NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-25-2025 2AM EST

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dan Roran. As Southern California continues to get hammered by heavy rains, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has declared a state of emergency. Steve Futterman reports. The declaration comes after a day of floods, fallen trees, mudslides, traffic jams, and power outages. The move paves the way for the city to deploy adequate resources to deal with the storms. Earlier, California Governor Gavin Newsom also issued. a state of emergency. Right now, the forecast does not look good. A new series of powerful storms

will hit the area today. Ariel Cohn is with the National Weather Service. We're going to see the floodwaters be reinforced, landslides, rock slides, and mudslides, all being reinforced across the area. In some mountain areas, more than 10 inches alone fell on Wednesday. The storms are expected to continue into Friday. For NPR News, I'm Steve Futterman in Los Angeles. Ice agents on Wednesday shot a man in suburban Baltimore and another person was injured after a traffic stop turned violent. ICE says as they approached the man, the driver of the vehicle attempted to run over that person. Then officers fired their weapons. According to Anarundle County, Maryland police spokesman Justin Mulcahy, the driver was struck by gunfire. There was an individual in that vehicle.

They were struck by gunfire. That individual was transported to an area hospital with what is being described, he's been described as being in stable condition. There was another individual outside of that vehicle that sustained minor injuries and also went to an area hospital. The Department of Homeland Security says the driver of the vehicle was in the United States illegally. A civilian search and rescue group operating in the Mediterranean Sea says more than 100 people could be dead after a smuggler's boat crowded with migrants capsized. NPR's Ruth Sherlock has the latest. The non-profit search and rescue group Sea Watch posts on X that a crowded wooden boat has disappeared into the Mediterranean Sea.

Alam Phone, the volunteer organisation that runs an emergency hotline for migrants, says some 117 people were on board the boat that went missing after leaving Libyan shores for Europe on December 18th. On December 21st, alarm phone says they were informed that a Tunisian fisherman had found a single survivor. It's the latest tragedy on this dangerous route that, people pay smugglers to take in the hope of finding a better life in Europe. The International Organization for Migration says, since 2014, over 33,220 migrants have gone missing, presumed dead on this Mediterranean route. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News. Arizona's Governor Katie Hobbs says she will appeal a decision from FEMA denying the state

emergency aid after several counties were flooded in September, causing about $30 million, dollars worth of damage. This is NPR News. A person who bought a powerball lottery ticket in Arkansas has won the $1.8 billion prize lottery officials announced a short time ago. The winner will choose between a decades-long annuity or a massive lump sum cash payout. This is the second largest U.S. lottery jackpot ever. The winning numbers were 4, 25, 31, 52, 59, and and the powerball number was 19. New federal data shows that construction of artificial intelligence data centers may soon surpass the building of office building construction.

NPR's Bobby Allen reports it's the latest sign of what many analysts say is a data center bubble. While the AI data center boom has been a gold rush for the construction industry, it has many financial analysts worried. A recent note from Deutsche Bank analysts said if not for AI data center spending, the U.S. would be close to a recession. And big tech spenders like meta, Google, and Oracle, which the industry calls hyperscalers, keep pouring money in. More than a trillion dollars is expected to be spent on this infrastructure for more computing power in the coming years. But the arrangements are raising red flags.

For instance, more than $100 billion worth of data center deals are being done through special purpose vehicles, which keeps the spending off tech companies balance sheets. The same mechanism was used in the lead-up to the dot-com bubble. Bobby Allen, NPR News. Wednesday, the longtime host of the Kennedy Center's annual Christmas Jazz Festival said he was canceling his annual concert to protest the recent White House name change of the facility. From Washington, I'm Dan Rohn and NPR. 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.

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