NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-24-2026 6PM EST

Episode Date: January 24, 2026

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. A border patrol agent has shot and killed a man in Minneapolis, whom officials say it was apparently a U.S. citizen. Senator Amy Klobuchar identified him as 37-year-old Alex Preti. Immigration officials say they were targeting a person they say is an undocumented person, and the man who died approached them with a weapon. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noam says officers tried to disarm him, but the man allegedly violently resisted.

Governor Tim Wall says video show, that's not true. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frye blames the Trump administration. The city of Minneapolis is filing a declaration after today's shooting to encourage the judge to rule on a temporary restraining order on Monday that would grant us immediate relief and would help stop this operation that has been so harmful to the city of Minneapolis. The state of Minnesota has resulted in multiple. shootings and tragic deaths.

Three people have been shot, two died. A massive winter storm is sweeping from the southwest through the mid-Atlantic and up through New England this weekend, affecting some 200 million people. More than a dozen states have declared states of emergency. NPR's Amy Held has more. The storm will last through Monday. National Weather Service meteorologist Frank Pereira says it could go down in history

as the biggest. This may be the all-time, both population impacts and geographical scope. With more than half, the U.S. population hit by some combination of snow, topping a foot in parts, ice, up to an inch or more, and cold as low as sub-zero. Officials say stay home, but for some people, that's outside. It's brutal out there. It's so cold, it hurts. Like, it hurts. It's painful. Whitney Slater was sleeping in his car, but moved to a warming center set up in Detroit. The cold will lock in the snowpack for days. And in parts of the south, forecasters warn of

catastrophic ice threatening the power system. Amy held NPR News. Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukraine's two largest cities as Ukrainian Russian and American envoys held peace talks in the United Arab Emirates. NPR's Joanna Kisis reports. Attack drones flew over neighborhoods in Ukraine's capital, Kiev as air defense units tried to shoot them down. Russia has repeatedly struck Ukraine's energy grade during the coldest winter since the full-scale invasion nearly four years ago. Kiev Mayor Vitale-Clitchko wrote on social media

that half of the city's apartment buildings are once again without heat. Klitschko told NPR on Thursday that it's a challenge to repair the capital's massive heating system. And to rebuild new one right now and during the wartime, it's impossible. We need a lot of money and time for that. He said Ukraine needs more air defense supplies

to protect its energy grid. in Pierce's Joanna Kikisis reporting. You're listening to NPR News. China says it's investigating the country's most senior military general. This is China's leader, Xi Jinping, has been purging dozens of high-ranking defense officials and executives. But in peers, Emily Fang, reports this is the most high-ranking official yet to be targeted. General Zhang Yu-san is being investigated for suspected violations of Communist Party discipline. 75-year-old Zhang is a veteran. if one of the only foreign wars China's military has fought. And like China's top leader Xi Jinping,

Zhang is what political analysts call a princeling, the son of a senior revolutionary who fought in a 1940 civil war, which propelled the ruling Communist Party to power. A defense ministry spokesperson also said another general, Liu Zhen Li, was under investigation as well. This past October, China's defense ministry officially removed nine generals from its ranks. And in Xi Jinping's consolidation of power, he has purged several other. high-level defense officials in an effort to tighten discipline and reduce corruption. Emily Fang and Pier News. In Washington, D.C., crews worked today to reroute millions of gallons of raw sewage that's

spilling into the Potomac River in the nation's capital. This days after the collapse of a major sewer line that carries millions of gallons of wastewater daily from Maryland and Virginia to a pumping station in D.C. Cruz today installed high-powered pumps to divert the wastewater around the damaged area. Utility company, D.C. Water, says around 40 million gallons a day has flowed into the river since the break on Monday. The cause of that break isn't known. I'm Janine Herbst. NPR News in Washington.