NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-20-2024 4PM EST

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

NPR News: 12-20-2024 4PM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Oh, oh, oh, Santa here coming to you from the North Pole, where the elves in our podcast division have just completed work on this season's best gift for public radio lovers, NPR plus. 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 dot NPR dot org. Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Dwahleesah Kautau. A House vote on a new funding bill could come soon. Speaker Mike Johnson, emerging from a two-hour meeting with Republican leadership, tells reporters details of the new legislation are being finalized, but it hasn't been seen by President-elect Donald Trump and still needs backing from Democrats. Earlier

White House Press Secretary Corrine Jean-Pierre blamed Republicans for the lack of agreement on Thursday night. There was a deal on the table. They way a bipartisan deal, a bipartisan deal. In this day and age, they were able to come up with a bipartisan deal and you And that agreement, Speaker Johnson needs to stick to. Karine Jean-Pierre, the Biden administration has approved a new round of student loan forgiveness for some 55,000 borrowers working in public service. And Pierre's Corey Turner has that story. This latest effort for borrowers in the public service loan forgiveness program

will provide more than $4 billion in relief. In a statement, President Joe Biden said his administration has now approved relief for nearly 5 million student loan borrowers. The news comes as Biden's largest efforts to provide loan forgiveness have been shut down or remain tangled in the courts. Over the past four years, the White House has argued that broad loan forgiveness is justifiable given the enormity of federal student loan debt. While Republicans have countered that forgiveness not only privileges those with some college,

it's also a costly use of taxpayer dollars that only Congress, not the White House, has the power to decide. Corey Turner, NPR News. US diplomats visited Syria today and they say they had a good meeting with the country's de facto new ruler. They announced that the US would be removing a bounty on his head, as NPR's Michelle Kelleman reports. The State Department's top official on the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, says she found

the rebel leader who now controls Damascus, Ahmed al-Sharah, to be pragmatic and describes the meeting as productive. And so based on our discussion, I told him we would not be pursuing the rewards for justice reward offer that has been in effect for some years. That was a $10 million offer for information leading to his arrest. There are still U.S. sanctions on his rebel movement, and Leaf wasn't making any promises to lift those just yet. She says Syrians want a government that's committed to human rights after years of dictatorship. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, Washington.

A driver has crashed into a Christmas market two hours west of Berlin in the German city of Magdeburg. Police there say at least one person is dead and multiple people are injured. Eight years ago, almost to the day, on December 19th, a driver crashed into a crowd in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring dozens. From New York, this is NPR News. Russia continued its assault on Ukraine overnight, launching at least five ballistic missiles toward that country's capital, Kiev. The military said anti-defense strikes took all of them down, but missile debris fell

across the city's districts, starting fires and killing at least one person. A Michigan judge has rejected a request by the teen who killed four classmates at Oxford High School in 2021 to have his guilty plea thrown out. As member station WDET's Quinn Kleinfelter reports, Ethan Crumbly is serving a life sentence without the chance of parole. Ethan Crumbly's attorneys questioned if he really understood the full implications of pleading guilty to the shooting.

They argued fetal alcohol abuse might have hurt his cognitive development and that it was, quote, unconscionable to sentence a child to life behind bars. But Oakland County Judge Kwame Roe ruled that Crumbly had agreed he deserved any penalty that made the families of the victims feel safe. The judge wrote the teen was composed and responsive in court, and his sentence fits the crime he committed. Crumbly's parents were also held responsible for the mass shooting and are appealing their involuntary manslaughter convictions.

For NPR News, I'm Quinn Klinefelter in Detroit. The motoring club AAA estimates that nearly 120 million people will travel this holiday in Detroit.