NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-19-2024 3AM EST

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

NPR News: 11-19-2024 3AM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Live from MPR News in Washington, I'm Shea Stevens. A lawyer representing two women who testified before a House committee that investigated now former Congressman Matt Gaetz is sharing more details about his client's accusations. Attorney Joel Leppard is speaking out after President-elect Donald Trump tapped Gaetz to become U.S. Attorney General. NPR's Ryan Lucas has more. Ryan Lucas Pressure has been building on that front for a long time now. And that's despite the fact that Gates resigned from Congress

after Trump picked him for attorney general, which effectively ended the committee's investigation. Now, Leopard is speaking out at this point, he says, to protect his clients. He says these investigations have taken a toll on them. He said his clients are not politically minded people, but they're worried about their own well-being and about potentially having to testify about this again.

NPR's Ryan Lucas. The hush money case against President-elect Trump returns to a New York courtroom today. A judge is to decide what happens next now that Trump is returning to the White House. More from NPR's Giles Snyder. New York Judge Juan Murchon is deciding how to proceed following Donald Trump's election victory. He had been expected to rule last week on whether the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity applies to the case. But now that Trump is president-elect, Murchon effectively froze the proceedings to give prosecutors time to consider next steps. This is a case in which Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records

in an effort to hide hush money payments to an adult film star before the 2016 election. Trump's lawyers say it should be dismissed, arguing it would cause unconstitutional impediments to Trump's ability to govern. Trial Snider, NPR News. The Biden administration is imposing sanctions on an Israeli settler organization. It's also speaking out against Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank. But President-elect Trump is appointing officials who support the settlements, as NPR's Michelle Kelliman reports. At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield says that proposals to annex the West Bank or build

settlements in Gaza, in her words, sow the seeds of further instability and create new obstacles to the full integration of Israel into the region. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller is announcing new targeted sanctions on several individuals and companies, including Amana, which he says is the largest organization involved in settlement development in the West Bank. That policy could be reversed next year, though. The previous Trump administration did not consider Israeli settlements illegal as the Biden administration does.

Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department. The Kremlin is warning against allowing Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike targets inside Russia. President Biden announced Sunday that he had authorized Ukraine's use of Army tactical missile systems to defend its forces in the Kursk region. This is NPR. The City Council in Palm Springs, California, has approved a nearly $6 million agreement to compensate Black and Latino families displaced

during the 1950s and 60s. The money will go to those from a neighborhood called Section 14, a community that was destroyed by fire and demolition to make way for urban renewal. The Palm Springs Council also approved $20 million in funding for housing programs and the creation of a monument.

Budget carrier Spirit Airlines has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Spirit says customers should not see any disruption to service as it works to restructure the company. Travel expert Arthur Fromer died on Monday in his home in New York City of complications from pneumonia. He was 95 years old. Fromer died on Monday in his home in New York City of complications from pneumonia. He was 95 years old. Fromer popularized the idea of budget traveling, as Jeff London reports from New York.

Pauly Arthur Fromer trained as a lawyer. But even as he practiced at a white shoe firm in New York City, he traveled to Europe every year and wrote and self-published Europe on $5 a day in 1957. It was an immediate success right at the time that transatlantic jet travel began. Fromer went on to establish an empire devoted to budget traveling, publishing guidebooks, which have sold 75 million copies to date, tore packages in a website.

He stayed active in the business until the pandemic. For NPR News, I'm Jeff London in New York. U.S. futures are flat in after-hours trading on Wall Street. This is NPR News.