NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-02-2025 11AM EST

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. the former president of Honduras has been released from a U.S. prison. He'd been convicted of drug trafficking but was pardoned by President Trump. And Pierre's Ader-Peralta reports this comes as Honduras tries to untangle a presidential election. Juan Orlando Hernandez was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison last year for trafficking some 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. At the time, the Justice Department said he abused his power to help one of the most powerful drug trafficking conspiracies in the world.

After President Trump issued a pardon, he was released from a prison in West Virginia. Honduras is currently in the middle of a tense presidential election. Voters went to the polls on Sunday, citing technical issues, the vote count stopped on Monday. Now two opposition candidates are in a statistical tie, and the ruling party, which will lose power, denounced U.S. interference in the vote. Aida Pralta, NPR News, Mexico City. President Trump's envoy, Steve Whitkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin today in Moscow.

They'll discuss a U.S.-backed peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta says he appreciates the work. We welcome the ongoing efforts led by the United States to make this a reality. And I'm confident that these sustained efforts will eventually restore peace in Europe. But the Kremlin released a video of Putin speaking to his top brass yesterday. he blamed Ukraine's government for the war. Observers suggest Putin will not support the U.S. peace plan recently revised with Ukrainian and European input.

The nation's public health agency has lost a quarter to a third of its staff this year. The Trump administration is downsizing government agencies. NPR's Ping Huang reports the cuts have left gaps in function at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Programs aimed at preventing cavities, car crashes, drownings and shootings have halted. Workers who respond to nuclear emergencies or to virus outbreaks that can cause birth defects are gone. Dr. Dimitri Daskalakis, a former CDC official who resigned in August, says the agency is in critical condition. I keep calling CDC like a zombie, because it's a zombie. CDC employees who remain are appalled by statements on measles,

vaccines, and autism, which don't reflect the agency's scientific conclusions, but have shown up on the website anyway. While former CDC officials say the agency is debilitated, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services says the changes are part of sustained reforms focused on returning CDC to its core mission. Ping Huang, NPR News. The National Weather Service says more than 40 million people are under winter storm warnings or winter weather advisories. There are winter storm warnings posted throughout New England. This is NPR. There's a special election today in a Tennessee congressional district. It's to fill the seat of Republican Congressman who's retired. The district covers parts of Middle and Western Tennessee, along with a

sliver of Nashville. Recent polling by Emerson College suggests the Republican and the Democratic candidates are nearly tied. Walmart is moving from the New York Stock Exchange to the NASDAQ. NPR's Maria Aspen reports on what the world's largest retailer is saying about its rebranding. as a tech company. For more than 50 years, Walmart's stock has traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It's centuries old and the original power center of Wall Street. But now, Walmart is moving to the rival NASDAQ. It's a younger stock market, but it's where the shares of many big tech companies trade, like Google and NVIDIA, and crucially, Walmart's mega-rival, Amazon. Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey explained the NASDAQ change to investors using buzzwords

like tech-powered and AI. Walmart is setting a new standard for Omnichannel Retail by integrating automation and AI to build smarter, faster, and more connected experiences for customers. In other words, at least for investors, Walmart is trying to rebrand as a tech company. Maria Aspen, NPR News, New York. Online sales were booming during yesterday's Cyber Monday. The company Adobe Analytics estimates that consumers spent more than $14 billion. online yesterday. That is significantly above what shoppers spent during last year's Cyber Monday. This is NPR.