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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Happy New Year!
Chapter 2: What goals should you set for the new year in 2026?
Want to set goals that you'll actually stick to in 2026? You want to accept yourself and the situation you're in, but you also want to expect more from yourself and say, what are the ways that I can grow? This week, how to design and plan your year on the Life Kit podcast. Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Duahli Saikautau. Over half of the U.S. could be affected by a major winter storm this weekend. Forecasters say the system is expected to move through 34 states, from the Southern Plains to the South and up the Northeast. In New York City, New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani says as the storm nears,
Thousands of trucks with agency partners will be transformed into the nation's largest snow fighting operation.
We are going to see more than 2,000 of those sanitation workers begin 12-hour shifts starting tomorrow evening. They will salt as soon as we see the first snowflakes hit the ground with 700 salt spreaders. And then as soon as we see two inches of snow accumulate, we're going to see 2,200 plows activate across the city.
The National Weather Service is forecasting 6 to 12 inches of snowfall from Sunday into Monday morning. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is abruptly halting the termination of federal disaster workers, as NPR's Lauren Summitt reports.
FEMA relies on thousands of disaster workers to respond on the ground when storms and wildfires hit. Those workers are on two- or four-year contracts, which generally are renewed. Recently, FEMA has been terminating employees whose contracts are up, something disaster response experts say could hurt the agency's ability to respond.
On Thursday, FEMA abruptly stopped that policy, according to an internal email obtained by NPR. The Trump administration has been critical of FEMA and is working to overhaul the agency. In a statement to NPR, FEMA says its disaster workforce is designed to fluctuate, but did not respond to questions about whether the termination policy would be reinstated after the winter storm.
Lauren Sommer, NPR News.
In Minnesota, about 100 members of clergy were arrested while demanding that Delta and other airlines stop cooperating with federal immigration agents at Minneapolis-St.
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Chapter 3: How will a major winter storm impact the U.S. this weekend?
Paul International Airport Friday morning. Separately, a coalition of 100 groups, including labor unions, child care workers, and hundreds of businesses closed to oppose the surge of ICE operations in the state, NPR's Meg Anderson reports thousands marched despite extreme sub-zero temperatures.
Organizers of the protests and economic blackout are demanding that immigration officers leave the state. For more than two weeks, people in the Twin Cities have been on edge as officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, escalate aggressive tactics against Minnesotans. Martha Bardwell, a Minneapolis pastor, is participating in the day's events.
Minnesota with this ice surge. Thousands of agents are terrorizing our communities.
Community members have also been coordinating a massive network of resistance, delivering food to people afraid to leave their homes, standing guard outside schools, and loudly alerting the neighborhood when federal agents are nearby. Meg Anderson, NPR News.
This is NPR. Civil rights organizations in Mississippi have filed a lawsuit against the Rankin County District Attorney, an office at the center of the, quote, goon squad scandal, where black men were viciously abused at the hands of local sheriff deputies over the course of two decades. Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Shamira Muhammad reports.
Attorneys for the ACLU of Mississippi and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed the lawsuit after unsuccessfully requesting public records last summer. Corbin Felder, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, says convicted members of the goon squad have admitted to warrantless raids and violating constitutional rights, including those of people later convicted of crimes.
I think the important thing to keep at the forefront is that there are real victims, people who are still incarcerated in Mississippi Department of Corrections custody, or people who are living with the consequences of criminal convictions. They deserve some level of transparency.
The Rankin County District Attorney's Office declined to comment. For NPR News, I'm Shamir Mohamed in Jackson, Mississippi.
The TikTok video app, used by more than 200 million Americans, has new non-Chinese investors. Allies of President Trump, billionaire Michael Dell, Larry Ellison of tech giant Oracle, and MGX, an Emirati investment firm. The Chinese owner, ByteDance, agreed to let these new owners create a U.S. TikTok to avoid a permanent ban by Congress with new, defined safeguards in Oracle's cloud environment.
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