NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-07-2025 10AM EST

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Koriva Coleman. President Biden is using his executive authority to create two new national monuments in California. NPR's Deepa Shivaram reports. The two national monuments are Chukwala and Cetitla Highlands. Their designation means the land will be protected from development and preserved for its significance to tribal nations and ecological importance. For example, the Cetitla Highlands Monument includes a dormant volcano and is home to the longest known lava tube system in the world. The White House says with these two monuments,

Biden is setting a record for the most land and water conserved by any president. It will also establish the longest stretch of protected land in the continental United States, about 18 million acres of land, stretching through California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Deepa Sivaram, NPR News. The Minneapolis City Council has voted to enter into a federal consent decree with the

U.S. Justice Department. The federal agency investigated after then-Minneapolis police officers murdered George Floyd in 2020. Officials found a pattern of racial discrimination. Minnesota Public Radio's Estelle Timar-Wilcox says officials hope a judge will quickly approve the decree for the Minneapolis Police Department. The department will have to draft a new use of force policy. It bans chokeholds and neck restraints and limits the use of pepper spray.

One of the big concerns centered around investigations into a complaint against an officer, those will now continue complaint against an officer. Those will now continue even if an officer quits or retires. Estelle Timar-Wilcox reporting. Forecasters have posted dangerous wind warnings for the Los Angeles area. The National Weather Service says these winds could gust to hurricane strength today and knock over huge trees or even tractor trailers.

Meanwhile, forecasters have posted cautions for exceptionally cold weather in the south this morning. Some Gulf Coast areas, from Texas to Florida, could see temperatures near 20 degrees. The weather cautions come as parts of the central U.S. and the mid-Atlantic recover from a major winter storm. States from Missouri to New Jersey got heavy snow and ice. Stocks opened mixed this morning as the Commerce Department reported a widening of the US trade deficit in November. NPR Scott Horsley reports the Dow Jones industrials rose about 40 points in early trading. The nation's

trade gap grew more than 6% in November, topping 78 billion dollars. Exports were up during the month, but imports rose even faster. Both exports and imports often depend on longshoremen. Dockworkers from East Coast and Gulf Coast ports are back at the bargaining table today with shipping companies hoping to reach a contract before a January 15 deadline. The dockworkers suspended their strike after a three-day walkout this fall. The two sides have agreed to a 62 percent pay raise over the next six years, but still have to come to terms over shipyard automation.

Asian stocks were mixed overnight up in Shanghai and Tokyo, but down in Hong Kong. Scott Horslake, NPR News, Washington. This is NPR. Chinese state media have increased the death toll from today's earthquake in Tibet. At least 126 people have been killed. The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake's magnitude was 7.1. Reports say people are still trapped in rubble. A thousand homes were damaged.

The number of transgender teenagers in the U.S. is extremely small. That's according to a study published yesterday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. NPR's Selena Simmons Duffin reports that small group has been the subject of intense focus from Republican lawmakers in the last few years. The study was conducted by researchers at Harvard and Folk's Health,

a virtual LGBTQ healthcare company. They used a data set of private insurance claims that included more than 5 million adolescents and found that less than 0.1% of them are transgender and receive gender-related medicines. Here's lead author Landon Hughes of Harvard. It's a very, very small number of people and has managed to eat up all of the oxygen in our political discourse over

the last few months in many ways. The incoming Trump administration has pledged to enact a number of policies that would affect this small group, including a federal ban on gender-affirming care for youth. Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR News. The body of former President Jimmy Carter will be moved today from the Carter Center in Atlanta to Washington, DC. He will lie in state in the US Capitol rotunda until early Thursday morning. Mourners will then hold his state funeral. Carter died last week at the age of 100. This is NPR.