NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-19-2025 5PM EST

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

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Latin music has never been bigger, but it's always been big on Alt Latino. 15 years in, we continue celebrating Latinidad through a music lens, transcending borders through Ritmo. Get to know artists from La Cultura on a deeper level and throw some new Latin music wrecks into your rotation. Listen to Alt Latino in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. The Justice Department has started its release of files related to the life and death of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. NPR is reviewing the website the department created to make the documents publicly available. The site shows a message to visitors that they are waiting in line once inside.

It includes documents broken into court records, DOJ disclosures, FOIA records, and house disclosures. The DOJ says several hundreds of thousands of pages would be released today with more to follow. Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Knoem, is suspending the Green Card Lottery Program. She says that program allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the U.S. NPR's Jasmine Garst reports. The Green Card Lottery Program is intended to admit individuals from countries that have a low enough level of immigration to the U.S. Suspected shooter Claudio Nevis Valenti was a Portuguese national who initially entered the U.S. on a student visa in 2000. and became a permanent resident in 2017.

Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery and more than 130,000 were selected, including spouses of the winners. In November, an Afghan man was identified as the suspected gunmen in a fatal attack on National Guard members, which prompted the Trump administration to impose rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other countries. Jasmine Garst, NPR News. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says rebuilding Gaza is a, quote, long-term project, some of which will take years.

But he says the administration is planning to announce a board of peace soon and try to get an international force to Gaza, as NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports. In a wide-ranging end-of-year news conference, Secretary Rubio says he feels generally optimistic about the diplomacy on Gaza. He says the immediate goals are to set up a technocratic Palestinian government and aborting. of peace chaired by President Trump, as well as an international stabilization force. He says disarming Hamas will be key. If Hamas is ever in a position in the future that they can threaten or attack Israel, you're not going to have peace. You're not going to convince anyone to invest money in Gaza if they believe another war

is going to happen in two to three years. Rubio wouldn't get into details about negotiations, nor did he criticize continued deadly Israeli strikes in Gaza. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department. The Trump administration is appealing a federal judge's order reversing billions of dollars in funding cuts to Harvard University. The move prolongs a legal battle that has tested the government's power to sway the nation's oldest and wealthiest university. The Trump administration cut more than $2.6 billion from the Ivy League School over allegations that it had been slow to deal with anti-Semitism on campus. A judge rejected that argument and ordered the cuts reversed.

This is NPR News from Washington. The Kennedy Center has added President Trump's name to the building. The Washington Performing Arts Center's board of trustees voted to rename the institution as the Trump-Kennedy Center yesterday. The board was hand-picked by Trump. A new study finds people who regularly consume high-fat cheeses may have lower risk of dementia, but as NPR's Alison Aubrey reports, nutrition experts say there's a catch. The study included nearly 28,000 people who were in their late 50s when the study began. They were surveyed about their eating habits, and after about 25 years of follow-up, it turned out,

higher intake of high-fat cheese was associated with a slightly lower risk of dementia. However, scientists who reviewed the data say this association does not prove that high-fat cheese protects the brain. Those who consumed about an ounce and a half of cheese or more per day had about a 13% lower risk, which could be explained by chance. Also, researchers only captured a snapshot of participants' dietary habits. Given the risk of dementia is determined by many factors, from genes to lifestyle habits, scientists warn against reading too much into the findings. Alison Aubrey, NPR News. Tourists visiting the Trevi Fountain in Rome are now going to pay more than just the legendary coin toss over the shoulder.

The city is imposing a two-euro fee for tourists to get close to the fountain made famous by Felini's La Dolce Vita. The view for those admiring the late Baroque masterpiece from the piazza remains free. Rome is trying to manage tourist flows in a particularly congested part of town. Officials estimate it could net the city more than $7 million extra a year. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Listen to this podcast sponsor-free on Amazon Music with a prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR NewsNow Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.