NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-23-2025 3AM EST

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dan Rerun. A federal judge in New York is criticizing convicted sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein's longtime girlfriend, Galane Maxwell. This after Maxwell's recent court filing contained confidential names as she seeks to set aside her 2021 conviction and possibly be released. She filed the paperwork on her own without a lawyer and the document is being kept under seal out of the public's view until the judge use it and redacts the name of victims. In Florida, President Trump was asked about the release of the latest files and photos. But no, I don't like the pictures of Bill Clinton being shown. I don't like the pictures of other people being shown. I think it's a terrible thing.

I think Bill Clinton's a big boy. He can handle it. But you probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago, many years ago. and their, you know, highly respected bankers and lawyers and others. Meanwhile, the Senate's top Democrat Chuck Schumer is urging his colleagues to take action against the Justice Department over the law enforcement agency's heavily redacted incremental release of the files on both Epstein and Maxwell. More than 1.6 million immigrants have lost their legal status since Donald Trump took office. This is the largest effort to make migrants deportable despite using

legal pathways. NPR Sergio Martinez Beltran reports. Immigration rights advocates say this figure, 1.6 million people, is likely an undercount, but it includes people who came to the U.S. via humanitarian parole, temporary protected status, and visas. Todd Schulte is the president of Forward.org, an immigration advocacy organization. These were, like, legal pathways. People, like, did the thing the government asked them to do, and this government went in his kind of preemptively trying to revoke that status. The Trump administration has said it has done more to limit legal and illegal immigration than any other administration. It has said it will continue its aggressive effort to crack down

on immigration in 2026. Sergio Martinez Beltran, NPR News, Austin. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney has appointed a new ambassador to the U.S. As Dan Carpenchuk reports, Mark Wiseman takes over his duties in mid-February. The 55-year-old Weissman will also lead Ottawa's negotiations with the U.S. on the review of the North American Free Trade Agreement known as USMCA. Weisman is a global investment banker and a pension fund manager and a long-time friend of Carnies.

He's a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Canada-U.S. Relations, which was formed to review the current trade agreement. He was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario, holds a joint master of business administration and law degree from the University of Toronto, and has worked on mergers and acquisitions in New York City and Paris. Weissman replaces Kirsten Hillman, who announced earlier this month, that she would end her Washington posting. For NPR news, I'm Dan Carpenchuk in Toronto. It's NPR. The storms hitting the San Francisco Bay Area have already brought some brief flooding and some rescues, but as member station KQED reporter Samantha

Kennedy tells us, it's only the beginning. Meteorologists expect there to be winds of up to 80 miles per hour and widespread power outages across the Bay area this week. The North Bay is expected to get some of the worst of it. Jeff Duvall of Sonoma County's emergency management department isn't aware of any damages to the North Bay County so far, but... We did have a couple vehicles get stuck in the flood waters overnight to where Sonoma County's public safety had to come out and do two different water rescues. Jan Noll, a consulting meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services, says winds will pick up which could topple trees and power lines. That always poses problems after we've had significant rains

with trees coming down with 30 or 40, some places maybe 50 mile an hour gusts. Officials say they're prepared for whatever the week brings. For NPR News, I'm Samantha Kennedy in San Francisco. A congressional committee on Monday released its report that is critical of the military's role in the deadly plane crash near D.C.'s Reagan National Airport last January that killed 67 people when an Army Black Hawk helicopter struck a landing American Airlines jet. The report said there were communication issues. between the helicopter and the airport control tower, and the helicopter did not follow instructions

from air traffic controllers. Night vision goggles that the helicopters were using also made it difficult to see the incoming plane and a navigation system that could have prevented the crash was turned off. I'm Dan Ronan, NPR News in Washington. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees, join millions of customers, and visit wise.com. T's and Cs apply.