NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-27-2024 4AM EST

Episode Date: November 27, 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, I'm Giles Snyder. A 60-day ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group has belabbed the peers to be holding. The ceasefire went into effect early today, leading to celebrations in Beirut. Displaced residents of south Lebanon have started returning

home, despite warnings from the Israeli military that it's not yet safe. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says a deal will help to implement a Security Council resolution that ended the last war in Lebanon in 2006. As NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports. UN Resolution 1701 demanded that Hezbollah move north away from the border with Israel and allow the Lebanese army to control Southern Lebanon.

Blinken says the resolution was never effectively implemented, though that could change with this new ceasefire deal. It is the answer to the problem that has bedeviled the area for a couple of decades and is the best way to guarantee that there is peace, there is stability. Blinken also thinks this deal could have a positive impact in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting another militant group, Hamas. Michelle Kelliman, NPR News, the State Department. Canadian officials are blasting President-elect Trump's threat to impose sweeping tariffs

on goods entering the country. Ontario Premier Doug Ford spoke to the BBC. He does put these tariffs on. We will retaliate. We will put tariffs on every box of cereal, every cracker, anything that gets shipped across. And I promise you it will hurt the U.S. and I don't want that. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to convene an emergency meeting with provincial leaders later today. Trump is threatening a 25% tariff on goods entering the US from Canada as well as from Mexico and he says he will tack on an additional 10% tariff on products from China. Mexico is

threatening to retaliate as well and China says no one will win a trade war. Trump's nominee to lead the Pentagon has called for women's roles in the military to be limited. NPR's Quill Lawrence reports that groups that support female troops are objecting. Pete Hicks says women should not serve in combat roles and that increasing diversity has lowered standards. Senior Pentagon officials have shot back that women have served successfully in combat since before it was allowed in 2015. And with military recruiting under pressure, retired Colonel Ellen Herring says the force can't afford to lose battle-tested troops.

One of the big initial effects would be that the combat arms would lose over 3,000 soldiers. How are they going to fill that hole? It creates like a huge vacuum in the combat branches. The leading organization combating sexual assault in the military, Protect Our Defenders, has also called on Congress not to confirm Hegseth, who was accused of a sexual assault in 2017, an encounter Hegseth says was consensual. Quill Lawrence, NPR News. This is NPR News.

Walmart is withdrawing many of its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. The move comes as conservative groups pressure corporations to ditch DEI. From the Gulf States newsroom, Stephen Pasahov reports. Walmart's changes are widespread, according to the Associated Press and later confirmed by the company. It would better monitor its website to make sure third-party sellers aren't offering transgender products aimed at kids, and it would no longer give preferences to suppliers based on race and gender to promote equity. Conservative groups say DEI policies like that are themselves discriminatory. Those groups have

pushed harder to end DEI after last year's Supreme Court ruling ended affirmative action in college missions. Big companies like Ford, John Deere, and Lowe's have also rolled back on DEI, but Walmart is the biggest, with more than one and a half million employees in the U.S. For NPR News, I'm Stephen Masaha in Birmingham, Alabama. connected to a series of mass shootings between July and September. Authorities say one of the suspects is accused of 11 murders during that time period, including four outside a hookah lounge in September. The state of Kentucky, preparing to launch its first online auction of confiscated bottles of booze. The auction stems from a new law that allows alcohol confiscated from closed criminal investigations to be auctioned by the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control Agency. The bottles up

for sale include hard to find Kentucky bourbons, bidding opens later today and closes at midnight on December 11th. I'm Giles Snyder. This is NPR News.