NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-21-2024 12AM EST

Episode Date: December 21, 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, I'm Dale Willman. A vote is about to get underway in the Senate at this hour on a plan to prevent a government shutdown. The measure was passed earlier today in the House.

It would temporarily fund government operations and offer more money for disaster aid. But it would not get rid of the debt ceiling, as President-elect Donald Trump has demanded. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he is confident the bill will pass. We didn't get everything we wanted, but I think if you look at the vote in the House, people felt pretty good. It was virtually unanimous. Technically, the government is now facing a shutdown until the measure is passed and signed by President Biden.

The Senate has confirmed the 235th judicial nominee made by President Joe Biden. That's one more judge than those selected by Donald Trump during his first term in office. Democrats say they focused on adding women, minorities, and public defenders. About two-thirds of Biden's appointees are women, and a majority are people of color. The Justice Department has announced charges against an Iranian national for allegedly orchestrating the 2022 murder of an American living in Iraq.

Prosecutors say the defendant is an officer in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corp, as NPR's Ryan Lucas reports. A criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan identifies the defendant as Mohammed Reza Nouri. Court papers say Nouri helped orchestrate the November 2022 murder of American Stephen Troll in Baghdad. Troll was working at an English language institute there at the time. U.S. officials allege that Troll's murder is part of an effort by Iran's government to kidnap or kill Americans around the world to avenge the killing of a top Iranian general in a

U.S. drone strike in 2020. Nouri was arrested by Iraqi authorities in 2023 and tried and convicted in court there in connection with Troll's murder. He remains in Iraqi custody. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington. 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 Kleinfelder reports,

Ethan Crumbly is serving a life sentence without the chance for 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 Quen Kleinfelder in Detroit. Police in the German city of Magdeburg say at least two people were killed and at least 60 others were injured Friday

when a car plowed through a busy Christmas market. Police say it was a deliberate attack. A 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia was arrested. The car drove into the market around 7 p.m. local time while the area was busy with holiday shoppers. This is NPR News. Police in Guatemala have searched the compound of an extremist, ultra-orthodox Jewish sect, and they've taken at least 160 minors and 40 women into productive custody.

The country's attorney general says a complaint was made in November of possible crimes there, including forced pregnancies, rape, and the mistreatment of minors. A Texas death row inmate was summoned to testify before a Texas House panel for the first time since he was convicted more than 20 years ago, but an order from the Texas Attorney General is barring that inmate from making that appearance. KUT's Luz Moreno-Luzano has the latest on our story. Robert Robertson was set to be executed in October. That was halted by a group of lawmakers who believe he was convicted on bad science.

Robertson was convicted of capital murder in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter. Prosecutors say it was from shaken baby syndrome. Democratic state rep Joe Moody says the committee is not giving up. There are nationwide problems in cases like this. And I know, I speak for every member of this committee when I say that we're committed to getting this right and seeing that justice is done. Now some on the committee would like the Attorney General to testify before them. I'm Luz Moreno Lozano in Austin, Texas.

An ammonia leak at the Hanford cleanup site in southeast Washington state on Friday night sent about 75 workers into a brief lockdown there. The incident occurred at the facility's waste treatment plant. Officials say there were no injuries caused by the leak. I'm Dale Willman and you're listening to NPR News.