NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-23-2024 10AM EST

Episode Date: November 23, 2024

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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 Giles Snyder. President-elect Donald Trump is rounding out his team of top health officials.

His pick for the next head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was among the series of announcements he made last night. NPR's Pink Wong has more. Dave Weldon is an internal medicine doctor, an Army veteran, and a former Republican congressman from Florida. He's now Trump's pick for head of the CDC, the nation's public health agency. In the announcement posted on Truth Social, Trump described Weldon as a respected conservative leader on fiscal and social issues and someone who will, quote, restore the CDC to its true

purpose and work to end the chronic disease epidemic. Weldon served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2009, where he served on several committees, including Appropriations, Health and Human Services, and Science. He advocated for space research and funding, and he's also known for introducing the so-called Weldon Amendment, which protected anti-abortion healthcare workers and groups from discrimination. Weldon will be the first CDC director nominee to go through the Senate confirmation process. Ping Huang and PR News. In addition to Weldon, Trump also named Dr. Marty McGarry as his choice to lead the Food

and Drug Administration, and he settled on a nominee for Treasury Secretary, the billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Besson. A holiday strike could be in the works at North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Hundreds of service workers are threatening a 24-hour walkout. Dorothy Griffin is among them. We're not treated fairly. We're not paid fairly. We're not respected in our jobs of what we do. And we just want higher, you know, more wages and a little respect. The exact date of a potential strike has not been announced. The workers are employed by the contracting companies, ABM and Prospect.

They're responsible for jobs such as cleaning and sanitizing airplane interiors, removing trash and providing wheelchair escorts. Citing financial and security risks, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is directing all Texas state agencies to divest from China. Houston Public Media's Andrew Schneider says the process is likely to be complicated and could lead to significant financial blowback for the state. In a letter to agency leaders Abbott barred quote making any new investments of state funds in China and ordered them to sell any assets there at the first available opportunity.

Stephen Lewis of Rice University's Baker Institute says that's easier said than done. There isn't the bureaucracy expertise to be able to differentiate what is a Chinese company, what is not a Chinese company, what is an investment, because there's all kinds of joint partnerships, joint ventures. Lewis says such divestment could affect Texas-based companies, among them Tesla and Texas Instruments. China is the third leading destination for foreign direct investment from Texas after Mexico and Canada. I'm Andrew Schneider in Houston.

And this is NPR News. Officials in Beirut say emergency responders are still digging through the rubble of an eight-story building that was destroyed early today by an Israeli airstrike. The Lebanese civil defense says the provisional death toll is at 11 and that the strike in central Beirut injured dozens of others. NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta has met with President-elect Trump, a NATO spokesperson said early today. The two met in Palm Beach, Florida yesterday.

On Tuesday, NATO and Ukraine are to hold emergency talks after Russia used an experimental hypersonic missile in an attack on the central Ukrainian city of Dnieper. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that the attack was retaliation for Ukraine's use of U.S. and British long-range missiles to attack targets inside Russia. Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record high on Friday. NPR's Scott Horsey reports other major stock indexes also gained ground during the week. After a slow start, stocks rallied to close out the week with the Dow climbing more than

400 points on Friday. Computer chip company Nvidia delivered another blockbuster earnings report, powered by strong demand for its artificial intelligence chips. Some of the nation's biggest retailers offered a more nuanced picture. Walmart reported better than expected profits, while rival Target reported disappointing results. Both companies said shoppers are cautious about buying anything beyond essentials. The National Association of Realtors says home sales picked up a bit last month, although rising mortgage rates could pour cold

water on that. Both the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 index rose about 1.7 percent for the week. The Dow jumped nearly 2 percent. Scott Horsley, MPR News, Washington. And I'm Joel Snyder. This is MPR News.