NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-19-2025 7PM EST

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

NPR News: 01-19-2025 7PM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Herbst. On the eve of his inauguration, President-elect Trump addressed a victory rally at an arena in Washington, D.C., tonight, telling the thousands of cheering supporters he means business. By the time the sun sets tomorrow evening, the invasion of our borders will have come to a halt and all the illegal border trespassers will in some form or another be on their way back home. Trump says he plans to reverse bans on oil drilling, enact mass deportations of people in the country without legal status that's said to be starting next week, and he says he will issue lots of executive orders.

Meanwhile, thousands of Trump supporters are in the nation's capital to celebrate and some next week and he says he will issue lots of executive orders. Meanwhile thousands of Trump supporters are in the nation's capital to celebrate and some traveled hundreds of miles to get there for the event which will now be held inside because of very cold temperatures expected tomorrow. Empire's Sarah McCammon has more. Michael Webb and Jonathan Mahoney were excited for the inauguration but they're rolling with the change of plans. I got moods inside so it's kind of sad. Kind of sad.

Yeah, we had tickets too, so we were like on the lawn. And then we don't know what's going on with that now. Webb, who's from Texas, and Mahoney from Massachusetts, are in the military and stationed together a few hours from D.C. Edwin Alas traveled from Colorado with his husband Gabriel. Alas says they don't have tickets, but they wanted to come celebrate the new president. You want the best for him because a successful presidency, no matter what party, it's a successful country.

So we hope the same for President Trump. Trump will take the oath inside the Capitol rotunda with many supporters watching from a downtown arena. Sarah McCammon, NPR News, Washington. Three women are back on Israeli soil after being held by Hamas in Gaza for 15 months. Their release was part of a ceasefire that went into effect today, pausing the war that's killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in flattened neighborhoods. NPR's Ayo Batraoui reports as Israeli troops pulled back, many Palestinians rushed to assess the damage.

NPR producer in Gaza, Anas Baba, saw people in cars and many on foot celebrating their return to the southern city of Rafah for the first time in eight months. Mohammed Abou Mohsen was among those running to enter Rafah, the keys of his house in hand, though it was unclear if his home was still standing, Rafa, like other areas of Gaza, has been mostly leveled by Israeli airstrikes and controlled demolitions. There are bodies and unexploded ordnance buried in the rubble, local officials say, making recovery and rebuilding a difficult task. Israel and Hamas agreed to an initial six-week ceasefire to allow for hostages and detainees

to be released. The deal also calls for a surge in needed humanitarian aid into Gaza. Eya Batraoui, NPR News, Dubai, with reporting by Anas Baba in Gaza. As the markets are trading higher at this hour, the Asia Dow is up about three-tenths of a percent. This is NPR News. Republicans in Congress are considering significant cuts to Medicaid. That's the health insurance program for low-income people. As MPR Selena Simmons-Duffin reports, a new analysis finds those cuts would hit rural America especially hard.

Residents of small towns and rural areas are more likely to rely on Medicaid than people living in cities. That's the key takeaway of a new report from the Georgetown Center for Children and Families. The center presented its findings Wednesday. Here's Benjamin Anderson, president of Hutchinson Regional Health Care System in rural Kansas. Working people who get sick, whose kids get sick, and who can't access health care, can't work. No work, no taxes. We've become a less productive and a more vulnerable community that way. He said drastic

Medicaid cuts from the federal government would be devastating for middle America. Selena Simmons Duffin, NPR News. In Georgia, all commercial poultry operations in a six-mile radius are under quarantine. The plants will have to undergo surveillance testing for the next couple of weeks after the state confirmed a positive case of bird flu at a poultry facility in Elberg County that's about two hours outside of Atlanta. Georgia is the country's top state for chicken production. Teams are now working to clean and disinfect the facility that has around 45,000 chickens.

The virus has been found four times in Georgia but before only in backyard flocks. Around the country, the virus has been detected in 84 commercial and backyard flocks just in the last month. I'm Janene Herbst, NPR News in Washington.