NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-11-2025 1AM EST

Episode Date: January 11, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. A curfew remains in place in the Palisades and Eaton areas of Los Angeles at this hour. The curfew began at 6 p.m. local time and will remain in place until 6 a.m. Disney meanwhile says it will donate $15 million to help with response to the wildfires that are destroying areas in and around Los Angeles. The money will also be used to help with recovery. At least 11 people have died so far and thousands of structures and vehicles have been destroyed. The wildfires have also disrupted the industry that makes the region famous, Hollywood.

NPR's entertainment correspondent, Monalit Del Barco, reports. Hollywood A-listers Billy Crystal and Mila Ventimiglia were among those whose homes burned to the ground. On The Tonight Show, actress Jamie Lee Curtis talked about how her Pacific Palisades neighborhood was destroyed. It's just a catastrophe. The market I shop in, the schools my kids go to, many, many, many, many, many friends now have lost their homes. The deadly wildfires have also affected countless others who work in the TV and film industry. Some studios paused productions on their lots and the film permitting offices not allowing productions in evacuated zones.

Some red carpet events were canceled and award shows postponed. The fires also prompted a delay of nominations announcements for the upcoming Academy Awards. Mandelita El Barco, NPR News, Los Angeles. President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday in his criminal hush money case. Trump was found guilty last year on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment made to an adult film star ahead of the 2016 election. But as NPR's Jimena Bustillo reports, Trump is not facing prison time, fines, or any other penalties. New York Judge Juan Marchand today announced his decision in a Manhattan courtroom. This court has determined that the only lawful sentence

that permits entry of a judgment of conviction without encroaching upon the highest office in the land is an unconditional discharge. With Trump about to assume the highest office of political power, Marchand and prosecutors agreed the sentence imposing the least disruption was unconditional discharge. Still, the criminal conviction remains on Trump's record. Trump and his lawyers, several of which are tapped into positions in his administration,

have vowed to appeal the conviction. Ximena Bustillo, NPR News, New York. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Friday over a law that will ban the video app TikTok from the US if its China owned parent company does not sell the company. The federal government argues that a Chinese owner of a social media app threatens our national security. NPR's Bobby Allen. So we're waiting to hear if the court is going to delay the ban start date and then also when it will rule on the merits which will be in the coming days and of course there was president elect Donald Trump who has vowed to save TikTok and that might throw another wrench into this situation. That's NPR's Bobby Allen reporting and you're

listening to NPR News. Global temperatures last year made a major jump and reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era for the first time. Scientists say if temperatures continue at this level, it will mean increased deaths, more severe weather, drastic species loss, and more sea level rise. Higher temperatures are a major contributor to more extreme weather. A publication by the Islamic State does not claim responsibility for the New Year's Eve attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people. It does however affirm that the man behind the operation was inspired by ISIS materials. More from NPR's Odette Youssef. An editorial in the Islamic State's weekly newsletter

praises the attack, but it indicates that the organization had no knowledge that it was coming. Colin Clark, a counter-terrorism expert with the Soufan Group, says this is highly concerning because it means online ISIS materials were sufficient to inspire the attacker to think of the operation on his own. This is set it and forget it. This is the realization of exactly what they're hoping to achieve. Clark says this model is really difficult if not impossible to stop, especially if a would-be terrorist has good operational security, as he says the New Orleans attacker did. Odette Youssef, NPR News. Homeland Security says about 600,000 Venezuelans and more than 200,000 El Salvadorans that are already living in the US can legally remain here for another 18

months. Their designation, under what is called temporary protected status, gives them legal authority to be in the U.S., but it doesn't give them a long-term path to citizenship.