NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-15-2024 12AM EST

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

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Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Duah Lisi Kautau. An Islamist group, the Haia Tahrir al-Sham, is now in charge of building a new Syria. The rebel forces last week took over Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, and thousands of political prisoners are now free. And Perzlal Al-Farun reports people are celebrating, but… Within this happiness, there is grief because so many thousands and thousands and thousands of people disappeared during this 14-year civil war that started as peaceful demonstrations, was met with violence and turned into civil war.

And so they're searching for their loved ones, they're missing, that went to prison and they don't know where they are. Some are finding bodies, some are finding nothing, and the really lucky ones are finding their people broken but alive. And so those searches continue for so much of the city. And it's also a city that's holding its breath about what may come next because the new authorities are unknown to them. And Pierre's L'Elfarn in Damascus. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi underwent successful hip surgery in

Germany after falling during a congressional delegation trip and PR's Claudia Grisales reports Pelosi was part of a group commemorating a World War II site. Former speaker Pelosi was part of a congressional visit to Luxembourg to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. At the time, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul was leading the bipartisan delegation of more than a dozen members ahead of the anniversary on December 16th. During an official engagement on Friday, Pelosi fell and was admitted to a nearby hospital for evaluation. She was transferred about two hours away to the medical center at Landstuhl Army Base to undergo hip replacement surgery Saturday morning.

A Pelosi spokesman said she was well on the mend and she thanked the U.S. military staff for their care. Claudia Rizales, NPR News. Some San Francisco residents woke up to a notification from the National Weather Service warning of a possible tornado amidst a windy and rainy storm in the Bay Area. Lakshmi Sara from Ember Station KQED has the latest. The warning is now over, but the National Weather Service says it's the first time non-coastal parts of San Francisco have ever been under a tornado warning. Radar showed a thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado with winds of 45

miles per hour. Dalton Berenger is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Most of the issues that we're going to deal with with tornadoes are going to be landfalling water spouts. So in this case it kind of looked like that was the case with the storm. That's why we issued the tornado warning. Beringer said San Francisco airport measured an 83 mile per hour wind gust early Saturday morning. For NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Sinha. It's NPR.

Some Irish pubs in the UK have run out of Guinness beer this week at the start of the festive season. And Piers Lauren Freire reports from London. Earlier this month, the company that owns and distributes Guinness, Diageo, put a cap on the amount individual pubs in England, Scotland and Wales can order. Diageo says it's seen exceptional demand amid recent international rugby tournaments and in the lead up to the holidays. It says it's working proactively with customers to manage distribution as efficiently as possible. Nevertheless, Irish pubs in Liverpool, Durham and Leicester have all reported running dry. Another pub here in London says it's issuing ration cards to customers, requiring them to order two other drinks first before they can even ask for a Guinness.

Shortages have not been reported in Guinness's homeland of Ireland, though, where Diageo has separate supply chains. Lauren Freyer, NPR News, London. ABC News has announced it is settling a defamation lawsuit brought by President-elect Donald Trump, and it published on Saturday an editor's note to correct false statements made in a March broadcast by star anchor George Stephanopoulos claiming that Trump had been found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. This is not true as defined under New York law. Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting Carroll and defaming her in two separate verdicts.

To settle the case with Trump, ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, plans to pay $15 million toward a presidential library for Trump. I'm Dwahlea Sikawntow NPR News in New York.