NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-12-2025 5AM EST

Episode Date: January 12, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. The death toll from the devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area is climbing. Officials now say the fires have killed 16 people, five blamed on the Palisades Fire and 11 on the Easton Fire. Officials say 150,000 people in L.A. County are under evacuation orders, and many are finding they've lost everything, including Kevin Jordan, who lived in Altadena. I lost everything. I lost my money that I saved up.

Lost my cat. Lost my uncle's ashes. Lost everything. Firefighters are bracing for more intense winds. The National Weather Service expects gusty winds to pick back up and that critical fire weather will continue into Wednesday. Houses of worship among the many structures destroyed by the wildfires in LA, NPR's Jason DeRose reports on how the loss of these buildings is affecting congregations.

Jason DeRose The campus of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Pacific Palisades lost 13 of 21 buildings. Reverend Bruce Freeman says the congregation of about 500 families also is home to an elementary and middle school. We will get through this with each other. Even if all the buildings go, we're still St. Matthews, because we are the church. We are the community. Also lost in the Palisades fire, Calvary Church, an evangelical Christian congregation, the Corpus Christi Catholic Church, and the Chabad Jewish Congregations building. The Jewish Federation of L.A. says the Chabad was able to save its Torah scroll from the fire.

Jason DeRose, NPR News. Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department. The department disclosed Smith's resignation in a court filing this weekend, saying it took effect on Friday. Smith's departure was expected. He'd weekend, saying it took effect on Friday. Smith's departure was expected. He'd already said he planned to step down before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. Smith is leaving the DOJ amid legal wrangling over the two-volume report on Trump that he and his team had prepared.

Smith had been overseeing the investigation into Trump's role both in the January 6 attack and the classified documents case. President Biden awarded Pope Francis with the nation's highest civilian honor this weekend, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with distinction. Francis became the first person to receive that added level of honor from Biden. MPR's Juliana Kim reports. President Biden was scheduled to travel to the Vatican this weekend to meet with Pope Francis, but canceled in order to monitor the California wildfires. The White House said the two were able to speak over the phone on Saturday.

The White House says Pope Francis received the award for his commitment to serving the poor as well as advocating for world peace and the environment. President Biden is the second Catholic president in U.S. history, while Pope Francis is the third pope to receive the medal. The two have had a good rapport for many years, well before Biden took office. Julianna Kim, NPR News. Nat. And you're listening to NPR News. For the first time in more than 100 years, the Justice Department has published a report on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Max Bryan with Member Station KWGS reports. In the massacre, a white mob killed as many as 300 people, leveled more than 1,000 homes, and destroyed prominent businesses in the area known as Black Wall Street following an unsubstantiated report that a black teenager assaulted a white woman. Now the DOJ says there are credible reports that some members of law enforcement murdered black residents in the massacre. And unlike the first report produced in the weeks after the massacre, the document issued Friday asserts that the white mob's quote opportunistic violence became systematic and stemmed from racial bias. Federal authorities say prosecution

opportunities are prohibited by expired statutes of limitations and the fact that perpetrators are dead. However DOJ officials say the report is still important for history. For NPR News, I'm Max Bryan in Tulsa. The first launch of Blue Origin's giant New Glenn reusable rocket has been delayed again. The launch had been set for early today, but the private space company owned by Jeff Bezos says conditions remained unfavorable in the Atlantic, where the company had hoped to land the booster on a drone ship. A new three-hour launch window opens overnight tonight.

If successful, the new Glenn rocket would set up a challenge to SpaceX's dominance. I'm Jaiil Snyder. This is NPR News.