NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-01-2024 6PM EST

Episode Date: December 1, 2024

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If you're the kind of person whose idea of a good party conversation starts with, I heard it on NPR, it might be time to take your superfandom seriously. Deck yourself out in sale NPR swag from t-shirts to ball caps to the almighty NPR tote, all at 25% off through November 27th at shop.npr.org. Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Dua-hli-Sai Khao-Tau. President-elect Donald Trump has picked one of his fiercest loyalists, Cash Patel, to lead the FBI. NPR's Mara Lyson reports.

Patel was a national security official in Trump's first term. He's devoted to Trump's stated goal of revenge and retribution against the government agencies Trump feels targeted him unfairly, including the FBI. Patel has threatened to go after what he calls conspirators in the media and government, and he's published a quote deep state target list of individuals he wants to fire. If confirmed, he'd be a leader in Trump's effort to radically reshape the federal government. In order to get him appointed, Trump would have to fire the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed, but whose 10-year term doesn't expire until 2027.

Mara Liason, NPR News. The Supreme Court hears arguments tomorrow in a case testing how the Food and Drug Administration regulates vaping. E-cigarettes, as they are known, contain addictive nicotine but are not as dangerous as tobacco products. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports their popularity has taken off with young people. In 2009, Congress enacted a law aimed at regulating nicotine products marketed for minors. The good news is that the agency succeeded in dramatically driving down cigarette use

by high school kids to 2%. The bad news is that e-cigarettes, first marketed in 2006, took up a lot of that slack and by 2023, the FDA survey showed 30% of high schoolers were vaping e-cigarettes, which the agency considers a gateway to smoking more damaging cigarettes. So the FDA refused to approve products it saw as catering to kids, vaping products with names like pink lemonade. The issue before the Supreme Court is whether the FDA followed the rules of the regulatory road when it did that.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington. The UN has paused delivery of humanitarian aid through the main crossing point into Gaza, saying it's just too dangerous. And Piers Katlonsdorf has more. For months, the Karem Shalom crossing from Israel has been the main way for aid to get into Gaza. But the security situation inside Gaza has been deteriorating, making it difficult to actually deliver.

Today, Felipe Lazzarini, Commissioner General of UNRWA, tweeted that UN aid delivery through Kerem Shalom has been paused, citing the breakdown of law and order. In November, he said a large convoy of aid trucks was stolen by armed gangs. He said food trucks on the same route were also overtaken yesterday. The Israeli agency responsible for aid coordination did not immediately respond for comment. Several other aid organizations have also had to suspend efforts in Gaza recently,

as the UN says hunger has reached, quote, critical levels. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Tel Aviv. This is NPR. New evidence published by researchers at Australia's Curtin University paints a picture of a possibly hot and liquid crust in Mars' past, and Piers Jessica Young reports. Ten years ago, a Martian meteorite was found in the Sahara Desert that contained a tiny

bit of the mineral zircon that was formed on the planet 4.5 billion years ago. Aaron Kavosi is one of the geologists studying this bit of zircon. He says they've squeezed a lot of information out of this sample, despite its small size. The zircon is half the width of a human hair, and we have tools to extract little slices of it that kind of are shaped like a little tiny slice of bread. They found a structural pattern in some of the zircon that matched zircon found in hydrothermal vents on Earth, leading the researchers to theorize that these deep-sea geysers that spew out hot liquid mixed with gases and minerals might have existed on Mars in its early chapters

too. The paper is published in Science Advances. Jessica Young, NPR News. The countdown to Christmas is on, and a hamlet in southwestern Germany, Gegenbach, every December transforms its town hall with 24 windows into maybe the world's largest advent calendar. Imagine each night, spectators watching as the large windows on their town hall reveals art or illustrations by great talents, sometimes local, other times bigger

names. Andy Warhol or Marc Chagall. The idea was started by local business folks who wanted to attract more visitors from around the world to their hamlet and their Christmas market in the town centre. This is NPR News.