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

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

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What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025? We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Johnston. Astronauts on the International Space Station are wishing everyone a Happy New Year as the clock strikes midnight at this hour. Well, Happy New Year from the International Space Station. That was Butch Wilmore.

He's one of the two Boeing astronauts who've been stranded in orbit for months. He says it's not often that you can bring in the New Year more than once. We'll get to go around the planet here every 90 minutes. So we'll get 16 New Year celebrations here on the International Space Station. The United Kingdom and Ireland are welcoming 2025 at this hour with fireworks displays and musical performances.

In New York City, celebrations are underway in Times Square, where more than a million people are expected to gather to watch the crystal ball drop at midnight. President Biden has spoken to the governor of Puerto Rico as the island works to restore power after widespread outages left most of the island in the dark on this New Year's Eve. The White House has offered the U.S. territory federal assistance to fast-track restoration. More than a million Puerto Ricans are without electricity. Kevan Antonio Hidari reports

it could take days to get the lights back on. Puerto Rico's latest outage was caused by a failed underground line which started a cascade in the outdated electrical grid pulverized by Hurricane Maria in 2017. This leads more than one million people, including Roberto Olson, without power and stranded. Lights went out this morning, early this morning. We can't travel anywhere in the island. All of the traffic lights are out. People are resorting to generators, but San Juan's airports and flights are functioning normally.

Energy company Luma says it could take up to three days for full power restoration. For NPR News, I'm Kevan Antonio Hadari. The Biden administration is proposing to protect a stretch of northeast Nevada from energy development for the next 20 years. NPR's Nate Perez reports. The move would protect nearly 300,000 acres of Nevada's Ruby Mountains from future oil, gas, and geothermal drilling. The region is popular for fishing and bird watching. And it's the ancestral homeland of the Tamoac tribe of Western Shoshone Indians who had

requested the protection. The Biden administration has made several announcements protecting public land since the November election. President-elect Donald Trump could reverse many of the announcements once he's in office. For now, the announcement protects the land from fossil fuel extraction for two years, and it opens a 90-day window for public comment. But some environmentalists were not satisfied. In a statement, the Center for Biological Diversity called the protections incomplete, pointing out it does not ban gold mining. Nate Perez, NPR News.

This is NPR News in Washington. Medicare recipients are about to save a big chunk of money at the pharmacy counter. Starting January 1, there will be a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug spending. The provision was part of the inflation reduction act signed by President Biden in 2022. The White House estimates an estimated 19 million seniors and people with disabilities will save an average of $400 per year. Every year, scientists describe thousands of new species, and 2024 was no different. NPR's Jonathan Lambert highlights some notable critters added to the scientific record this year.

In Australia, a biologist discovered a fluffy longhorn beetle covered in spindly white hairs. Researchers in Madagascar described an orchid with a foot-long nectar spur, and divers in Japan discovered a new species of sea squirt that looks like a panda bear wearing a skeleton Halloween costume. There is even a frog who lives its whole life in a tree leaf. Many of these new species are relatively rare, and amid the planet's ongoing biodiversity crisis, researchers are racing to describe them before it's too late. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News.

Health officials say bird flu is infecting more dairy herds, mainly in California. More than 65 people have caught the virus in the U.S. over the past year, but researchers say the risk of catching the virus remains low for most of the public. Almost all the human cases of bird flu have occurred after someone had close contact with infected animals. This is NPR News.