NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-28-2024 8PM EST

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

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This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu slash forward. Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. Following the implementation of a ceasefire in Lebanon this week, the Biden administration is once again trying to broker a similar deal for the fighting in Gaza. Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He says it may just be too late. Time's an adversary, not an ally. I would hope for the sake of the long-suffering Palestinians in Gaza and the hostages and their families that it might be possible to build on the momentum

of what happened in Lebanon, but I think it's gonna be a very, very heavy lift. In Lebanon, meanwhile, Israeli planes fired on a rocket storage facility there today after officials say they detected activity at the site. The attack came less than 24 hours after that ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. Reports from Lebanon say two people were wounded. Tech giant Meta has confirmed that Mark Zuckerberg visited President-elect

Donald Trump at Mar-a-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. On this Thanksgiving holiday when many Americans gather with family and friends for a meal, food banks around the country say demand at their facilities keeps rising. But as NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports, many of those programs are bracing for possible cuts to food aid. Nationally, more than 13 percent of Americans face hunger,

according to the Agriculture Department. That's up significantly from before the pandemic. A food bank in the Washington, D.C. area says those it serves are increasingly educated and middle class, but many have struggled with the high cost of food and housing, the loss of a job, or reduced hours. The first Trump administration proposed deep cuts to federal food aid and tried to tighten work requirements

for those getting it. There was bipartisan pushback, but Trump allies have again called for such limits, saying they could nudge people toward self-sufficiency. Jennifer Ludden, NPR News, Washington. Canada's antitrust watchdog agency says it's suing Google over alleged anti-competitive conduct in its online advertising. The competition bureau says it's seeking an order that will require

Google to sell two of its ad tech tools. The Bureau is also seeking a penalty from the online company. You're listening to 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 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

watch 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. Officials in Cuba are asking state and private businesses to begin generating more of their own electricity from renewable sources they also want them to limit their use of air conditioning the island nation is still trying to recover from a number of nationwide blackouts in October and November that left millions of people without power for days South Korea's central bank says the country's economy will grow at a slower pace than it had initially thought it lowered this

year's growth rate to 2.2 percent. The bank also lowered its key policy rate by a quarter percent following its meeting today to 3 percent. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today, or visit WISE.com, T's and C's apply.