NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-28-2024 5PM EST

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. Tech giant Metta has confirmed that Mark Zuckerberg visited President-elect Donald Trump at Mar Lago on Wednesday. As NPR's Bobby Allen reports, the meeting is seen as part of the tech executive's effort to patch up his relationship with Trump. It was just months ago that President-elect Donald Trump said Mark Zuckerberg could spend time in prison for, as he sees it, plotting against him in the 2020 election. Since then, Zuckerberg has been on a charm campaign.

After Trump's assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Zuckerberg praised his fist pumping to the crowd, had private calls with Trump, and now had dinner with Trump after a visit to Mar-a-Lago. Silicon Valley observers say the meeting could be aimed at trying to ease regulatory pressure on Metta, including a federal lawsuit seeking to have Metta spin off Instagram and WhatsApp. Metta's Instagram and Facebook have for months been de-emphasizing political content, and during the election allowed deceptive political ads to flood the platform. Bobby Allen, NPR News. The Israeli military says it conducted an airstrike in Lebanon today.

It's one of several attacks that could threaten to derail a ceasefire that took effect there yesterday, as NPR's Lauren Freya reports from Beirut. Social media footage shows smoke rising from farmland near Lebanon's Mediterranean coastal city of Sidon. The Israeli military says it targeted a facility there used by Hezbollah to store mid-range rockets. It also says it fired separately on suspects in vehicles in villages near the Israel-Lebanon border. It accuses them of violating the ceasefire. But Lebanese officials say those are evacuees returning home in their cars, not fighters. Several people, including journalists, have been wounded by Israeli tank or gunfire.

The ceasefire gives Israel and Hezbollah 60 days to withdraw from their current positions. So Israeli troops, Hezbollah fighters, Lebanese soldiers and UN peacekeepers may all be on the move in the same border area and it's tense. Lauren Freyer and PR News Beirut. Travel officials say this Thanksgiving holiday is expected to be the busiest ever for air travel. They're expecting some 18 million people to move through the nation's airports by the end of this weekend. That's a 6% increase over last year.

And NPR's Joel Rose says that volume could cause problems for airlines and passengers. There are signs of strain. I mean, there is still a shortage of air traffic controllers. It is so acute in some places that it is causing delays in the system. Newark, New Jersey, for example, United Airlines, which has a hub there, has complained about significant delays this month. Federal Aviation Administration has acknowledged that problem and says it's working to hire more controllers, but that's going to take a while. That's NPR's Joel Rose. South Korea's

central bank has lowered its key policy rate by a quarter percent, dropping it to three percent. Officials also said that the country's economy will grow at a slower pace than it had initially thought. Growth is now expected to be 2.4 percent this year and between 1.1 and 2.1 percent next year. This is NPR News. Walmart is looking to get an early jump on Black Friday sales by launching what it calls shoppable ads during NBC's Thanksgiving football broadcast.

As NPR's Patrick Wood reports, the new push comes during the busiest shopping period of the year that can be make or break it for retailers. Football fans looking to splurge after they gorged on Thanksgiving dinner will be invited to do so from the comfort of their couch as part of a deal struck between NBC Universal and Walmart. Ads for the retail giant will appear during commercial breaks in football games and, for the first time, include a QR code and text-to-buy options for people to shop online while they watch. A spokesperson for NBC Universal billed it as the next era of advertising, while Walmart said it was capitalizing on research that showed 86% of its customers watched professional

football. A record more than 34 million people watched football on Thanksgiving last year. And the National Retail Federation is predicting record sales this holiday season, with people forecast to spend up to nearly $1 trillion. Patrick Wood, NPR News. The Boise State women's volleyball team says it will not play in the Mountain West Conference Tournament Semifinals. They're forfeiting the game rather than playing against San Jose State, which has a transgender

player. It's the team's third forfeit to San Jose this season. In a lawsuit filed by other players, including a co-captain of the San Jose team, a federal judge ruled earlier this week that San Jose can continue to compete. They will now play in the champion match which takes place on Saturday. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.