NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-20-2025 8AM EST

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

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Consider This is a daily news podcast and lately the news is about a big question. How much can one guy change? They want change. What will change look like for energy? Drill, baby drill. Schools? Take the department education closer. Healthcare?

Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made, promises kept. We're going to keep our promises. On Consider This, the afternoon news podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington on Korova Coleman, hours before he leaves the White House, President Biden has just issued several pardons. He says they're meant to protect these Americans from any future politically motivated prosecutions.

Biden has offered pardons to former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, the former top infectious disease specialist in the U.S., Dr. Anthony Fauci, who also helped lead the nation's response to the pandemic. Biden has pardoned U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the House Committee that investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol. And he has pardoned lawmakers on that committee and their staffs. Biden says his action today should not be seen as any acknowledgement that any one of them engaged in wrongdoing. Biden says the nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude. President-elect Trump will take the oath of office and become the 47th president of the United States at noon Eastern time today. And bears Luke Garrett reports the inaugural

ceremony will be held indoors at the U.S US Capitol Rotunda because of very cold weather. More than a quarter million people planned to attend Trump's second inauguration on the west front of the Capitol. But with high winds and low temperatures, Trump's swearing-in ceremony is taking place inside the Capitol Rotunda. Trump will give his inaugural address to an in-person audience of around 750 people, much like President Ronald Reagan did on a cold inauguration day in 1985. Despite the space constraints, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and TikTok CEO Sho Zhe Chiu will all attend.

Following the inauguration, Trump will rally with his supporters in Capital One Arena in DC, instead of parading down Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump will end his day attending three inaugural balls with performances from country music band Rascal Flatts and rapper Nelly. Luke Garrett, NPR News, Washington. The ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas is holding. As part of the agreement, Hamas released three Israeli hostages yesterday. Israel released about 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in the West Bank. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf was in Ramallah when the released Palestinians arrived. Hundreds of Palestinians gathered at a traffic roundabout in a Ramallah suburb where detainees

were set to be released. The mood was celebratory. Families bundled up in winter coats waving Palestinian flags and vendors selling sweets and balloons. The crowd waited in the cold for hours long into the night when finally buses pulled up and the detainees got out. Several young men, still wearing what appeared to be Israeli prison uniforms, were hoisted onto other men's shoulders. Onlookers chanted God is great, greeting them. This was the first of several hostage and detainee exchanges set to take place during an expected six-week ceasefire in Gaza. Negotiations to extend the deal should begin in coming weeks.

Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Ramallah. Wall Street is closed today for the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday. This is NPR. The video-sharing app TikTok has resumed service despite a federal law that said it would be banned. President-elect Trump says he'll issue an executive order to pause the ban once he is sworn in, possibly this afternoon.

But legal experts are asking if Trump can use an executive order to skirt the existing federal law on TikTok. Republicans in Congress are considering significant cuts to Medicaid. That's the health insurance program for low-income people and many people with disabilities. As NPR's 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. 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 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. The National Weather Service has issued warnings of extreme cold in the central U.S. from the Canadian border down to south Texas.

At the same time, a winter storm is brewing on the Gulf Coast. Heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain are headed for Texas, Georgia and Florida. Forecasters say these areas don't often get this kind of winter weather. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News.