NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-23-2024 7AM 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 tapped former Texas State Representative Scott Turner as his choice to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Turner worked on economic development in Trump's first term as NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports. Turner spent nine years in the NFL before entering politics. In 2019, Trump appointed him to lead a council tasked with turning around distressed communities that included steering billions in private investment to so-called opportunity zones, places struggling with high unemployment and rundown housing. The effort won bipartisan praise, though critics suggested the wealthy investors getting tax breaks saw more benefit than local residents. In his first term, Trump targeted the housing agency HUD for deep budget cuts.

Congress pushed back, but the conservative agenda, Project 2025, again calls for limiting housing aid and shrinking HUD's role. Jennifer Ludden and Peer News. Trump announced a flurry of cabinet picks and choices for other high ranking administration posts last night, among them, billionaire hedge fund News. Trump announced a flurry of cabinet picks and choices for other high-ranking administration posts last night, among them, billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Besson for Treasury Secretary and outgoing Oregon Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez de Riemmer for Labor Secretary. A judge in New York City has indefinitely postponed Donald Trump's sentencing in his

criminal hush money case. Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in May and Piers Windsor-Johnston. The sentencing hearing was scheduled to be held next week as Trump's attorneys continue their push to dismiss the case altogether. The judge has also given Trump's legal team until December 2nd to file a motion to throw out the conviction, but the Manhattan District Attorney's Office says it will oppose the request. A jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to an adult film star ahead

of the 2016 election. NPR's Windsor Johnston reporting, Amazon says it's investing another $4 billion into the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. The move comes amid the ongoing battle to lead the AI future in Silicon Valley, as NPR's Bobby Allen reports. Amazon's big bet on AI startup Anthropic doubles its investment in the company. Its language model, Claude, competes with ChatGPT from rival company OpenAI, and the race is on.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Amazon-backed Anthropic and Elon Musk's XAI, with support from Google, are locked in an AI standoff. The money pouring into AI ventures is fueling a search for the next chat GPT, an AI-powered commercial product with mass appeal. Much of the big tech investment allows AI startups to access what's called compute, or the immense amount of power it takes to run AI systems. It all comes as regulators in Washington probe into leading AI companies, scrutiny that may diminish when President-elect Donald Trump enters office in January. Bobby Allen, NPR News. And you're listening to NPR News. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has met with President-elect Trump. A NATO spokesperson said early today the two met in Palm Beach, Florida, Friday.

On Tuesday, NATO and Ukraine are to hold emergency talks after Russia used an experimental hypersonic ballistic 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. Negotiators at the U.N. climate talks in Azerbaijan under pressure to reach a deal on funding for developing nations to adapt to climate change. The talks scheduled to end yesterday, but they've gone into overtime. Rapper Kendrick Lamar has had a big year, and now he's topping it off with a newly released album,

as NPR's Isabella Gomez-Serviento reports. Kendrick Lamar is on a roll. In May, he was unofficially crowned the winner of an ongoing rap battle with Drake. His diss track, Not Like Us, topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart not once, but twice. He set the headline next year's Super Bowl halftime show, and earlier this month, he racked up more than half a dozen Grammy nominations.

Now, he's dropping his sixth album, GNX, without warning. The new album follows two highly acclaimed records from Lamar, 2022's Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers and 2017's Damn, which won a Pulitzer Prize for music. GNX features performances from SZA and Deira Barrera. Producers include Jack Cantanoff and Kamasi Washington. Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, NPR News. And this is NPR News.