NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-19-2025 6AM EST

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

NPR News: 12-19-2025 6AM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Fall in love with new music every Friday at All Songs Considered. That's NPR's Music Recommendation podcast. Fridays are where we spend our whole show sharing all the greatest new releases of the week. Make the hunt for new music a part of your life again. Tap into New Music Friday from All Songs Considered, available wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, on Corva Coleman, federal prosecutors in Massachusetts say authorities have found the body of the suspect in the deadly Brown. University mass shooting. They say he died by suicide. He was located inside a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire. Officials say he was responsible for the killings of two Brown University

students in Providence Road Island last Saturday, as well as the death of an MIT physics professor outside Boston two days later. And Pierre Tovia Smith reports. Authorities say the shooter was 48-year-old Claudio Nevis Valente, a Portuguese national and former Brown student who would have spent a lot of time in the building where the shooting took place. His last known address was in Florida. Officials say he also attended the same school in Portugal as the slain MIT physics professor. Police say their case cracked open after a tip led them to a car linked to the suspect. That brought them to a car rental company that had images of him and paperwork with the suspect's real name. Authorities say they're still

investigating motive. Tovia Smith and PR News, Boston. The Trump administration is pointing to the Portuguese shooting suspect's status as a permanent U.S. resident. Writing online, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says President Trump has ordered an immediate pause to the diversity lottery. The program led to a green card for shooting suspect Claudia Nevis Valente and tens of thousands of other immigrants to the U.S. The Australian government is launching a gun buyback program. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says this follows last Sunday's mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration that killed 15 people and wounded dozens. The government will establish a national gun buyback scheme to purchase surplus,

newly banned and illegal firearms. The largest buyback since the Howard government initiated one in 1996. Albanyi's government also wants to limit gun licenses to Australian citizens and then limit how many guns each Australian can own. President Trump is reclassifying marijuana. For decades, the federal government has considered it one of the most dangerous street drugs in America. NPR's Brian Mann reports Trump's action will clear the way for medical research and insurance coverage. As Trump signed the executive order, he said he's been lobbied heavily to loosen marijuana restrictions. We have people begging for me to do this, people that are in great pain. Marijuana has been classified as a Schedule I drug,

akin to heroin since the 1970s. Now it will be classified as a Schedule 3 drug, a category that recognizes its usefulness and low risk. Medicare insurance is also expected to cover some cannabis products beginning next year. Dozens of U.S. states have gone much further. Fully legalizing marijuana, including for personal recreational use, Trump said he's not ready to take that step. Brian Mann, NPR News.

This is NPR. The White House says the board of directors of the Kennedy Center has voted unanimously to rename that cultural arts center. The White House says it will now be known as the Trump Kennedy Center. President Trump installed himself as the chair of the center's board of directors this year and picked the rest of the board members. Some Democratic lawmakers say the name change will need congressional approval. A federal judge is allowing work to continue for now on President Trump's massive ballroom project at the White House. The judge denied a temporary restraining order to halt construction that had been sought by the National Trust for Historic

Preservation. NPR's Tamara Keith reports. The National Trust for Historic Preservation argued that continued work on the president's ballroom could foreclose changes to the design that might come through the typical review process. But U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon writes in his order that the government committed to consulting with the appropriate commissions by the end of the month and that the court would hold them to it. The judge writes that, by the government, government's telling footings and below-ground structural concrete for the ballroom won't begin until February and that, quote, nothing about the ballroom has been finalized, including its size and scale. Trump recently described it as a $400 million project, double the sum first

announced in July. Tamara Keith, NPR News. The famed Louvre Museum in Paris is fully reopened today after striking workers returned. They're protesting museum working conditions after a robbery of priceless jewels earlier this year. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News.