NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-28-2024 10PM EST

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Herbst. In South Korea, at least 47 people are dead after a plane veered off a runway, hit a wall, and caught fire at an international airport. The country's emergency office says the plane's landing gear appears to have malfunctioned. There were 181 people on board that plane. Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized today to Azerbaijan's leader for this week's crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that killed 38 people, but he stopped short of taking blame.

It's been widely suspected that Russia accidentally shot the plane down as it tried to land in Grozny Wednesday. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg has more. According to the Kremlin readout of their conversation, President Putin apologized to President Aliyev for what the Kremlin calls a tragic incident in Russian airspace and expressed condolences to the families of the dead. 38 people were killed when Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243, having failed to land at Grozny airport in the Russian North Caucasus, was redirected over the Caspian

Sea to Kazakhstan where it crash landed. The Embraer 190 is widely believed to have been damaged by missiles fired by a Russian air defense system. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg reporting. President-elect Donald Trump is weighing into a debate that's exposing rifts among his most loyal supporters. He tells the New York Post he's always been a supporter of H-1B visas, which are used to sponsor high-skilled workers from other countries. Trump says he'll work to

curb illegal immigration in his next administration, but some mega-faithful are critical of legal immigration policies. An online feud over the program, at times devolving into racist rhetoric, has been playing out on X, owned by Trump backer Elon Musk and Musk lashed out at other Trump supporters who oppose H1Bs, which are common in the techs industry. It's unclear what the rhetoric would mean for a policy once Trump is in office. New York's attorney general released a video of a fatal prison beating of an inmate. The video shows several white corrections officers beating a black handcuffed inmate who died the next day. And Piers Ava Puketch has more.

L.A. Attorney General Letesha James says the body cam footage shows officers at Marcy Correctional Facility in upstate New York repeatedly punching and kicking inmate Robert Brooks in the face and groin and choking and striking him in the chest of a shoe as he lies on a medical examination table. During the incident, he was handcuffed with his hands behind his back. He was pronounced dead at Wynn Hospital in Utica on December 10th.

Initial autopsy reports listed the cause of death as a fixia due to the compression of the neck. Governor Kathy Hochul has ordered the the compression of the neck. Governor Kathy Hochul has ordered the termination of the 14 individuals involved. Eva Pukac, NPR News. And those 14 could face criminal charges. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the government will reach its debt limit by mid-January and will have to adopt special measures to continue paying its bills. And now the pressure is

on Congress to take action. Some analysts think the U.S. can stretch its money until the summer, but it will be up to the incoming Republican-controlled House and Senate, along with President-elect Trump, to raise or suspend the debt ceiling. Olivia Hussey, star of the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet, has died. Her family says she died peacefully yesterday at her home at the age of 73. And Pierce Chloe Veltman has this remembrance. Olivia Hussey was in her mid-teens when Franco Zeffirelli spotted her on stage in London and promptly cast her in his Romeo and Juliet. My bounty is as boundless as the sea. My love is deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have. For both are infinite.

Hussie won international acclaim for the role, which, controversially for the time, involved a nude love scene. She went on to appear in the 1977 series Jesus of Nazareth, the 1978 version of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile, and many other movies and TV shows. Hussey later sued Paramount Pictures, alleging sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and fraud over the nudity in Romeo and Juliet. The case was dismissed last year. Chloe Valtman, NPR News. There was one Mega Millions winning ticket. It was purchased in Northern California. The lottery last night was $1.2 billion.

I'm Janine Herbst, and you're listening to NPR News from Washington.