NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-17-2024 12AM EST

Episode Date: November 17, 2024

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. President-elect Donald Trump has named the CEO of a fracking company as his pick for Secretary of Energy, as NPR's Julia Simon reports. Chris Wright has said he doesn't think the world needs to transition away from fossil fuels. Wright, the CEO of Liberty Energy, has said publicly that there is no climate crisis. Here he is on a video on LinkedIn. The only thing resembling a crisis with respect to climate change is the regressive opportunity squelching policies justified in the name of climate change. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change is primarily caused by humans burning oil, coal, and gas.

Scientists link more intense heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding to global warming. Under President Biden, the Department of Energy has pushed to move the U.S. economy towards less polluting energy sources like solar, wind, and large-scale batteries. Environmental groups think Wright, as the leader of this department, means the U.S. will invest less in climate solutions. Julia Simon, NPR News. Trump said this week that he'll nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health

and Human Services. As a presidential candidate, Kennedy had campaigned for a focus on what he called Make America Healthy Again. NPR's Will Stone tells us what that could mean under a Trump administration. Kennedy and Trump have said that their central mandate is to reverse the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S. And we're talking about diabetes, heart disease. These are the leading causes of death.

They're tied to diet, physical activity, and other lifestyle factors. And to achieve this ambitious goal, supporters of this maha movement have set their sights on big food and big pharma. You know, these are industries that they say use their influence over government to push policies that undermine the country's health. That's NPR's Will Stone. A wildfire on the New York- New Jersey border that had been 90% contained spread again tonight. It was pushed by dry conditions and heavy winds. Officials say roughly 165 homes were voluntarily evacuated because of fire danger in the town of Warwick, New York. NPR's Brian Mann reports.

More than 300 volunteer crew members led by New York State forest rangers battled the blaze Saturday. An official said it appeared to be under control until heavy winds caused the fire to escape containment. Local law enforcement helped evacuate homes in the threatened neighborhood of Warwick. In a statement, New York State officials said units will continue fighting the fire near the homes into Sunday morning. Crews from as far away as Montana, along with National Guard are helping with the effort. The Northeast is experiencing a historic drought, with only

a smattering of rain in recent weeks. Many states have instituted outdoor burning bans. Brian Mann, NPR News, New York. A walkout by hundreds of hospitality workers at a casino in Las Vegas wrapped up its second day on Saturday. The strike at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas is the first open-ended strike in the city by the Culinary Workers Union in the past 22 years. Both sides say that talks have stalled because of disagreements over pay. You're listening to NPR News. The ancient English folk dance form Morris dancing is undergoing a renaissance after being rediscovered and reinvented by a new demographic.

Vicki Barker reports from London. Meet the Mali Nomades, a troupe of young, gender non-conforming drag kings who represent the changing face of Morris dancing. The folk tradition had been dying out with fewer white men interested in festooning their shins and shoes with bells and waving sticks, swords or handkerchiefs around in choreographed moves outside their local pub. But a new generation's been drawn to the elasticity of Morris dancing which has always allowed for local variations. The Morris census shows women form the

majority of Morris dancers for the first time ever and the proportion of non-white, non-binary or LGBTQ members is growing fast. For NPR News, I'm Vicki Barker in London. McDonald's is spending 100 million dollars to bring customers back to its stores after an outbreak of E. coli linked to onions on one of its burgers damaged sales earlier this year. The investments will include 65 million dollars that's going directly to the hardest hit franchises. At least 104 people got sick from the outbreak and at least 34 of them were hospitalized. Tropical Storm Sarah is starting to move a little faster after it had stalled over Honduras this week. It's drenched the northern coast of that Central American country where major flooding has isolated entire communities.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami, Sissere will move into the Gulf of Honduras before making landfall in Belize. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.