cremated woman's head is missing, suggesting it might have been kept as a relic. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News. The Trump administration has canceled leases for three public golf courses in Washington, D.C. A nonprofit that manages the courses on federal property in the last five years says the Interior Department canceled its 50-year lease. The National Links Trust says the lease cancellations come after the government

had already spent $8.5 million on capital improvements. This is NPR News.