NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-23-2025 8AM EST

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

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Matt Wilson spent years doing rounds at children's hospitals in New York City. I had a clip-on tie. I wore Heelys, size 11. Matt was a medical clown. The whole of a medical clown is to reintroduce the sense of play and joy and hope and light into a space that doesn't normally inhabit. Ideas about navigating uncertainty. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korova Coleman. President Trump is defending his decision to pardon the roughly 1,500 people convicted for crimes associated with the January

6th attack at the U.S. Capitol four years ago. NPR's Franco Ordoñez reports. In a wide-ranging interview with Fox's Sean Hannity, President Trump explained his thinking behind those pardons. He also cited his own legal battles and complained about the unfairness of President Biden's preemptive pardons of his family and allies. I went through four years of hell. I spent millions of dollars in legal fees and I won, but I did it the hard way. It's really hard to say that they shouldn't have to go through it all. So it is very hard to say that. Trump also criticized the Biden administration's response to hurricanes and repeated several misleading or false claims about foreign governments emptying their prisons into the U.S. Franco,

Ordonez, NPR News. One of the released prisoners is Stuart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers. He was on Capitol Hill yesterday. He's hoping to win the release of a January 6th rioter who remains jailed. The Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C. says she's continuing to ask Trump's administration

to show compassion toward vulnerable people. Bishop Marian Edgar Budde gave a sermon Tuesday attended by Trump. She says she asked him to show mercy to people who include immigrants and transgender people. Trump later castigated the bishop, calling her insulting names and demanding an apology. Budde says she was speaking to the unity of the country. I don't feel the need to apologize. I regret it was something that has caused the kind of response that it has, in the sense that it actually confirmed the very thing that I was speaking of earlier,

which is our tendency to jump to outrage and not speak to one another with respect. But no, I won't apologize. She spoke to NPR as all things considered. The Trump administration is suspending all refugee admissions to the United States. That includes Afghans who helped the U.S. during America's longest war, NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports. The State Department has told agencies that help resettle refugees that all arrivals have been suspended and previously planned travel should be canceled. The move leaves thousands of refugees already cleared to move to the

U.S. in limbo. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jean Shaheen, is urging the Trump administration to reconsider. She's expressed alarm that more than 1,600 Afghans who were cleared to resettle in the U.S. have had their flights canceled. She says the U.S. should not turn its back on them or on others in need, including refugees fleeing violence in Sudan and Burma. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department. You're listening to NPR News from Washington.

Later this morning, this year's Oscar nominations will be announced in Los Angeles. As NPR's Chloe Weiner reports, the recent Golden Globe honorees may provide clues to some of the frontrunners for Academy Award nominations. The Golden Globes aren't always a clear indicator of who might be nominated for Oscars, but they do give us a sense of what voters might be paying attention to. This year, Netflix's queer Spanish language musical Emilia Perez and A24's epic, The Brutalist, won top prizes at the Globes.

The Academy has also announced shortlists in some of this year's categories, including nods for Gladiator 2, Wicked, Alien Romulus, and Dune Part II for best visual effects and sound. The Academy Awards ceremony itself is still on track for its original date, Sunday, March 2nd. Conan O'Brien is set to host. This year's presentations for best original song will move away from live performances

and instead focus on songwriters. Chloe Weiner, NPR News, New York. There are new fires in the greater Los Angeles region. The Hughes Fire burning in both L.A. and Ventura Counties only broke out yesterday morning. It has already scorched more than 15 square miles. Thousands of people have been forced to evacuate. The Gulf Coast and the Southeastern U.S. are recovering from this week's winter storm. That dropped sleet, freezing rain and

many inches of snow in surprising areas such as New Orleans. That city got more than eight inches of snow. In Alabama, the weight of the snow collapsed a civic center dome in Mobile. Several deaths are blamed on the winter storm. I'm Korva Coleman, NPR News in Washington.