NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-21-2025 12PM EST

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Trump is now in his first full day back in office after a whirlwind of executive actions yesterday aimed at reversing Biden-era policy and rapidly putting his own stamp on the U.S. government. Here's NPR's Tamara Keith. Trump is already testing the limits of his executive power, including with an executive order that would end birthright citizenship for the children of people who are not in the country legally or who are in the U.S. lawfully but temporarily.

Birthright. That's a big one. Birthright citizenship is written into the Constitution and Trump admitted he doesn't know whether his order will hold up to legal challenge. It's just absolutely ridiculous, but you know we'll say we think it, we have very good grounds. The order was part of a stack of executive actions signed by Trump in the Oval Office just hours after being sworn in. Tamara Keith, NPR News. President Trump also pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or pledged to dismiss the cases of more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in connection with the January 6th

insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. When a pro-Trump mob stormed the building during the certification of the 2020 election results, the riots led to deaths and serious injuries, including to law enforcement officers responsible for securing the Capitol. China's foreign ministry says Beijing is concerned about Trump's day one decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. Here's NPR's John Rewich. John Rewich A foreign ministry spokesman says climate

change is a challenge for all of humanity. No country can stand aside or go it alone. He says China remains steadfast in its determination to combat climate change. And he says it'll work with all parties to actively address the challenge and promote the transition to a green and low-carbon future. John Ruech reporting. A blast of Arctic air is layered over the central and eastern United States. There are extreme cold warnings posted from the Canadian border down to Texas. There are also winter storm warnings from southern Texas off the way to South Carolina and Pierce Debbie Elliott reports the rare winter storm is prompting emergency preparation

along the Gulf Coast. Forecasters predict frigid temperatures and historic snowfall in the Gulf South, five to eight inches in New Orleans, for instance, and up to three inches in Houston and in Mobile, Alabama. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has declared a state of emergency. We may have over 48 hours of constant below freezing temperatures along with extremely cold wind chills and would could possibly be near record amounts of snowfall in South Louisiana. This creates a very dangerous situation. He's urging people to avoid travel and prepare for possible water and power outages. Debbie Elliott, NPR News. The Dow is up 417 points at last check. This is NPR News.

Strong winds in Southern California are expected to peak today, which threaten to fan small fires across the region. Gusts may be anywhere from 70 to 100 miles per hour, depending on whether it's the coast or the mountains. The terrain also remains dry. For the last couple of weeks, the Los Angeles area has been dealing with the Palisades and Eaton fires, the most destructive and deadliest of the fires. Our crews are continuing to expand their containment of both. Overnight new fires started near San Diego, prompting evacuation orders.

The Hubble Space Telescope has completed the most comprehensive survey yet of the Andromeda galaxy. NPR's Jonathan Lambert reports the new images will help scientists understand the history of our galactic neighbor. The spiral-shaped Andromeda Galaxy is the closest galaxy to our Milky Way, only about 2.5 million light-years away. That's made it tough for astronomers to construct a full picture of Andromeda because to see it, telescopes need to cover a relatively large swath of the sky. Now, NASA's Hubble telescope has completed the widest look yet. In a study published last week in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers added about 100 million stars in the southern half of Andromeda.

It took the telescope over a decade, about 1,000 revolutions around Earth, to collect all of the photos. The analysis will help researchers reconstruct Andromeda's history, which scientists suspect involved collisions with smaller galaxies. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News. I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News, in Washington.