NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-29-2024 2AM EST

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

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Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Dwahleesah Kautel. It is day three of a ceasefire in Lebanon. Under the agreement, Israeli troops are to withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah fighters are to pull their weapons back from the Israel-Lebanon border region. While that happens, civilians are being warned to stay out of the area where there have already been some confrontations. And Pirs Lauren Freire reports. The Israeli military says it identified suspects arriving in vehicles in a number of areas

of southern Lebanon. It accuses them of breaching conditions of the ceasefire and says it opened fire at them. The mayor of one village where this happened tells NPR that rather than Hezbollah fighters, these are residents returning home in cars loaded with belongings. And that it's difficult for anyone to keep them away. They're homesick, he says, and want to return now that there's a ceasefire. Some villagers have been posting selfies with Israeli tanks in the background. The ceasefire gives Israel and Hezbollah 60 days to retreat from their positions.

Lauren Freyer, NPR News, Beirut. Russia is threatening to deploy missiles to Asia if the U.S. sends its own missiles to Japan. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports this is a response to reports of a U.S. and Japanese plan to respond to an attack on Taiwan. On Sunday, Japan's Kyoto News Agency quoted anonymous sources as saying the U.S. and Japan will draft a military operational plan next month.

It would involve stationing U.S. Marine Corps missile units on Japan's southwestern islands close to Taiwan and in the Philippines. China has threatened to take Taiwan by force if the island declares independence. On Wednesday, Russia's foreign ministry said that it had warned Tokyo that any U.S. medium-range missiles in Japan would force Russia to strengthen its defenses. Russia has hinted that it could deploy its own missiles to its Far East. It also urged Japan to read Russia's updated nuclear doctrine, which expands the number of situations under which it could use nuclear weapons. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul. Researchers have found plastics in the deepest parts of the ocean and in human bodies. With plastic pollution, rising world leaders have gathered in South Korea to discuss solutions,

and Paris Julia Simon reports. Plastic is mostly made from byproducts of oil and gas. The International Energy Agency says demand for oil is falling as people use more electric vehicles, but many in the oil and petrochemical sector see the future of their industry increasingly reliant on demand for plastics. The United Nations talks currently underway in South Korea. One of the solutions on the table is a plastic production cap, but fossil fuel industry players are pushing back. They argue

for more recycling, even though a lot of plastic cannot be recycled. A new analysis from the Center for International Environmental Law finds there are a record 220 registered fossil fuels. This is NPR. Mexico's President Claudia Scheinbaum tells reporters that she had a productive phone conversation with President-elect Donald Trump tells reporters that she had a productive phone conversation with President-elect Donald Trump and concluded that, quote, there will not be a potential tariff war. Trump threatened a 25 percent tariff against Mexico if it failed to stop the flow of fentanyl and undocumented migrants at the border. On his Truth Social platform Trump said Scheinbaum agreed to stop migration through

Mexico and into the United States, but she contradicted the statement, saying Mexico's stance is not to close borders, but to build bridges. Fecaccia, the soft, flat bread baked with rosemary and olive oil, is seen as a distinctly Italian recipe. But in Paris, Ruth Sherlock reports, researchers have found that the first focaccia-like bread was actually made some 9,000 years ago in the Middle East. This story begins in ancient Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq, Syria and Turkey. A new study published in the journal Nature finds that a focaccia-like bread was first developed some 8,400 years ago.

At this time humans already knew how to bake large bread loaves using dome-shaped ovens. But researchers found that from around 6,400 BC, agricultural communities also baked dough in shallow scored clay dishes and added animal or plant fats. This made for a softer, flatter and more flavourful bread, similar to focaccia today. Scientists learned this from studying ceramic fragments from archaeological sites in North Syria and Turkey. They say their findings are evidence of a rather elaborate culinary tradition.