NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-18-2024 2PM EST

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

NPR News: 11-18-2024 2PM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Aisha Harris from Pop Culture Happy Hour. If you love NPR podcasts, you'll want the new NPR Plus podcast bundle. Enjoy an all-you-can-eat selection of NPR Plus podcasts with sponsor-free listening and bonus episodes. Plus, you'll be supporting public radio. Check it out at plus.npr.org. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Biden is requesting more than $98 billion in emergency funding from Congress. NPR's Frank Ordonies reports the money is to help address a series of natural disasters. The money is being directed to 16 different agencies, including the Agriculture Department

and Housing and Urban Development, to help repair housing and rebuild infrastructure. Since the last disaster package Congress passed two years ago, Shalonda Young, the Director of Office of Management and Budget, says hurricanes Helene and Milton have torn through the southeast, killing hundreds of people. It is absolutely critical that these communities know that their government has not forgotten them. The biggest amount, about 40 billion dollars, would be for the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund so that it has enough money to last through the coming year. Franco Ordonez and PR News. A New York judge is postponing Steve Bannon's upcoming trial on state

charges from December to February 25th, more than a month after President-elect Trump is set to be sworn in. Bannon, a White House adviser during Trump's first term, is accused of conspiring to cheat donors to build a border wall. The number of lives lost to fentanyl and other street drugs may be dropping, but it's still high. They kill nearly 100,000 people in the U.S. every year. NPR's Brian Mann reports on how the incoming administration has pledged to address the crisis of opioid addictions

and deaths. Over the last four years, we saw the Biden administration really shift the fentanyl street drug response to a public health model. That means a lot more treatment and better medications. Donald Trump's focus during the campaign was very different, a big pivot. He talked almost exclusively about cracking down on fentanyl traffickers and dealers securing the border. NPR's Brian Mann reporting. UN agencies say more than 100 trucks of food in Gaza were looted over the weekend in one of the worst incidents of its kind in more than a year of war.

There was no immediate comment from Israel's military. NPR's Aya Batraoui reports the UN World Food Program says it is assessing its future operations in the Gaza Strip. The WFP and another UN agency, UNRWA, told NPR the convoy of food supplies was supposed to enter southern Gaza on Sunday but that it was instructed by Israel's military on short notice to enter a day earlier through a quote alternate unfamiliar route. They say looters injured the drivers and extensively damaged the trucks. The attack highlights a key challenge in delivering food to Gaza's starving population as Israel

frequently attacks police there, deeming them part of Hamas. The UN says out of eight bakeries in central and southern Gaza where most people are displaced, half shut down in recent days with the remaining four critically low on flour. Eyal Batraoui, NPR News. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 51 points, the S&P has risen 24, and the NASDAQ is up 117 points. It's NPR News. Spirit Airlines has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after years of debilitating financial

losses and two failed merger attempts with JetBlue and Frontier. But CEO Ted Christie says in a message to customers today, they can still book and fly with Spirit as usual. Housekeepers, bartenders, bellhops, and other people employed to make a person's hotel stay more comfortable are on strike in Vegas. It's now been three days since members of the Culinary Workers Union started picketing outside Virgin Hotels Las Vegas to demand more pay and other increases in a new labor contract. The walkout is taking place a week before Auto Racing returns to the Strip for the second annual

Las Vegas Grand Prix. The action comedy Red One led at the box office this weekend but with disappointing ticket sales. Does that mean it's a success? And Pierce Bob Mandello explains. Santa got kidnapped, someone took Nick, and audiences didn't seem to care. Red One, which stars Dwayne the Rock, Johnson, cost about 250 million dollars to make but only took in 34 million at the box office this weekend. There's worse ways to go out than trying to save Santa Claus. That's not enough to dollars to make, but only took in $34 million at the box office this weekend. That's not enough to turn a profit. But does that matter to Amazon, which originally commissioned the film for streaming and only

decided later to put it in cinemas? Industry observers say that if the company makes back Red One's advertising costs, it comes out ahead, since the theatrical run will prime audiences to watch it on Amazon Prime. It's actually a strong opening for a movie produced by a streamer, topping Apple's equally expensive, though much more prestigious, Killers of the Flower Moon. Bob Mandelo, NPR News. You're listening to NPR.