NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-30-2025 4PM EST

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

NPR News: 12-30-2025 4PM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Live from NPR news, I'm Lakshmi Singh. A day after President Trump said the U.S. attacked a facility in Venezuela, a U.S. official confirmed with NPR it was the CIA. Washington has been waging a campaign against alleged drugboats in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, but Venezuela and President Nicolas Maduro accuses the U.S. of attempting to topple his government. Israel is barring 37 more aid organizations from operating in Gaza, including doctors without borders. NPR Zayabatrawi reports Israel says these aid groups fail to meet security standards. Israel's decision revokes the permits of groups like Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Mercy Corps, and Doctors Without Borders, or MSF. These aid groups work respectively on issues

related to water and desalination, tents and shelter supplies, food distribution, and health care. And they have also documented in detail. Israel's war in Gaza, criticizing the breadth of destruction and killing by Israeli forces, while also providing firsthand accounts from Gaza at a time when international media remains banned. Humanity and inclusion, which handles unexploded bombs left by the military, is also among the banned groups now. Israel says staff of some groups were involved in terrorist activity and that the 37 aid groups did not meet security and transparency requirements. MSF says this prevents organizations from providing essential services to people in both Gaza and the West Bank. Ayyabotrawi NPR News, Dubai.

South Sudanese migrants at risk of being deported have secured a court reprieve. Today, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from ending deportation protections for more than 200 people until the new year. A federal judge has stopped the administration's latest attempt to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. NPR Stephen Basaha has details. CFPB gets its funding from the Federal Reserve. The Trump administration argues that since the Fed has been operating at a loss, there is not the money to keep the financial watchdog running. But Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected that argument. She already has a preliminary injunction preventing the White House from shutting down the CFPB, and she wrote in a ruling that this

is an unabashed attempt to just do that in a different way. Other legal battles have prevented several mass layoffs there, but President Trump has been clear he wants a CFPB gone. Acting Director Russell Vote has stopped most of the Consumer-oriented Bureau's work, and Judge Berman Jackson wrote that the CFPB is hanging by a thread. Stephen Besaha, NPR News. New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani's new administration is starting to take shape before he's sworn in. He announced more appointments today, including oversight of health and human services and the city's Corporation Council. While revelers gather at Times Square on New Year's Eve, state

attorney general Letitia James will swear in Mumdadi during a small private ceremony underground at an old abandoned subway station. James tells the New York Times a location is fitting as the subway system is New York's lifeblood. The second ceremonial inauguration will be held outside City Hall. From Washington, this is NPR News. The outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams says security at Times Square will be heavy. We will have plane closed, K-9 teams, officers on horsebacks, on our trains, subway stations, and in helicopters, and on boats. Pedestrians and vehicle closures will be in effect leading up to and during the Fent. Securities is.

everyone's responsibility again, see something, say something, do something. Adam says there are no credible threats to the city's festivities, but warm protesters. There will be zero tolerance for interfering in the celebrations. A Trump administration plan to end the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate climate warming greenhouse gases has been delayed. NPR's Jeff Brady reports EPA was expected to finish the wind down by the end of this year. The Trump administration wants to eliminate the endangerment. finding. In 2009, during the Obama administration, the EPA found that greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels are warming the climate and endangering public health and welfare. Trump has

called climate change a con job and sought to reverse President Biden's climate agenda. The endangerment finding is the basis for regulating human-caused climate pollution from power plants, cars, and the oil and gas industry. EPA Press Secretary Bridget Hirsch says the 43-day government shutdown this fall delayed work on rescinding the findings. While the rulemaking was expected to wrap up by the end of the year, that likely will come in the new year now. Jeff Brady, NPR News. U.S. stocks ended the day lower with Dow down 94 points. This is NPR News.