NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-12-2025 2PM EST

Episode Date: January 12, 2025

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This is Eric Glass. In this American life, sometimes we just show up somewhere, turn on our tape recorders, and see what happens. If you can't get seven cars in 12 days, you gotta look yourself in the mirror and say, holy, what are you kidding me? Like this car dealership, trying to sell its monthly quota of cars, and it is not going well. I just don't want one balloon to a car. Balloon the whole freaking place so it looks like I'm circus. Real life stories every week. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Noor Rahm. Firefighters in Southern

California struggle to contain several major wildfires that have burned for days. Thousands have lost their homes. Rachel Myro from member station KQED reports on some planning their next step. Jimmy Paul Paul and her 11-year-old daughter were already driving away from the Eaton fire when the official evacuation order came over their phones. A neighbor provided the heads up hours earlier. Paul says her cul-de-sac at the edge of the forest has been tight-knit since the pandemic,

and that sense of community has continued in another difficult moment. We're talking about meeting up on a regular basis to help each other clean up and maybe have some community meals and rebuild our neighborhood together. For now, Paul and her daughter are fighting refuge in a hotel south of Altadena, but they've received an offer on a place to stay across town rent-free. For NPR News, I'm Rachel Myhro in Pasadena. President Biden has declared a disaster area in the region

releasing money from the Federal Emergency Management Administration. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell has been on the ground there for several days. She said fires are especially devastating. When you come to one of these fires, it's, it's, people have lost everything. When, when you look at a hurricane and a tornado, people have something that they can come sift through and try to find their memories. But here they've lost the physical structure, but they've also lost so many of their memories, which makes this journey that they're gonna have to go

through that much more difficult in the coming weeks and months. He says more than 24,000 people have applied for financial assistance so far. Chriswell said it's absolutely false that FEMA has run out of money, as President-elect Trump said last week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sent the head of Israel's Foreign Intelligence Service to join negotiations for a ceasefire in the 15-month long Gaza War. NPR's Jerome Sokolowski reports from Tel Aviv. Mossad chief David Barnea is heading to Qatar, where Israel and Hamas are talking through

intermediaries. They are discussing the fate of the 98 remaining hostages. Israel says many are already dead. Hamas wants Israel to commit to ending the war, which Israel says it's not ready to do. In Gaza, the Israeli Air Force struck what it calls a Hamas command and control center located in a school building. Gaza's civil defense says civilians were sheltering there and that eight Palestinians were killed, including two women and two children.

Here in Israel, mourners are gathering for the funerals of four soldiers. The military says they were killed when their armored vehicle came under attack in northern Gaza. Jerome Sokolowski, NPR News, Tel Aviv. And you're listening to NPR News from Washington. President Biden spoke today with Netanyahu on the negotiations in Qatar. A readout from the White House said Biden stressed the need for an immediate ceasefire, the return of the hostages, and a surge in humanitarian aid once the fighting has stopped. Netanyahu thanked the president for his lifelong support of Israel.

Weather conditions in Atlanta and across the South are still cold, but calmer since a winter storm hit Friday morning. After a rare snowfall, Georgia remains in a state of emergency until Tuesday. For Member Station WABE, Dermaya Vance reports. As of Sunday morning, the National Weather Service reported possible slick spots and patches of black ice as snow melts or refreezes. Temperatures are forecast to dip below freezing into the midweek. More than two inches of snow fell in Atlanta during the storm. It was the first time since 2018 the city had seen

more than an inch of snow. Thousands of flights were canceled or delayed from Hartsfield Jackson Airport starting Friday into the weekend. Meanwhile, power was restored to thousands of households that had lost it. For NPR News, I'm Dormiah Vance in Atlanta. President-elect Trump has promised that when he returns to the Oval Office, he'll pardon many of those charged with crimes

connected to January 6th, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden's win in the 2020 election. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance said today those who peacefully protested should be pardoned, but those who committed violence, obviously, should not. He told Fox News, there's a bit of gray area in some cases. I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News in Washington.