NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-15-2024 11AM EST

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

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This is Ira Glass with This American Life, each week on our show. We choose a theme, tell different stories on that theme. All right, I'm just going to stop right there. You're listening to an NPR podcast, chances are you know our show. So instead, I'm going to tell you, we've just been on a run of really good shows lately. Some big epic emotional stories, some weird funny stuff too. Download us, This American Life. KORVAC-COLMAN Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korva Coleman.

Donald Trump's re-election is raising questions about the U.S. role in global climate change initiatives. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is at the World Climate Summit in Azerbaijan. She says the world will keep shifting to cleaner sources of energy no matter who's in the White House. NPR's Michael Copley has more.

Granholm touted a climate law passed under President Biden called the Inflation Reduction Act that's delivering big investments, including in Republican districts. She also said companies, along with states and cities, will keep taking steps to cut U.S. climate pollution and called on other nations to strengthen their efforts. This is the time to accelerate, to fill that gap that may be left by leadership in the

United States. President-elect Trump says he'll adopt policies to boost U.S. production of fossil fuels, the main source of heat-trapping emissions. And activists expect he'll pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. Michael Copley, NPR News. Investors in the stock market have seen some gains since the election but investors in the bond markets are more worried. NPR's Rafael Nam says bond investors are concerned about President-elect Trump's economic plans. Although Trump has promised to lower inflation, many bond investors believe

he could actually do the opposite. Take tariffs. Trump is proposing a wide range of tariffs and the. imports a lot of things. Tariffs obviously make those things more expensive. Trump also wants to cut taxes. All of that could make the country's finances a lot worse. And they are already pretty bad. The budget deficit in the last fiscal year was $1.8 trillion, the third highest on record. And here's Rafael Nam reporting. The group Human Rights Watch has released a wide-ranging report on the mass displacement of Palestinians in Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. It says Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

NPR's Ruth Sherlock says the report captures how Gazans are being forced to survive in desperate conditions and with little access to food. The Human Rights Watch report says, according to the laws of war, Israel is required to ensure the health, nutrition and safety of the population it displaces in its conflict with Hamas. Israel, though, has dramatically restricted what aid can enter Gaza since the Hamas-led attack last year. The Human Rights Watch report cites Israel as saying these restrictions are necessary to choke off Hamas's military apparatus. But in the ensuing humanitarian crisis, the vast majority of Gazans are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity,

according to the IPC, a classification system by world experts on hunger. Human Rights Watch says children have died from malnutrition and dehydration. Israel denies its using starvation as a weapon and says it's recently increased the number of aid trucks that can cross into Gaza. But aid groups working in Gaza say what's being allowed through is not nearly enough. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News, Tel Aviv. On Wall Street the Dow is down 318 points, the Nasdaq is down 2%. This is NPR. President Biden is attending an international economic summit in Peru. Today he'll meet the leaders of Japan and South Korea.

They'll talk about technology and security cooperation. California fire officials say the mountain fire burning northwest of Los Angeles is more than 90 percent contained. It's destroyed more than 240 buildings, many of them homes. Reporter Susana Canales-Barron tells us local migrant farm workers are having trouble accessing information about recovery work. Ventura County's Mountain Fire recovery meetings have heavily focused on resources for homeowners and businesses, often overlooking renter communities, which include many migrant farmworkers. Carla Villanueva rented a home with multiple generations of her family, including her father, a farmworker. At a recent community meeting, Villanueva noted the absence of migrant farmworker families.

I think it was a miracle that we were notified about this meeting. There isn't a lot of communication within our community, which really needs to be resolved. Despite Spanish interpretation at recent Mountain Fire community meetings, a representative from Ventura County also noted, more needs to be done to help these families. For NPR News, I'm Susana Canales-Baron in Ventura, California. Florida is suing FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and a former FEMA worker. in Ventura, California.