NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-20-2024 3AM EST

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

NPR News: 12-20-2024 3AM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Announcer 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. Shea Stevens Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shea Stevens. Congressional lawmakers have less than 24 hours to approve a temporary budget plan to

continue government spending. A bipartisan proposal and a Republican alternative have both been rejected. Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas says it's time to start over. I'm waiting for Speaker Johnson's plan C. Maryland Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin says the bipartisan proposal should not have been scuttled. It's just shameful that they allowed Elon Musk, who now everybody's calling President Musk, to blow this deal up.

I heard one Republican colleague say now it's President Musk and J.D. Vance as vice president. But where does that leave Donald Trump, the president-elect? A partial government shutdown looms at midnight if lawmakers fail to resolve their differences by then. House Republicans are insisting that they're taking a stand against wasteful spending. But Margaret Barthel from Member Station WAMU reports that a shutdown has its own costs. When the government shuts down, many federal workers are told to stop doing their jobs. Some, like air traffic controllers and parts of the defense industry, still work but don't

get on-time paychecks. A law passed in 2019 requires back pay for all the roughly 2 million federal employees across the country after a shutdown ends. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat, says that makes shutting down the government a bad fiscal decision. There's no reason to shut government down, lock employees out of their office, tell them they can't help their fellow Americans, and then give them a paycheck anyway. Kaine said he hopes congressional leaders can make a deal before midnight on Friday.

For NPR News, I'm Margaret Barthol in Arlington, Virginia. A Georgia appeals court has removed Atlanta-area prosecutor Fonny Willis from the election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants, the case that had already been delayed because of controversy over Willis' personal relationship with the prosecutor she hired. She says she'll ask the Georgia Supreme Court to review the matter. Twenty-five people have been executed in the United States this year, about the same as last year.

As NPR's Martin Costey reports, the death penalty is being applied in only a narrow slice of the nation. Martin Costey, NPR News Anchor In its annual report, the Death Penalty Information Center found that only four states accounted for three-quarters of all executions this year. Those states are Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Missouri. The center's executive director, Robin Maher, says that has made the death penalty less of a national issue.

The death penalty is now a local story, one that plays out according to local laws and at the direction of local officials. So for the residents in a few active states, the death penalty may be an occasional headline, but for most of the rest of the country, the death penalty isn't even on their radar. This is the 10th year in a row that the total number of people executed by the states has been below 30. Martin Costi, NPR News. You're listening to NPR.

A winter weather advisory remains in effect for parts of the nation's upper Midwest. A powerful weather system is dumping heavy snow, ice, gusty winds and bitter cold on parts of Minnesota and North Dakota. The Twin Cities could receive up to seven inches of snow before it's over. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service says that another storm will bring light to moderate snowfall to the northeast into Saturday. Google Calendar is used by more than half a billion people to organize their busy lives. But NPR's Jenna McLaughlin reports

that it's also an attractive target by cybercriminals. Israeli cybersecurity firm Checkpoint has uncovered a new scam where attackers send realistic fake Google Calendar invites to trick victims into giving up sensitive personal information. Checkpoint researchers say they've tracked over 4,000 of these fake calendar invitations over just four weeks. The malicious campaign has impacted around 300 brands so far. In this particular scam, attackers are modifying emails to make it look like users are getting

an invitation to an event via Google Calendar. The features that make the calendar user-friendly and interoperable with Gmail can make it vulnerable to this kind of attack. To prevent compromise, Check Point encourages users to deploy multi-factor authentication. And take a second look at invitations, particularly any you weren't expecting. Jenna McLaughlin, NPR News. Amazon says that a strike by its union workers will not impact deliveries over the holidays. Workers set up pickets at seven Amazon facilities early Thursday because the online retailer

did not meet a Sunday deadline for contract talks. This is NPR News.