NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-31-2024 7AM EST

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

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On the latest NPR Politics podcast, we look back on the life and legacy of Jimmy Carter. The former president died Sunday at the age of 100. And unlike other presidents, his accomplishments after leaving the Oval Office are arguably what most define his story. Listen to our remembrance of the 39th president on the NPR Politics podcast. Live from NPR News in Washington, Iorova Coleman, funeral preparations for former President Jimmy Carter have been announced. President Biden has declared Thursday, January 9th, a national day of mourning.

Carter died Sunday at the age of 100. Federal agencies and the U.S. stock market will close on the 9th. From Georgia Public Broadcasting, Grant Blankenship reports Carter's hometown is also preparing. Carter spent most of his life in the southwest Georgia farming community of Plains. Normally, the Christmas decorations outside the main strip of shops downtown would have another week before they came down. Now most have been replaced with red, white, and blue ribbons and the flags are at half staff. Agnes McAllister has cleaned rooms at the Plains Inn on the corner of the strip for about five years. And I have to get everything ready upstairs because all the Carters will be staying upstairs. It makes me feel good that I'm able to do that for them.

Carter's funeral schedule will both begin and end in Plains, between he will lie in repose at the Carter Center in Atlanta and light in state at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. For NPR News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Plains, Georgia. The Treasury Department says a state-sponsored actor in China hacked some of its workstations. NPR's Rafael Nam reports the Treasury Department says this is a major cybersecurity incident. On December 8, Treasury was told by a third-party software provider called Beyond Trust that a hacker from China had gained access to a security key used by the vendor.

The hacker then used that key to remotely gain access to a number of Treasury workstations and access unclassified documents, according to a letter seen by NPR. Treasury said it was working with the FBI and security officials to look into the breach. In a statement, the agency says the hacker no longer has access to Treasury systems or its information, and that it takes all threats to its systems and its data very seriously. Rafael Nam, NPR News. The last major hospital in northern Gaza is closed. The Israeli military raided it over the weekend and detained scores of people, including doctors and nurses.

Israel says the hospital was used by Hamas. Hospital officials deny this. The facility has been battered by the Israeli military. NPR's Ea Batraoui says that Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians and the strikes have been aimed especially at northern Gaza. Many saw this as a starve or leave policy aimed at permanently expelling them from the territory and a lot of them had to leave. The airstrikes were so severe and they were starving.

But you know, with no ambulances able to work, no rescue services able to operate and pull people from the rubble, this hospital, Command Adwen, became people's only lifeline. NPR's Aya Batraoui reporting. A South Korean court has issued a warrant for suspended President Yun Sang-yeol. Yun has been refusing to answer questions from police about his botched declaration of martial law this month. You're listening to NPR. There's a widespread blackout in Puerto Rico this morning. More than 80% of electricity customers are without power.

The island's electric company, Luma, says it's working to resolve the problem but doesn't know what caused the outage. This comes after persistent power failures in Puerto Rico earlier this year. That's due to aging infrastructure and a lack of power generation facilities. That's due to aging infrastructure and a lack of power generation facilities. Early next year, a probe called Lunar Pathfinder is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida and fly toward the moon. Joe Palka reports once it makes lunar orbit, the probe will measure the amount of water on the moon. It's important to remember that water comes in many forms.

When we talk about water on the moon, we're not talking about lakes or oceans or any body of water that you could jump into and take a swim in or even a puddle you could splash around in. Bethany Elman is a professor of planetary science at Caltech. She's Lunar Trailblazer's principal investigator. She says the water could be in the form of ice or possibly water vapor, or it could be individual water molecules bound to rocks. Lunar Trailblazer will also make detailed maps of where the water is.

Knowing the location and composition of the water is important if future astronauts hope to use it for extended missions to the moon. For NPR News, I'm Joe Palka. Weather forecasters say there's a chance people in the northern U.S. could see the northern lights this New Year's Eve after dark. Sky watchers will have the best chance in areas from Washington state to Maine. The northern lights have already made a few appearances this year in the U.S., streaking the sky with shimmering pinks, blues, and greens. I'm Corva Kuhlmann, NPR News from Washington.