NPR News: 01-23-2026 12PM EST
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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. A powerful winter storm is having an unusual impact. It is affecting up to half of the U.S. population. Officials from at least a dozen states have declared states of emergency, from Texas to New York. NPR's Amy Held reports power outages could be widespread and long-lasting.
It's been quite a while since we've had a storm of this magnitude impacting such a large portion of the population.
Meteorologist Frank Pereira points to a trio of hazards. Snow, topping a foot in parts, ice, enough to snap tree limbs and power lines, and deep cold. Philip Jones is with the Nashville Department of Transportation.
The ice is a lot more treacherous. We'll have different emergencies to deal with.
Jacqueline Thorpe in North Carolina worries for her husband, whom she says needs access to life-saving care.
I pray that the power don't go out, and I'm praying that they have some type of emergency assistance where they can come because he cannot go without dialysis.
Even before the worst of it, airlines had already canceled hundreds of flights. Amy Held, NPR News.
Minnesotans opposed to sweeping immigration and customs enforcement operations in their state are mobilizing a day of mass protests under frigid temperatures. Clergy, labor unions, grassroots organizers and many businesses opting to close are describing today's action as an economic blackout. They're urging Minnesotans to refrain from shopping, working or going to school. The twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have become a national symbol of state and local level resistance to the Trump administration's approach to illegal immigration. Federal immigration officials are disputing reports today that agents targeted a five-year-old who was with his father, suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
Marcus Charles, acting executive associate director with ICE, released this account today.
Arias fled from law enforcement on foot, abandoning his child in the middle of winter in a vehicle. One of our officers stayed behind with that child while other officers apprehended his father. After conducting the arrest, my officers stayed with the child. They cared for him, took him to get something to eat from a drive-thru restaurant, and spent hours ensuring he was taken care of.
Charles says the child has not been separated from his father. Local school officials said the five-year-old was among four minors recently detained in Minnesota. All right, March for Life, now you know the chorus. Sing it loud with me. People are gathering for March for Life demonstrations in the nation's capital this afternoon. Vice President J.D. Vance is among the prominent figures expected to speak at the event opposing abortion rights. At last check on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 227 points at 49,156. This is NPR News. A new study shows nearly 60% of consumer spending in the U.S. comes from the wealthiest 20% of Americans. NPR's Windsor Johnston reports.
Those earning more than $175,000 a year are fueling most of the economy. Economist Mark Zandi says that leaves growth heavily dependent on a small slice of the population.
The fact that the wealthy do are taking a much larger share of the spending pie has near-term implications, but also longer-term implications. I do think it goes to some of our societal ills around things like crime or homelessness. I think it also contributes to our kind of fractured politics.
Zandi says companies are catering to the wealthy while trying to keep prices down for everyone else. But he warns the growing divide in spending power could deepen political dysfunction and make it harder to solve the nation's biggest problems. Windsor Johnston, NPR News, Washington.
Well, stocks opened lower this morning as natural gas prices backtracked from a winter spike. So far, we're now seeing the Dow is down 249 points with the S&P and Nasdaq slightly up. Here's NPR's Scott Horsley.
Stock in Intel fell after the chipmaker issued a cautious sales forecast. Intel's enjoying strong demand for its computer chips thanks to the artificial intelligence boom, but the company says supply constraints are making it hard to keep up.
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