NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-19-2024 7AM EST

Episode Date: December 19, 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 autographcollection.com. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korova Coleman. Congressional Republicans have yanked their support for a bipartisan government funding bill. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Obviously there's still a lot of negotiation and conversations going on, but there's no

new agreement. No new agreement on a spending bill means the federal government will partially shut down late tomorrow. Republicans backed away after President-elect Trump demanded they torpedo it at the last minute. He threatened Republicans, saying if they supported the bill that funded Democratic priorities, he would make sure GOP lawmakers faced primary challenges. The Biden administration is setting a new, more ambitious climate goal for the U.S., one that would extend into the next decade. As MPR's Jeff Brady reports, that's despite the likelihood that President-elect Trump

will withdraw the country from an international treaty after he takes office. Under the Paris climate agreement, nations set greenhouse gas reduction goals to meet an overall target. The Biden administration is boosting the U.S. goal by about 20 percent, putting the target range at 61 to 66 percent reduction by 2035. That's based on the country's 2005 climate pollution. Even if Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, Biden climate adviser John Podesta says states, cities, and private companies can still help the U.S. meet the goal.

Some national leaders in the United States can continue to show the world that American climate leadership is determined by so much more than whoever sits in the Oval Office. But independent modeling shows it would be difficult to meet the new goal without more federal climate policies. Jeff Brady and Peer News. The man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson will appear in a courtroom in central Pennsylvania today. New York prosecutors want to extradite Luigi Mangione to face murder charges, but he also

faces weapons charges in Pennsylvania. In Syria, the first domestic flight since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad departed Damascus yesterday. And Piers Hadil al-Shalchi reports it's just one way the new leadership is trying to prove it can get Syria back up and running. The commercial Syrian air flight landed in Aleppo airport an hour behind schedule, but Enes Rustum, the man appointed to oversee the airport, said that it was, quote, a big accomplishment towards rebuilding the country. There was no word of when international flights would resume, but Rustam said Syria welcomed

flights from all countries to start coming back. ATMs and electronic payment services are also now back online in Syria. The group currently in charge of running Syria is Heyat Tahrir Sham, or HTS, and faces a massive challenge. It needs to reunite a very diverse Syria and bring back state institutions that have been crippled by years of sanctions and corruption. Hadeel Alshalchi, NPR News, Damascus. In pre-market trading on Wall Street,

stock futures are higher. You're listening to NPR. Coping with grief during the holidays can be overwhelming. NPR's Windsor Johnston reached out to some of our listeners and asked them to share their stories of dealing with loss. Don Pilar is facing his first Christmas without his wife Rose, who died from cancer in June. He says walking through their favorite holiday market in downtown Chicago this month has been bittersweet.

It's tough. But, while the sorrow is always there, just having that memory of what we did here, it sort of brings her back to life. Sophia Dembling from Dallas, Texas lost her husband Tom four years ago. She says Christmas still isn't the same without him. I loved buying gifts for him.

We would get up and we would have sweet rolls for breakfast and exchange gifts. Dembling says she's been trying to reinvent the holidays with new traditions, but it's been hard. Windsor-Johnston NPR News. Thousands of Amazon workers are going on strike. The Teamsters Union says delivery drivers and warehouse employees are picketing this morning at seven facilities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Skokie, Illinois, and New York City. The union says the online retailer refuses to come to the bargaining table. Amazon released a statement that says the Teamsters don't actually represent its workers

and that it's pushing a false narrative. A New York man who was gardening in his yard earlier this year found two giant teeth from an ancient mastodon. Researchers who checked it out then discovered an entire mastodon jawbone. They say now they're looking for more. I'm Korva Coleman, NPR News.