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Episode Date: November 21, 2024

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This message comes from Wondery. Some of the craziest conspiracy theories are actually classified government operations. To hear more about these hidden truths, listen to redacted, declassified mysteries with Luke Lamanna on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President-elect Trump's nominee for Attorney General Matt Gaetz says he is withdrawing his name from consideration. He wrote on X that his confirmation was, quote, unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump-Vance transition, end quote. The prospect of Gaetz's Attorney General robbed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The former congressman, who resigned his seat after being tapped for AG,

was the subject of a House ethics investigation into alleged sex trafficking and illicit drug use, which he has denied. The findings of the ethics report have not been released and as NPR's Susan Davis reports, the pressure to make it public was mounting. You had senators like John Cornyn of Texas and others saying that the Senate should have should be able to have access to that report. There was questions about whether a member could ultimately leak it, whether the public had a right to know. That question was not going to go away.

NPR's Susan Davis. US envoy Amos Hoekstein met today with Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about ending the fight in southern Lebanon. Here's NPR Scott Newman. Hoekstein met Thursday afternoon with Netanyahu and later with the newly appointed defense minister, Israel Katz, and the chief of staff of Israel's military, Herzy Halevi. Neither Hoxstein nor Israeli officials

briefed media on details of the talks. Hoxstein, after meetings in Lebanon earlier this week, said he had made quote, substantial progress toward a ceasefire agreement. Seven weeks ago, Israeli ground forces invaded south Lebanon where the Iran-backed militant group is based. Since September, Israel has also launched a series of targeted airstrikes to kill Hezbollah's leadership. Scott Newman, NPR News, Tel Aviv. Today the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Galat, and Hamas military chief, Mohammed Dave, whom Israel said he

killed in July for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. If you are a student hoping to enroll in college next year, you can now fill out the FAFSA form. The financial aid application helps millions of students unlock money to help pay for higher education. NPR's Janaki Mehta has more. JANAKI MEHTA, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's

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Mehta, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's Janaki Mehta, NPR's Jan Cristina Martinez, a financial aid advisor at California State University, Los Angeles. She's been helping dozens of students fill out the form and say things are going smoothly so far. On average, she says it's taking students 20 minutes to finish the form. Financial aid experts are getting similarly positive reviews from around the country. The Department of Education says it's fixed glitches from the last cycle and increased its call center volume by almost 80% since January to prepare for the surge of applications

that will start rolling in today. Janaki Mehta, NPR News. This is NPR. Casino workers and other activists pushing for smoke-free gambling halls protested today outside a hotel where New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy was scheduled to speak. They've been arguing that the tobacco smoke has made them or their colleagues sick. Murphy, a Democrat, says he's willing to sign a bill to end smoking inside Atlantic City's casinos, but so far, the effort remains stalled in the state legislature.

A new study in the journal Nature reveals that people who were in its sample preferred poems that were written by artificial intelligence over poems that were written by human beings. NPR's Neda Ulibi reports a study from the University of Pittsburgh used work by 10 famous writers. Here is NPR's Scott Simon reading a poem about the Mississippi River. I do not know much about gods, but I think that the river is a strong brown god, sullen, untamed, and intractable. That's by T.S.

Eliot, one of the writers used in the study along with William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Emily Dickinson. The study found that not only did people have a hard time distinguishing AI poetry from the work of these canonical writers, they preferred the work of AI, and tended to think it was human-authored. The researchers said the simplicity of AI-generated poetry might be easier for readers today to understand. Complex language in the poems was misinterpreted by some as

A.I. incoherence. Neda Ulibi, NPR News. I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News in Washington.