NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-13-2024 3AM EST

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

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Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autografecollection.com. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dan Ronan. Hours after President Biden commuted the sentences of an estimated 1,500 people and pardoned 39 others, the White House said more announcements of commutations will come by the end of his term. NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaraj has more on some of the people who have been

pardoned. 39 people who are not household names, they're not famous people. These are folks from all over the country who Biden says have been working to make their communities better since getting out of prison. And many of those people are women and veterans who were all convicted of nonviolent crimes, including some drug offenses. And several of them are working to help others now who have been incarcerated or those who are struggling with addiction and substance abuse. Clemency and criminal justice reform advocates are urging Biden to be more

aggressive with the pardons in the remaining five plus weeks of his presidency. They would like him to commute the death sentences of 40 people on federal death row and instead convert them to life in prison and pardon or commute the sentences of thousands of other people convicted of lower level federal crimes. In Urbana, Missouri, friends and family of Travis Timmerman are celebrating after learning he has been found alive in Syria. As NPR's Bill Chappelle reports, he was set free after rebels toppled the government of Syria's

dictator Bashar al-Assad. Pete Travis Timmerman went missing in Budapest seven months ago. His family says the 29-year-old had traveled there to write and explore his Christian faith. He eventually went to Lebanon, but Timmerman says he was put in a prison cell after walking into Syria on a pilgrimage. Days after the Assad regime fell, Timmerman was found wandering in a suburb of Damascus. His mother, Stacey Collins Gardner, says she knows what she'll do when she finally sees him.

I'm gonna hug him. I'll be excited and then after I won't let him go. Bill Chappell in Peer News. Former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz says the Democratic ticket put forward policies that prioritize working class Americans, but it didn't resonate with many of them. NPR, excuse me, Minnesota Public Radio's Dana Ferguson reports. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says while policies like paid family leave, affordable child care, and others are popular, Democrats

didn't do enough to make clear that they would prioritize those changes if elected. And he says that's part of the reason they came up short in November. So there were folks that weren't voting for us would be the very folks that I care that our policies impact. And that disconnect was obvious in the results. Walsh says that moving forward, the Democratic Party needs to make its case more clearly to working class voters. He also acknowledges that inflation and immigration resonated with Americans more than Democrats

expected. For NPR News, I'm Dana Ferguson in St. Paul. This is NPR. Brazil's president is in intensive care recovering from a second surgery from bleeding in his brain. Julio Arcornero reports from Rio. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva underwent the additional procedure to reduce the risk of future bleeding. Doctors in São Paulo described the surgery as minimally invasive and successful. Lula was rushed to the first surgery on Tuesday after a scan revealed a hemorrhage caused

by a fall in October when Lula was trimming his toenails, fell and hit his head in the bathroom. Doctors say the bleeding will leave no long-term after effects and Lula remains fit for work. The 79-year-old, founder of the Workers' Party, is in the middle of his third term. He's the main figure in Brazil's left. For NPR News, I'm Júlia Carneiro in Rio. FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said he will resign at the end of the Biden administration, giving the incoming Trump administration the opportunity to select their own head of the

Aviation Oversight Agency. Senators from both sides of the aisle have praised Whitaker's tenure at the FBI, at the FAA, as he has led a tougher, safer enforcement policy towards the airlines and aircraft manufacturer Boeing, which has been cited for a variety of safety problems, including having a door plug panel blow off of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX jetliner back in January. Whitaker was appointed to the position by President Biden. He had only started a five year term one year ago.

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