NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-31-2024 4PM EST

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

NPR News: 12-31-2024 4PM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Louise Schiavone. From New Zealand to Hong Kong, to Thailand, to Mumbai, much of the world has turned the calendar page to 2025. In New York City's Times Square, it's still eight hours away. Mayor Eric Adams says they are ready. We have plane close teams, canine teams, and officers on horsebacks and helicopters and on boats. The full complement of our police personnel would be here. The city's police commissioner Jessica Tisch said that there were no specific credible threats

to the Times Square celebrations. Security personnel from multiple state, city, and federal agencies are policing airports, bridges, tunnels, and transit systems. As President Biden winds down his four years in office, he and his allies are talking more about what they see as his legacy. And PRS Tamara Keith reports. In his first two years in office,

Biden signed several significant pieces of legislation. White House Communications Director Ben LeBolt. But many of these things will take years to come to fruition. So there will be a lasting impact here long past the moment that the president leaves office in January. But Biden ran on making Donald Trump a one term president. And now Trump is about to be sworn in again, says presidential historian Tevi Troy. With the results of the November election, Joe Biden's legacy completely flipped from

being the guy who defeated Trump to the guy who enabled Trump's return. Trump's success or failure will likely affect how Biden is remembered. Tamara Keith, NPR News. A new U.N. report says that deadly Israeli attacks on hospitals in Gaza have turned them into death traps. Israel says that Hamas militants are operating from these hospitals. But as NPR's Eya Batraoui reports, the United Nations says that these attacks could amount to war crimes. The U.N. says Israel has provided insufficient information to substantiate allegations that

these hospitals were being used as command centers or launching sites by militants. The report calls for independent investigations of more than three dozen medical facilities in Gaza that were raided or attacked. Over the weekend, Israeli forces shut down another major hospital in Gaza following months of deadly airstrikes. Its director, Dr. Hossam Abou Safieh, had posted videos like this of staff trying to save wounded patients while under Israeli fire. Israel detained him over potential involvement with Hamas.

Staff at Kamel Adwan Hospital say it was the last lifeline for people under intense fire in northern Gaza. Israel says it was the last lifeline for people under intense fire in northern Gaza. Israel says it was a Hamas command center. Aya Batraoui, NPR News. On Wall Street approaching the close, the Dow was down 29 points, the Nasdaq was off 175 points. This is NPR News in Washington. Four Americans are celebrating New Year's far from home this year aboard the International Space Station.

Jeff Brumfield has more. NASA astronauts Sonny Williams, Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, and Nick Hague are spending the New Year around 250 miles above the Earth. They're there with three Russian cosmonauts. Russia and America have jointly run the International Space Station since the 1990s. The collaboration is just about holding together, despite the war in Ukraine and other tensions. For two astronauts, Williams and Wilmore, celebrating the holiday in space is bittersweet. They were originally supposed to be on the station for around a week in

June, but problems with the spacecraft they used to get there have left them stuck in orbit until at least this coming spring. Jeff Brumfield, NPR News. In Plains, Georgia, the hometown of the late former President Jimmy Carter, Christmas decorations have been replaced by red, white, and blue bunting, and flags are at half-staff. Funeral ceremonies for Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, will begin and end in Georgia. The funeral procession on Friday, January 4th, will stop at the Carter Family Farm in Plains.

A motorcade to Atlanta will stop at the State Capitol and the Carter Center, where he'll lie in repose until the following Tuesday, when his remains will be transported to the U.S. Capitol and Lyon State. President Biden has declared the day of the late Jimmy Carter's state funeral, January 9th, a national day of mourning, Carter will have a private burial in Plains. I'm Louise Schiavone, NPR News, Washington.