CNN 5 Things

From CNN, I'm Ifeoma Dike with the five things you need to know for Friday, December 20th. The House has passed the GOP's latest proposal to avoid a shutdown hours before a midnight deadline. 34 Republicans voted against it. The short term bill, which now goes to the Senate before President Joe Biden signed it into law, would keep the government funded into March. It includes disaster relief and farming provisions, but does not suspend the debt limit, which President elect Donald Trump has been demanding.

Authorities say a car plowed into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, killing an adult and toddler and injuring dozens more. According to the regional prime minister, local emergency services are calling the incident an attack. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has more.

We know that the driver is currently in custody. We know that the vehicle that was used was a black BMW that raced into that crowd. And, of course, we saw that devastating video of the crowd just barreling through the Christmas market. The latest that we have is that apparently this incident started around 7 p.m. And one of the things that we have to point out is that this is a very large Christmas market by the standards of German Christmas markets. You mentioned that it has an ice rink. It has a Ferris wheel. It is also right at the city hall of the city of Magdeburg, which is a substantially sized city in the capital of that German state as well. So this Christmas market is very large, and at this point in time would have also been very full.

The U.S. has removed the longstanding $10 million bounty on the de facto leader of Syria. The news came after a meeting between the U.S. delegation and Ahmed al Sharon, the leader of the U.S. designated terror group agents. CNN's Alex Marquardt explains.

And we just heard from Barbara Leaf, who's the top Middle East official for the State Department. She said that they had a lengthy, productive, interesting meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Damascus. She said that she found him pragmatic and moderate in his answers when it came to the things that the U.S. is concerned about, a representative government, one that respects the rights of minorities, women and different sects. She said overall, it was very positive, but at the end of the day, it's going to be the deeds, what he actually does. And so this was the first step in an ongoing conversation.

'The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is suing JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo for accusing them of failing to prevent fraud on Zelle. The agency estimates the bank's customers have lost more than $870 million since Zelle, a peer to peer payment network, launched seven years ago. The three largest banks in the U.S. co-own Zelle, along with four other U.S. banks. The suit alleges that the banks failed to stop transfers when there were indications of fraud and failed to protect its own account owners from using Zelle to perpetuate fraud. CFPB noted that the customers who thought fraud complaints were largely denied assistance. The bureau also said the banks didn't properly investigate complaints or give consumers, quote, legally required reimbursement for fraud and errors. Zelle operator Early Warning Services called the suit, quote, meritless. Coming up, what does healthy even mean?

Hey, welcome back. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finalized new standards that foods must meet before they can be labeled as healthy. CNN's Deidre McPhillips explains.

Hi, Ifeoma. So this is the first time in 30 years that these standards have been updated. And the FDA says that the changes can help consumers make better food choices that align with the latest science on nutrition. The new requirements include limits on saturated fat, sodium and added sugars. Things that are often too high in the typical American diet. So foods like white bread and sugary yogurt may no longer qualify, but you might soon see a healthy label on foods like nuts and seeds, salmon and olive oil, as well as some peanut butters.

That's all for now. But just a heads up that for the next two weeks we'll be running a slightly shorter schedule with just two episodes a day. And be sure to tune in tomorrow for a new episode of Five Good Things.