NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-25-2024 2AM EST

Episode Date: December 25, 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 Giles Snyder. The Danish government has increased its budget for defense of Greenland in autonomous Danish territory. Terry Schultz reports on the move as President-elect Donald Trump repeated his desire to purchase the island. Officials in Greenland have expressed

dismay at Donald Trump's repetition of how strategically important the island is and how he wants to make it part of the U.S. Greenland is ours, said Greenland's Prime Minister, Mute Egde. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. Denmark, which is responsible for Greenland's foreign and defense policy, also just announced it would be doubling the amount it spends on protecting the island. Danish Defense Minister Truls Lind Poulsen said the boost would be at least $1.5 billion. Poulsen called it an irony of fate that the defense upgrade was announced at the same time Trump was speaking about Greenland.

For NPR News, I'm Terri Schulz. Protesters in Panama burned an image of Donald Trump after he demanded control of the Panama Canal be returned to the U.S. Dozens gathered outside the U.S. Embassy saying Trump should leave the canal alone. Trump says Panama charges the U.S. too much to use the canal. Trump has also said that Canada should become the 51st state. At least two journalists and a police officer have been killed in Haiti after gang members opened fire at the country's biggest public hospital in the capital, Port-au-Prince, the BBC's Leonardo Rocco reports.

Apart from the central bank building, the port of Port-au-Prince and the presidential palace, all the city centre of Port-au-Prince is controlled by gangs. And there is a powerful alliance of several gangs put together called Viv'n Saint, and they claimed responsibility for the attack, and they posted a video video online saying the reason why we attacked this hospital is because we didn't authorize the government to reopen it. They should have asked us. So you see how wrong things are in Haiti and how powerful these gangs are. Christmas Eve marked the last day of a five-day strike by Starbucks baristas. Union officials say the strike expanded Tuesday

to more than 300 stores, involving more than 5,000 workers across 45 states. Stephen Passaha, the Gulf States newsroom, says short-term work stoppages like these have become the norm. Five days on strike is actually kind of long by today's standards. Most strikes since at least 2021 have lasted four days

or less, according to Cornell University. That's in part because missing more than a few days of pay just isn't realistic for many low-wage workers, says John Logan with San Francisco State University. They're just not going to be able to afford to go out on an open-ended, long strike. The employer could easily replace them. This also means less leverage for workers. Instead, Logan says short strikes are often about keeping workers excited while negotiations drag on for months, or years.

For NPR News, I'm Stephen Massaha. This is NPR. Civil rights groups are praising President Biden for commuting some prison and death row sentences. The NAACP also asking for more. This NPR Sandia Dirks reports. The policies of the war on drugs and the 1994 crime bill left a legacy of mass incarceration that disproportionately impacted black people, says the NAACP's Patrice Willoughby. One example, she says, longer harsher sentences for the possession of crack cocaine than for powdered cocaine.

She says that sentencing disparity was fixed, but it wasn't retroactive. That population is still in prison. As a matter of justice, we're asking the president to give clemency to that population. Willoughby says it's an opportunity to address systemic racism, which is one major reason that Black people who make up 14% of the U.S. population comprise 40% of the federal prison population. Sandhya Dirks, NPR News.

President Biden has signed a bill into law that finally makes a bald eagle the national bird. The bald eagle has long been a symbol of the U.S. It has appeared on the nation's great seal since the design was finalized in 1782, but its status as the national bird remained elusive until now the bill among 50 Biden signed into law on Christmas Eve. Basketball star Caitlin Clark has been named as the AP's Female Athlete of the Year. After raising the profile of the women's game in both college and the WNBA, a group of 74

sports journalists voted on the award.