NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-24-2024 12PM EST
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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Noor Ram.
President-elect Trump has now announced all his choices for his cabinet in his second
administration.
Some senators are weighing in today on some of the nominees.
Democrat Tammy Duckworth from Illinois says Pete Hegseth, an Army veteran and Fox News
anchor, should not be the secretary of the Department of Defense.
He never commanded a unit.
He never commanded a company, let alone battalions, brigades or whole armies.
He was a platoon leader.
He served at a very low level in the military.
And we're talking about an organization that is three million servicemen and women and
civilians and a budget of over $900 billion.
He does not have the experience to run an organization of that size.
Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma defended Hegseth and other choices made by the president-elect. Government has been working for a party not for the people and President Trump is
putting people there that's going to make changes and unfortunately the establishment is trying to
hold that back and trying to find every little piece of detail they can to say that this person disqualified.
Both Duckworth and Mullen were interviewed on CNN.
Turnout in this year's presidential election was very high historically, with Republicans
winning the House, the Senate, and the presidency.
As NPR's Miles Parks reports, that contradicts conventional political wisdom.
For years, it's been largely assumed that high turnout elections would favor Democrats.
That's because low propensity voters tend to be poorer and less educated, and those
groups have tended to vote Democratic.
2024 turned that upside down.
It was the second highest turnout election since 1960, and the GOP won big.
Charles Stewart, an election expert at MIT,
says it will be interesting now to see how that impacts
the party's feelings about voting policy.
Republicans are much less likely to favor election reforms
that expand access.
But it's an open question whether that will shift
now that the party has succeeded
in a high turnout environment.
Miles Parks, NPR News, Washington.
NATO member countries are getting a new warning that they may be targeted by Russian cyber
attacks. Vicki Barker reports from London.
British national security official Pat McFadden says hackers aligned with the Russian state
have already carried out at least nine separate cyber attacks against NATO countries, including assaults on critical
national infrastructure.
And he'll tell a NATO cybersecurity conference in London Monday that Russia is now prepared
to launch a new wave of attacks capable of, in his words, turning the lights off for millions
in Britain alone.
With Russia increasingly able to penetrate and
disable national power grids, McFadden's message will be no one should
underestimate the Russian cyber threat to NATO. For NPR News, I'm Vicki Barker in
London. This is NPR News in Washington. Israeli officials say an Israeli rabbi
who disappeared in the United Arab Emirates last
week has been found murdered.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called his death an anti-Semitic terrorist
act and promised Israel will bring those responsible to justice.
Zvi Kogan had worked for an Orthodox Jewish group in the Gulf Arab country and went missing
on Thursday in Dubai. Many Americans are struggling with how to speak to each other in these divided
times. NPR's Chloe Veltman visited a community chorus in western Colorado
doing both the musical and political work to sing in harmony. The 40 or so
members of the North Fork Community Choir in Paonia come from all over the
political spectrum. Stephanie Hellickson is the group's artistic director.
We're in a blue-leaning town in a red-leaning county in the red-leaning half of a blue state.
Hellickson says in order to sing well together, they set their differences aside at their
weekly rehearsals. Yet the music itself sometimes draws the differences out. A recent concert
featuring Broadway hits
made some singers uncomfortable because it included a song with lyrics they said were
culturally offensive. Others complained about lyrics in a different song that contradicted
their religious views. The group dealt with these matters by issuing disclaimers and changing
some lyrics. Chloe Valtman, NPR News.
Weather forecasters are predicting another round of winter weather in the coming days, lyrics. Chloe Valtman, NPR News.