NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-15-2024 9AM EST

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

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Corva Coleman. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autographcollection.com. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. There's reaction to President-elect Donald Trump's announcement that he will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy is an environmental advocate, but NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin says he is also skeptical of vaccines and has spread false information about them. He has some views that are really far out of the mainstream, vaccine skepticism. Current CDC Director Mandy Cohen wrote to NPR yesterday, quote, I don't want to go backwards and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work and so I'm concerned, unquote. The idea of someone who's actively sowed misinformation

about vaccines being in charge of the government's scientific research and public health agencies really horrifies a lot of people in those fields. Danielle Pletka NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin reporting. The former president also says he'll nominate former Georgia Congressman Doug Collins to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. He's also going to select North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as secretary of the Interior Department.

The Republican National Committee is asking Pennsylvania's Supreme Court to stop the counting of certain mail-in ballots from the general election. As MPR's Hansi Leung reports, the request comes amid a statewide recount of Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race. There is a long-running legal debate over whether to count Pennsylvania mail-in ballots that arrive on time but in envelopes without the current date handwritten by the voter. State law requires a date, but it's an open question whether rejecting ballots for not having one violates Pennsylvania's Constitution. Officials in Bucks County, a Philadelphia suburb, decided to count some 400 of what are often called

undated or misdated ballots. The Republican National Committee sued and asked the state's Supreme Court to weigh in. Joining in the lawsuit is David McCormick, the Republican whom the Associated Press has declared the winner of Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race. Two years ago, during a primary recount, McCormick took the opposite position in court, arguing that undated and misstated ballots should be counted. Hansi Lawong, NPR News. Street drug deaths in the U.S. are dropping at the fastest rate ever seen.

A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows roughly 16,000 fewer lives lost in a 12-month period. NPR's Brian Mann has more. Drug deaths driven by fentanyl spiraled upward for years. But that trend suddenly reversed in 2024, and new CDC data show the decline in fatal overdoses is continuing and may even be accelerating. The latest surveys for the 12-month period ending in June show a 14.5 percent drop from a year earlier. Experts say that kind of improvement is unprecedented.

In a statement, Dr. Ruhooghulgupt, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, pointed to better medical care for people in addiction and the spread of the drug overdose medication naloxone, also known as Narcan. This marks the lowest level of fatal overdoses in nearly four years. Brian Mann, NPR News, New York. You're listening to NPR. In California, the City Council of Palm Springs has approved reparations for survivors and descendants of a Black and Indigenous neighborhood burned by the city 60 years ago to help bolster tourism.

From member station KQED, Mari Bolaños reports the settlement involves millions of dollars. Most were there in support of the $5.91 million settlement to about 1,200 survivors and descendants who were pushed out of the neighborhood to make way for luxury tourism in the 1950s and 60s. Pearl Devers grew up in the community known as Section 14 and has pushed for years for reparations from the city. It's been a long journey. It's been a hard fought journey and I'm just happy that we have prevailed." The city also approved an additional $21 million for housing and economic development programs, as well as a day of remembrance to honor survivors and descendants from Section 14. For NPR News, I'm Adi Bolaños in Palm Springs.

Opening statements are set in Athens, Georgia today for a man accused of killing nursing student Laken Riley last February. Jose Ibarra is from Venezuela and illegally entered the U.S. in 2022. The case has drawn national attention over immigration. The National Hurricane Center says tropical storm Sarep is right off the northern coast of Honduras. The rain is very heavy. Forecasters say it's likely to cause flash flooding and mudslides

well into Central America. That's because isolated areas, especially in Honduras, could get up to 30 inches of rain. This is NPR.