NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-28-2024 4AM EST

Episode Date: December 28, 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. The Centers for Disease Control has found potentially concerning mutations in the bird flu. The mutations were found in a sample from a patient recently hospitalized in Louisiana. The discovery raises concern over potential human-to-human infection, but the CDC says

the risk to the public remains low. Dr. Deborah Bricks says the problem may be bigger than people think, though, because testing for the virus is limited. They're monitoring more than 10,000 exposures but they've only tested 530. What does that mean? That means we're not testing enough and we know from other viruses that a lot of the spread can be asymptomatic. Bricks is a former White House COVID-19 response coordinator during the first Trump administration.

NATO says it's stepping up its presence in the Baltic Sea after power cables between Finland and Estonia were damaged this week. As Terry Schultz reports, authorities in Finland are treating it as a case of sabotage. Finnish President Alexander Stubbe says NATO has already responded to his call for backup in the Baltic Sea. The Finnish and Estonian governments called on the Alliance for Reinforcements after four cables were destroyed or damaged around the same time as a vessel which left a Russian port a day earlier crossed over them. Finland seized the ship and Stubb says the crew is cooperating with investigators. It's too soon to draw conclusions yet why this happened we

know who did it. Although sailing under a flag from the Cook Islands the ship is believed to be among those used by Russia to transport oil in contravention of international sanctions imposed for its war on Ukraine. For NPR News, I'm Terry Schultz in Brussels. A top UN humanitarian official says Israel's airstrike on the main airport in Yemen this week took place as a civilian plane carrying hundreds of passengers was landing. A UN delegation was also waiting to fly out of Yemen. The airport control tower was destroyed in the attack as the jetliner was about to touch

down but the plane landed safely. NASA's Parker Solar Probe has survived its closest ever approach to the sun. NPR's Jonathan Lambert has more on how the flyby could help scientists better understand the sun. The Parker Solar Probe barreled towards the Sun on December 24th, getting closer than any human-made object has ever gotten to a star, about 3.8 million miles. After getting cut off from communication, the mission team received a message from the probe

just before midnight Eastern Standard Time on December 26th, indicating the probe survived. The team expects more detailed data from the flyby on January 1. Measurements taken so close to the Sun's surface will help scientists study questions, including how matter in this region gets heated to millions of degrees and how solar wind forms. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News. There was one lucky-winning Mega Millions ticket for Friday night's drawing. The ticket was sold in California.

The top prize is worth $1.22 billion. The cash payout would offer $549 million. The jackpot is the fifth largest in the game's history. The identity of the winner is not yet known. This is NPR News. Many people are still celebrating the holiday season, but it can be a dark time for others. As Stephanie Columbini with Member Station WUSF reports, organizations that help kids affected by child abuse are bracing for a spike in reports. Mike Trepper is with Pasco Kids First, a support agency near Tampa.

He says anytime kids are out of structured environments like school, their risk for abuse and neglect rises. Where kids are left, sometimes to their own devices, are left with people they don't know or forced to be with so and so and that person takes advantage. He says high stress over the holidays plus communal events could increase the risk of threats. Trepper says his agency typically sees a 10 to 20 percent increase in abuse reports in January. That's when kids return to school and may tell others what's wrong. He says it's critical adults take them seriously. For NPR News, I'm Stephanie Columbini in Tampa. Sportscaster Greg Gumbel has died. He spent much of his more than 50-year career announcing for CBS.

The network announced the death on Friday saying Gumbel had died of cancer. He was 78 years old. In 2001, Gumbel became the first black announcer in the U.S. to do play-by-play of a major sports championship when he called Super Bowl 35 for CBS. A man in China has been sentenced to death for killing 35 people last month by driving his car into a crowd. In announcing its sentence, the court said the consequences of the incident were particularly severe and it said the nature of the crime was extremely vile. China leader

Xi Jinping has ordered local governments to take steps to prevent what he called future extreme cases.