NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-17-2024 12PM EST

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

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Ho ho ho! Santa here, coming to you from the North Pole. We're the elves in our podcast division of just completed work on this season's best gift for public radio lovers, NPR+. Give the gift of sponsored free listening and even bonus episodes from your favorite NPR podcasts, all while supporting public media. Learn more at plus.npr.org. Ho ho ho! Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh.

A Russian Lieutenant General has been killed in Moscow. A Ukrainian official has confirmed to NPR that Ukraine was behind the assassination. NPR's Joannika Kissis reports from Kyiv it's the highest profile killing of a Russian military official away from the frontline since Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian law enforcement authorities said in a statement that Igor Kirilov and one of his aides were killed after an explosive device planted in a scooter was set off. The scooter was near the entrance to a residential building in southeastern Moscow where Kirilov apparently lived. Ukrainian prosecutors did charge Kadylov on Monday with the use of banned chemical weapons

on the front line. Ukraine's security service says Russia has used chemical weapons nearly 5,000 times in the war. Joanna Kekesis, NPR News, Kiev. A judge in New York has rejected an effort by President-elect Trump to toss out the 34-account felony conviction in his hush money trial. Here's NPR's Ryan Lucas. New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Marchand rejected Trump's argument that prosecutors

shouldn't have been allowed to offer certain evidence from Trump's time in office in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity. In his 41 page ruling, Mershon says that the evidence in question relates to Trump's unofficial conduct, and thus is not covered by the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision. Trump was convicted in July of 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments he made to an adult film star. Trump's attorneys also have put forward other grounds as well

for the case to be dismissed. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington. And now to retail sales, which jumped more than expected last month. NPR's Scott Horsley reports on the latest figures from the Commerce Department. Retail spending rose by seven-tenths of a percent in November. Much of the extra spending came at car dealers, where sales jumped nearly 3 percent. Spending at home improvement stores was also up, fueled in part by rebuilding efforts after Hurricanes Milton and Helene.

By contrast, spending at grocery stores and restaurants was down in November. Sales at online retailers jumped nearly 2 percent. Scott Horsley in Peer News, Washington. Investigators are scouring the social media accounts and personal belongings of the 15-year-old girl accused in yesterday's mass shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. Police Chief Sean Barnes' officers are speaking with the suspect's friends and her family's been cooperating. They're also trying to determine how the teen got hold of the firearm used in the attack, which killed two people and injured several others. The accused shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Barnes

told CBS Mornings that he hoped to have more answers in a news briefing this afternoon. U.S. stocks are trading lower. The Dow is down nearly 200 points. This is NPR News. Doctors in New York City are reporting a medical first. Surgeons have transplanted a new kind of genetically modified pig kidney into a living person. NPR's Rob Stein got exclusive access to witness the procedure. Surgeons at NYU Langone Health in New York City transplanted the kidney into an Alabama woman three weeks ago. 53 year old Tawana Looney couldn't get a human kidney, so doctors did an experimental procedure using a pig kidney that was genetically modified to help her body accept the organ. Two other living patients have previously gotten other kinds of modified pig kidneys, and two men have received modified pig hearts.

None of those patients survive more than three months, but Looney is healthier, raising hope she may fare better. Rob Stein, NPR News, New York. Denmark has released anti-wailing activist Paul Watson from a jail in Greenland. He was detained five months ago on an arrest warrant from Japan, where he's wanted for allegedly throwing explosives at a Japanese whaling research ship in 2010. Watson denies the allegation. He says his people used harmless stink bombs.

The Associated Press reports Watson a Canadian-American national will not be extradited to Japan This hour the Dow Jones industrial average is down 200 points or nearly half a percent at 43 517 the SMP is down 23 points and the Nasdaq is down 91 points or nearly half a percent. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR news in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News in Washington.