NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-28-2025 8PM EST

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

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Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theshmit.org. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky met in Florida today over a revised 20-point ceasefire plan in Russia's nearly four-year-old war. Trump says they have the makings of a deal. You can say 95%, but I don't like to say percentages. I just think we're doing very well. We're very, we could be very close. There are one or two very thorny issues, very tough issues, but I think we're doing very well. We've made a lot of progress today, but really we've made it over the last month. Zelensky wants the U.S. to agree to security guarantees against further

Russian aggression and says progress was made to that end. We agree that our teams will meet in upcoming weeks to finalize all discussed matters and we agreed with President Trump that he will host us and maybe in Washington, European leaders and Ukrainian delegation. Yes, in January and Ukraine is ready for peace. Trump spoke to Russian President Putin before meeting with Zelensky. An intense cyclone is expected to dump heavy snow from the upper Midwest to the Great Lakes as people head home following the Christmas holidays. It's according to the National Weather Service. And Pierce-Frank-Lankfit reports.

The Weather Service forecast more than a foot of snow across parts of the Upper Great Lakes and as much as two feet along the southern shore of Lake Superior. As of Sunday afternoon, nearly 180 flights or more than half were delayed at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Nearly three quarters were delayed at Minneapolis-St. Paul International. The Transportation Security Administration expects Sunday to be the heaviest travel day the holiday season, with nearly 2.9 million people in transit across the nation. The winter storm is expected to continue to move east, with freezing rain forecast for the interior of the northeast later Sunday. A mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain is projected

for northern New England by Monday morning. Frank Langford, NPR News. 2025 will go down as a year of chaos for anti-poverty groups. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports they've had to scramble to keep operating as the the Trump administration targeted a string of safety net programs. The turmoil started in January with a presidential order to freeze all funding and came a string of budget cuts, pauses, and some reversals. Kelly Haddis at Community Action Group Hap in Ohio says the biggest challenge is uncertainty. The panic and like the day-to-day not knowing was just really difficult.

The group laid off some people and shifted others to part-time, including front-desk clerk Kelsey Sexton. It cut my paychecks completely in half. You know, we have a mortgage, a car payment. My husband was like, what are we going to do? And I'm like, I don't know. Advocates see little relief ahead as major cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food aid take hold. Jennifer Lutton, NPR News, Logan, Ohio. You're listening to NPR News from Washington.

More than 20 Arab and African states are joining Somalia in condemning Israel's recognition of the breakaway region. of Somaliland, calling it a blatant disregard to international law. Now, Somalia is calling for an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting tomorrow. Smoliland plans to join the Abrams Accords, the normalization deals with Israel that started in the first Trump administration. Smoliland broke away from Somalia in 1991 after the collapse of Somalia's central government amid a brutal civil war. A NASA mission to an unusual asteroid is now about 260 million miles from Earth.

Jopalco reports the probe known as Psyche recently had a bit of excitement during what is usually the boring phase of an interplanetary journey. The excitement came from an opportunity to take images of an object with the prosaic named 3-Ey Atlas. Astronomers spotted 3-Ey Atlas last summer and determined it was a comet. Its speed and trajectory have convinced them it came from a satellite. distant star. This is only the third such interstellar visitor to be detected near Earth. In September, Psyche's mission managers scrambled to orient the probe so it could catch a glimpse of 3-Eye Atlas, helping to refine its trajectory through our solar system. Psyche's main mission is to visit an asteroid made primarily of metals, possibly providing

clues about how Earth's metal core formed. The probe will reach its target in 2030. For NPR News, I'm Joe Palka. And I'm Janine Herbst, and you're listening to NPR News from 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.