NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-23-2024 6AM EST

Episode Date: November 23, 2024

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Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autographcollection.com. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. President-elect Donald Trump has settled on a nominee to lead the Treasury Department. Among a flurry of picks for his cabinet

and other high-ranking administration posts last night, Trump said he has chosen Scott Besant as his choice for Treasury Secretary. NPR's Scott Horsley reports. He's one of the President-elect's biggest cheerleaders in the financial world. He runs a hedge fund, the Key Square Group. He also worked for billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, which generated suspicion

of him in some Trump quarters, but he's a longtime friend of Vice President-elect JD Vance. In a social media post, Trump described Besant as widely respected as one of the world's foremost international investors and geopolitical and economic strategists. Trump is also named Russell Vogt to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a position he held during Trump's first term. For Labor Secretary, Trump chose outgoing Oregon Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez de Riemer, and former football player Scott Turner as Trump's choice for Housing Secretary. Trump has made his pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration.

NPR's Will Stone reports on his choice of Johns Hopkins surgeon Marty McCary for FDA Commissioner. McCary is a surgical oncologist who worked with the first Trump administration and had been floated as a likely candidate for the top job at FDA. A frequent guest on Fox News, McCary has authored several books and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He gained visibility for his writing and research on the high cost of health care and medical errors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he also emerged as a vocal critic of certain aspects of the federal government's public health response, including vaccine mandates. More recently, he has

indicated his support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, and his focus on addressing what he calls the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S. Will Stone, NPR News. And unusually early, winter storm blanketed parts of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. Reporter Bruce Convizer is in New Jersey where snow accumulations topped expectations.

The storm blanketed the northern part of New Jersey with up to 20 inches falling on High Point State Park. At an elevation of 1,800 feet, it's the highest point in the state. Wet and heavy snow snapped utility lines causing scattered power outages and some schools were forced to close yesterday. The rest of New Jersey got a drenching rain. That's welcome news in an area where little rain has fallen over the past two months. Reservoirs have shrunk to worryingly low levels and wildfires have been on the march.

One blaze that has now been extinguished torched more than 5,000 acres along the New Jersey-New York border over the past two weeks. For NPR News, I'm Bruce Confiser in Greenbrook, New Jersey. National Weather Service says it expects that atmospheric river storm that's been battering the West Coast to wind down today over northern and central California, but before it does, forecasters say the storm will produce heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada. 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 fourth in the Lebanese capital, in less than a week. The Lebanese civil defense says the provisional death toll is at 11 and that the strike in central Beirut injured dozens of others. A federal jury in Minnesota has convicted two Florida men in a human smuggling case that resulted in a family from India freezing to death. Minnesota Public Radio's Matthew Holdingegel III reports. Jures took only about an hour to convict defendants Harshkumar Patel and Steve Shand on four counts

of conspiracy and profiting from human smuggling. During the trial, prosecutors outlined how the two were part of a larger operation that flew people from Gujarat in India to Canada on student visas, then took them to the Manitoba border so they could walk into the U.S. through Minnesota. On the night of January 19, 2022, a family of four, including children aged 11 and 3, froze to death trying to make the walk in a snowstorm. After the verdict, Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew Lugar described the defendants' actions leading to the deaths as a moral depravity. Sentencing is set for March. For NPR News, I'm Matthew Holding Eagle III. Singer Arlo Guthrie has announced the death of longtime friend Alice Brock.

She inspired Guthrie's signature song, Alice's Restaurant, a Thanksgiving standard. Guthrie announced Brock's death on the Facebook page of his record company. She was 83 years old. I'm Joel Snyder. This is NPR News.