NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-26-2025 11AM EST

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Noor Rahm. AAA expects the number of Americans traveling for Thanksgiving will set a new record this year, with most of them, 73 million traveling by car. The Federal Aviation Administration says this could be the busiest Thanksgiving for air travel in 15 years. Now that the government shutdown is over, and air traffic controllers have returned to work. But the shutdown may have some lingering effects. NPR's Joel Rose reports. There are indications that advanced bookings this year are down a bit compared to last year, off by about 4%.

According to data from the aviation analytics company, Sirium, which suggests that maybe demand is not quite where the airlines expected. It would be coming out of the shutdown, but, you know, in any case, you should expect the airports to be very busy. NPR's Joel Rose. President Trump says his envoy, Steve Whitkov, will soon head to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The plan meeting comes, as President Trump says, he's closing in on a negotiated deal to end the war in Ukraine. From Moscow, NPR's Charles Mainz reports. A senior Kremlin aide confirmed Wittkoff would meet with Putin next week to discuss the latest U.S. efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Whitkoff seeks approval for a draft peace plan that initially offered terms favorable to Moscow,

but has since been fine-tuned with input from Europe and Ukraine. Senior Russian officials have warned those amendments could make the plan on non-starter. Whitkoff's trip also comes in the wake of a leaked transcript from a phone call with the senior Putin aide that appears to show Whitkoff providing counsel on handling Trump. While the transcript has not been independently verified by NPR, Trump is already downplaying its contents, telling reporters Whitkoff was engaged in a standard form of negotiation. Charles Bain's MPR News, Moscow. At least 13 people died when a fire swept through an apartment complex in Hong Kong today. 15 others were injured. More people are.

are thought to be trapped inside in one of the deadliest fires in Hong Kong in the last 30 years. NPR's Emily Fang has more. The fire spread from one high-rise building to at least four others. One of the dead is a firefighter who was combating the blaze. The cluster of buildings on fire is part of a public housing complex with eight buildings, housing about 4,600 people in total. And firefighters were working to stop the flames from engulfing the entire complex. residents are being housed in community shelters now.

And there is already suspicion that the bamboo scaffolding encasing the buildings that caught fire played a part in the blaze. Last year, Hong Kong's government began planning to replace all bamboo scaffolding with steel, arguing metal poses less of a fire hazard. Emily Fang and Peer News. In Bangladesh, thousands of people are homeless. After a fire swept through a crowded slum in the capital, DACA, No deaths were reported. This is NPR News in Washington.

The FBI wants to interview six Democratic lawmakers who made a video, reminding those in the military, they should not obey illegal orders. Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, is also being investigated by the Pentagon for potential violations of military law. Many lightning strikes created by whirling dust devils have been detected by a rover of a rover of. on Mars. As NPR's Nell Greenfield voice reports, scientists had long suspected that the red planet might have some form of lightning, but it's been elusive. Since the 1970s, scientists have thought that swirling dust on Mars might produce some kind of electrical discharge. Like on Earth, clouds of turbulent volcanic ash can create lightning. Now, in the journal Nature, a team says that in windy conditions, a microphone on NASA's Perseverance Rover sometimes did more than just

hear wind. Dozens of times it registered a distinctive pattern of electrical interference followed by the acoustic signal of a shockwave. They say this had to have been from electrical arcs just a few centimeters long. They want to learn more about this electrical activity to understand what risks, if any, it might pose to future human or robotic missions. Nell Greenfield Boyce, NPR News. The Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's big island continues to erupt. It sent lava 400 feet into the air yesterday for the 37th time since the current eruption began last December. No homes were threatened. It's one of the most active volcanoes in the world. I'm Nora Rahm. NPR News in Washington.

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