NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-30-2024 1PM EST

Episode Date: November 30, 2024

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Noor Rahm, NPR News. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Noor Rahm. In Syria, rebel militias opposing President Bashar al-Assad have made their most significant advance in years, seizing a string of towns and villages in the north of the country. And NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports they've entered Aleppo, one of Syria's most populous cities. After years of stalemate, in just 48 hours Syrian opposition militias appear to have changed the calculation in the Syrian civil war. President Assad had largely won the conflict with the help of Russia and Iran-backed militias. The regime controlled most of the country.

But in this surprise surge, Syrian rebels have now taken parts of Syria's second most populous city, the historic mercantile Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says rebels are in western Aleppo and videos shared online showed armed men celebrating in the city's squares. Israeli airstrikes against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Syria appear to have weakened the regime's control in the area. Syrian state media says Russia is providing the Syrian military with their support. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News. With Black Friday over, it's now Small Business Saturday when holiday shoppers are encouraged

to support locally owned businesses. NPR's Andrea Hsu has more. American Express first celebrated Small Business Saturday in 2010, and it's been co-sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2011 as a day of recognition for independent retailers, restaurants and other small businesses. On this day last year, Shoppers spent an estimated $17 billion at such establishments. Small businesses are a backbone of the economy. According to the SBA, they've accounted for two-thirds of net new jobs created since 2000 and employ 45 percent of private sector workers in the U.S. A record 20 million small business applications have been filed over the past

four years, the highest on record. Andrea Hsu, NPR News. A state of emergency is in place in parts of New York because of the first major snowfall of the season. Buffalo could get as much as two feet of snow by Monday morning. Erie County executive Mark Polenker says the snow and wind will make driving hazardous. It won't qualify for a blizzard because of the winds but when the winds do pick up and they will pick up to over 30 miles an hour at times, you will have whiteouts. You will have blizzard-like conditions. Pullenker says the heaviest snow is expected to be over by tomorrow night when the Buffalo

Bills play the San Francisco 49ers. The team is preparing to play in any conditions and has put out a call for volunteers to shovel out the stadium if needed. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had dinner last night with Donald Trump at the President-elect's club, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida. Trump has threatened to impose significant tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico. This is NPR News. It may take several days to learn the full results in yesterday's parliamentary elections in Ireland.

Polls suggest the voters' support is widely split among the country's three largest political parties. Voters in Iceland are choosing a new parliament today. Snap elections were called after the previous government collapsed in October. Terry Schultz reports European Union membership has become a campaign issue for the first time in more than a decade. Dissatisfaction over the state of the economy is a big reason Icelanders are expected to seek a change from the three parties that made up the last government, the Conservative

Independence Party, the Centrist Progressive Party, and the Left Green Movement. The ruling parties couldn't reach agreement on economic issues, immigration and energy policy, so the Prime Minister resigned, dissolved the 63-seat parliament and called snap elections. Now polls show voters are favoring parties that support joining the European Union. The last time Iceland seriously considered negotiating membership was in 2013. In pre-election surveys, a little more than 45 percent of voters were in favor of Iceland seeking EU membership, with 35 percent against and the rest undecided. For NPR News, I'm Terry Schultz in Brussels.

Fishermen in Indonesia rescued 116 Rohingya refugees in the northern province of Ache today. Officials say the group had sailed from a refugee camp in Bangladesh, hoping for a better life in Indonesia or Malaysia when their boat sank, about a million predominantly Muslim Rohingya live in Bangladesh after being driven from Myanmar where they faced widespread discrimination. I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News in Washington.