NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-27-2024 2PM EST

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

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Lyle Lashley-Singh, NPR News. Holiday travel is stressful, especially if you're dealing with family baggage on top of your actual baggage. I'm going home. I'm going to revert back to old family roles that are stressful. And so this traffic jam is the straw that's breaking the camel's back. But don't worry. We're here to bring you some relief.

Listen to the Life Kit podcast. We'll help you out this holiday season. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Several of President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet picks and appointees are the targets of new violent threats. A spokesperson for Trump's transition team says warnings of bomb threats and harassment happened last night and this morning. NPR's Franco Ordonez has details. A Trump spokesperson, Caroline Levitt, said in a statement that law enforcement, quote, acted quickly and that President-elect Trump and the transition team were grateful for their efforts to ensure the safety of those targeted. The FBI told NPR it takes all potential threats

seriously and it's aware of, quote, numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents against Trump nominees. Levitt did not say who was targeted, but Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who has been nominated to serve as Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, said in her own statement that she was the target of a bomb threat. The New York Republican said she was driving home to Saratoga County with her husband and their three-year-old son when they were told of a threat at their residence. Franco Ordonez, NPR News. Trump is selecting General Keith Kellogg to serve as assistant to the President and special

envoy for Ukraine and Russia, according to the latest post on his Truth Social account. Trump's criticism of the ongoing USAID to Ukraine has stoked concerns that when he takes office he might press Ukraine to relinquish land to Russia to end the war. A new ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appears to be holding as thousands of residents make their way back to southern Lebanon. NPR's Lauren Frere is inside in Lebanon. A third of Lebanon has been displaced. On the other side, there's tens of thousands of Israelis who've been displaced. And Israel is still not calling on its residents to return. Officials there say there'll be a one- to two-month period of rebuilding before Israel's

comfortable having those people return. NPR's Lauren Frere reporting. Disney has agreed to pay more than $43 million in a settlement over claims it paid its female workers less than their male counterparts. Central Florida public media's Danielle Pryor says the settlement is pending approval by a judge. The company and the female employees reached the settlement earlier this week. Disney worker Loronda Rasmussen filed the initial lawsuit in 2019, claiming six men at the company

were paid more than her even though they had the same job title and in some cases less job experience. About 9,000 other female workers joined her in suing the company over similar experiences. As part of the settlement, Disney will be required to hire a labor economist to ensure there's pay equity throughout the company. Disney still denies any wrongdoing, writing, quote, We've always been committed to paying our employees fairly and have demonstrated that commitment throughout this case, and we're pleased to have resolved this matter.

For NPR News, I'm Danielle Pryor in Orlando. From Washington, this is NPR News. A U.S. district judge in Manhattan finds New York City in contempt for failing to better protect inmates from violence and brutality at its jails. In her ruling today, Judge Laura Taylor said the city had placed incarcerated people in unconstitutional danger. She continues, the poor conditions have gotten worse since the city settled abuse and violence claims nearly a decade ago. People shopping for a home are finding slightly lower mortgage rates this week. The finance giant Freddie Mac reports a fixed rate for a 30-year

mortgage ticked down 6.81%. 15-year fixed rate mortgages went the other way. Those increased slightly since last week too, 6.1%. Well, researchers in Europe have published what could be the largest ever study of dinosaur poop. NPR's Jeff Brumfield says the fossilized droppings provide clues about how they came to rule the Earth. Everyone knows an asteroid killed the dinosaurs, but how did they come to dominate in the first place? Martin Kvarnstrom is a paleontologist at Uppsala University in Sweden.

We know a lot about the life and extinction of the dinosaurs, but not so much about the rise of the dinosaurs. To learn more, Kvarnström and his colleagues analyzed over 500 fossilized poops to see what they were eating. That's a lot of poop. They found that early dinosaurs had more diverse diets than other lizards alive at the time. That probably helped them thrive during some major shifts in climate in the Triassic period. The work appears in the journal Nature. Jeff Brumfield, NPR News. US stocks trading lower.

The Dow is down 92 points. This is NPR News.