NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-20-2024 3PM EST

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

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Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail and beyond. We don't just want to tell you what happened, we tell you why it matters. Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand the world through political eyes. Lyle from NPR News in Washington. I'm Lakshmi Singh. The House Ethics Committee is weighing whether to release a report on sex trafficking and illicit drug use allegations against former Congressman Matt Gaetz. Gaetz, President-elect Trump's nominee for Attorney General, began meeting with Senate Republicans today ahead of the confirmation process. Senator Kevin Kramer told CNN that it surprised him a little bit that during a recent trip with President-elect

Trump, the Gates matter was barely discussed. Which tells me something about either the credibility of the testimony or not enough. For some reason, the FBI looked into all of this and decided not to move forward. Vice President-elect J.elect JD Vance accompanied Gates on Capitol Hill to help build support for Trump's nominee. Trump has floated the idea of using recess appointments to quickly stock his administration. And Piers Windsor-Johnson reports the clause would allow Trump to bypass the Senate when it comes to confirming his nominees, especially his picks that are seen as controversial.

Recess appointments allow the president to put nominees in place while the Senate is adjourned. It's a loophole in the Constitution that dates back more than 200 years when it took members of Congress days to travel to the Capitol. Justin Crowe, a political science professor at Williams College, says the maneuver will test Trump's grip on Senate Republicans. He's trying to give himself an alternate route to getting some of these people into office. The other thing I suspect he's doing here is testing the fealty of the Senate, testing

just how much Senate Republicans are going to yield. Recess appointments are not meant to be permanent. The appointee's term would expire at the end of the next congressional session. Windsor-Johnston, NPR News, Washington. In a sign of the growing hunger crisis in southern Gaza, where some two million Palestinians are displaced, there's now just three working bakeries. NPR's Aya Batraoui reports the additional five in the area shut down because there's

no flour or fuel. Thousands of men, women and children stand outside the only functioning bakery in Gaza city of Khan Younis. It's early morning, but many have been standing here since 2 a.m. for a bag with a few loaves of pita bread. This is the staple of their one meal today. NPR producer Anas Baba spoke to some women in the starving crowd. They say they're feeding their own children and orphans now in their care after Israeli airstrikes killed their parents. Anjad Al-Barbaq stands in the crowd, exhausted, pushing and shoving for bread to feed her

six kids, pleading for the world to show mercy. Aid groups are calling on Israel to let more food into Gaza and secure the aid routes from looting by armed gangs. Israel denies its restricting aid. Ayah Batraoui, NPR News, Dubai, with reporting by Anas Baba in Gaza. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 54 points at 43,214. You're listening to NPR News. The U.S. and other Western embassies in the Ukrainian capital are closed for the day because of the threat of a significant Russian air attack. The State Department is telling its personnel in Kiev to shelter in place.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration says it plans to send anti-personnel mines for use in eastern Ukraine to slow the advance of Russian forces. In another shift in longstanding policy, President Biden recently took the unprecedented step of allowing Ukraine to fire U.S.-made long-range missiles on targets inside Russia. A closer look at the shell of a kind of mollusk has revealed its architecture in detail. Science reporter Ari Daniels says the design allows the animal to channel sunlight inwards. The mollusk in question is a clam-like creature called a heart cockle. Heart because they look like a heart shape. Some of the shells they look like stained glass windows.

Dakota McCoy is a biologist at the University of Chicago. She and her colleagues found that tiny windows in the shells stream sunlight into their interiors, which the algae that live inside use to photosynthesize. McCoy observed that the mineral crystals of the shell are organized into long, super-narrow fibers, similar to fiber optic cables. She says the shell could inspire designs for cameras with minuscule lenses and improve current fiber optic cable technology. For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel.