NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-16-2025 7PM EST

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

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This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven. This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward. Innovations that save lives and feed the world. Science Delivers.com Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton. Police have been sent to Providence, Rhode Island schools to reassure worried parents that their kids will be safe as the Brown University shooter is still on the loose and investigators don't have a suspect in custody.

Officials have released several videos of a man suspected in Saturday's mass shooting inside a brown classroom, which killed two students and wounded nine others. Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez says officials are asking the public for help in identifying him. They're enhanced photos. There's enhanced video footage. And so we're asking the public to ensure that they can see them, they can see here that you want to focus on the body. movements, the way the person move their arms, the way they carry the weight. I think those are important movement patterns that may help you identify this individual, which is extremely important. Anxiety is high in providence with investigators knocking on doors and pouring through

dumpsters and backyards near the Ivy League campus. Vice President J.D. Vance went to Pennsylvania today to highlight the White House's economic message. On the same day, the Labor Department delivered a jobs report showing a weak growth in November and higher unemployment. NPR's at Danielle Kurtzleben reports. As a majority of Americans disapprove of President Trump's handling of the economy, Vance told the crowd that real wages are growing and that next year, policies like new tax cuts will provide a boost. In response to a reporter's question about the loss of more than 100,000 jobs in October, Vance noted that that was driven by government job losses. That is, in a lot of ways, the entire story of what we're trying to do under President Trump's leadership. We want to fire bureaucrats and hire these great Americans out here.

That's what we're trying to do. Vance's speech in Pennsylvania comes as Trump has attempted to address the high cost of living, but has also called Democrats' talk of affordability a hoax. Danielle Kurtzleben and PR News. A statue of a black teenager who led a walk out of her segregated Virginia high school is replacing that of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in the U.S. Capitol. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson calls Johns a trailblazer. And Barbara, a farmer's daughter from humble means, we see an ordinary citizen who challenged the injustices of her day,

whose actions bring this nation a little closer to our founding ideals. Barbara Rose Johns was 16 when she mobilized hundreds of students to walk out of her Farmville, Virginia High School, to protest inferior facilities compared to the town's white high school. The strike lasted roughly two weeks. The following year, the Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, based on the Farmville case and four others from across the country. U.S. stocks drifted lower today following mixed data on the economy's strength. The S&P 500 felt two-tenths of a percent. The Dow dropped six-tenths of a percent, and the NASDAQ added

up to, added two-tenths of a percent. This is NPR News from Washington. President Trump is going to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for a dignified transfer for the two Iowa National Guard members killed in an attack in the Syrian desert. The guardsman killed on Saturday were 25-year-old Sergeant Edgar Brian Torres Tovar and 29-year-old Sergeant William Nathaniel Howard. Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have announced that they will withdraw from a key town in eastern Congo at the request of the U.S. The rebels captured the town last week in defiance of a U.S. brokered peace deal. Emmett Livingstone reports. Late last night, the political head of the M23 Rebel Group announced a unilateral

withdrawal from Uvira, a strategic town in eastern Congo on the border with Burundi. M23 rebels captured Uvira last week, challenging the ceasefire President Trump helped Broker, who just days earlier had hosted the leaders of Congo and Rwanda in Washington and declared an end to the conflict in eastern Congo. After strong diplomatic criticism, especially from the U.S., the M23 said it was leaving Uvira at Washington's request. It asked for the town to remain demilitarized and for the deployment of a neutral force to monitor a ceasefire. For NPR news, I'm Emmett Livingstone in Kinshasa. Thousands are flocking to Tokyo's Ueno Zoo to have a last glimpse of the popular twin

pandas that are set to return to their homeland in China next month. Panda lovers are worried if or when they'll get to see their replacement in Japan as Tokyo's relations with Beijing have sunk recently. Their departure will leave Japan without a panda for the first time in more than half. half a century. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit wise.com. T's and Cs apply.