NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-03-2025 4PM EST

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Louise Schiavone. Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson fought off a mini-GOP revolt today. The Honorable Mike Johnson of the state of Louisiana, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected speaker of the House of Representatives for the 119th Congress. NPR's Deidre Walsh has details. Johnson was narrowly re-elected speaker on the first ballot. Initially three Republicans voted against him, but he convinced two of them, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas, to change their votes.

After he won, Johnson vowed to tackle a key priority his party focused on in the 2024 election. We will act quickly and we will start by defending our nation's borders. That's the number one priority. Because Republicans hold a narrow majority, Johnson could only afford one defection. The House has to approve a package of rules for how the chamber will operate and then is expected to turn to border security legislation later this month. Deirdre Walsh, NPR News, the Capitol. In the Golan Heights in southwest

Syria, residents say Israeli troops are raiding their homes and villages. They say they worry this is the start of a land grab. Israel says it's securing its own border. NPR's Hadil Al-Shalshi has more. Another village I went to, Jabhat al-Khashab, the mayor told me he met with Israeli troops and they told him they wanted to enter their homes to search for weapons. So to keep the troops out, the mayor went back to his community, rounded up any weapons they had, and handed them over to the Israeli military. Also met with one displaced Syrian family who said Israeli troops moved into their village and forced them out of their homes, demolishing buildings along the way.

And P.R. Siddiallal Shalshi reporting. People in the city of New Orleans are working through the New Year's Day tragedy of a deadly truck attack in which 14 people died, dozens were hurt. Drew Hawkins of the Gulf States newsroom shares one man's story. Tyler Burt knows the streets of the French Quarter like the back of his hand. A graduate student at Loyola University by day and a petty cab driver by night, he was parting ways with his last customer for the night when the truck turned onto Bourbon Street. We had a high five and then I believe that he was run over while I was like in contact

with him. And so I just remember that was one of them of him going under the vehicle. Burt says he's still trying to recover from it, but it takes time. I don't want to meet that with fear. I'd rather meet that with love. But at this time, I've got to just make sure I'm capable of doing that. For NPR News, I'm Drew Hawkins in New Orleans. Forecasters say a polar vortex is en route to the eastern two-thirds of the United States, bringing with it strong snow and ice storms, followed by brutally cold weather.

A hard freeze could hit as far south as Florida, while states near the Canadian border are expected to see temperatures around zero. On Wall Street, the Dow gained 339 points, the NASDAQ up 340. This is NPR News in Washington. Assistance programs that give money directly to the poor can have a huge impact on their health. That's according to a new study published today in Nature Medicine, NPR's Gabrielle Emanuel reports. Researchers looked at 54 million people in Brazil living in poverty. About half of them got monthly payments from the government if they sent their kids to school and got them regular health checks. Among the extremely poor who got the money, cases and deaths from

tuberculosis dropped by more than 50%. That's really remarkable. Aaron Rickderman is at the University of Pennsylvania and was not part of the study. TB kills more than a million people each year. It's highly linked to malnutrition, for example, so those payouts help people get better food. Giving the needy cash has lots of known health benefits. It reduces HIV and child mortality. Gabriella Emanuel, NPR News. The most on-time airline in the world is Aeromexico. According to data company Sirium, in 2024, Aeromexico's flights arrived on time 87 percent of the time. Just behind Aeromexico for on-time performance,

Saudi Arabian Airlines Saudia and Atlanta-based Delta Airlines, a computer snafu, last summer caused thousands of flight cancellations, but Delta still outperformed other U.S. airlines. According to the year-end report, Canadian airlines WestJet and Air Canada, along with Denver-based Budget Airline Frontier, were at the bottom of Syrians' rankings about airlines in North America. I'm Louise Schiavone, NPR News.