NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-02-2024 5PM EST

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

NPR News: 12-02-2024 5PM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You might have heard this song on TikTok blow up this summer. I'm looking for a man in finance. Trust fun. Six-five. Blue eyes. On It's Been A Minute, we're asking the big questions about dating. Like, is it okay to date with money in mind? And what are we really looking for from a man in finance? To find out, listen to the It's Been A Minute podcast from NPR.

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. Weeks before leaving office, President Joe Biden has changed his mind about pardoning his son, Hunter Biden. Biding in reversing himself, said he felt the case was politically motivated and designed to hurt him personally. The pardon is broad, covering any actions taken in the last 10 years.

The decision, meanwhile, is getting plenty of blowback, both from Republicans and even some Democrats, who say it could make it harder to oppose actions by President-elect Donald Trump to issue pardons of his own for criminal behavior. Here's Colorado Governor Jared Polz speaking on NPR's Here and Now. I think it's important to hold Republicans and Democrats

to the same high standards, and I was frankly disappointed that he used the power of pardon to help a family member. I understand as a father why someone would want to do that. But I think if we're going to be criticizing, for instance, the pardons President Trump made last time around, and we should, including the father of his son-in-law, we need to take the moral high ground here. Hunter Biden was convicted of illegally purchasing a gun. He also pleaded guilty to federal tax charges.

As great former detective in Kansas City, Kansas was found dead today, the same day his federal trial was slated to begin. As Madeline Fox of Member Station KCUR reports, a judge issued a warrant when he failed to appear in court. Federal prosecutors charged Roger Golubski with violating the civil rights of two women The U.S. Department of Justice has been charged with a crime of sexual assault. A federal statute makes it a crime for government officials, including law enforcement officers, to deprive a person of federally protected civil rights. After they confirmed his death, federal prosecutors moved to dismiss his case.

The 2017 exoneration of a Kansas City Kansas man of a double homicide brought Galubsky's alleged abuses to light. Fans of the film were shocked to learn that the former former federal prosecutor, who was a former lawmaker, was a former lawmaker who was a former lawmaker who was a former lawmaker who was a former lawmaker who was a former lawmakereration of a Kansas City Kansas man of a double homicide brought Golubski's alleged abuses to light. Family members of his alleged victims say Golubski had a pattern of preying on black

women involved in drugs and sex work and coercing vulnerable members of the community into giving false testimony. For NPR News, I'm Madeline Fox in Kansas City. The Biden administration is taking new steps to tighten technology controls on China. NPR's John Rewich reports the administration has blacklisted 140 new entities it says are involved in technology that supports China's military. The blacklist of Chinese entities includes a wide range of firms, from chip fabricators to toolmakers and investment companies, according to the Commerce Department.

The new measures also further restrict the sale of semiconductors, chip-making equipment, and software to China, and limit sales by not only U.S. companies, but others that use U.S. technology or parts. The steps are the latest in a string of measures by the Biden administration aimed at limiting Beijing's access to U.S. technology that might give

China's military an edge. Beijing has said previous tech restrictions violate the principles of market order and fair competition and damage the interests of businesses in China. John Ruch, NPR News. Tech sector stocks helped boost some segments of the market to new record highs. The NASDAQ was up 185 points today. You're listening to NPR. Yet more snow for the Great Lakes region on top of snow that has already fallen there. Lake effect snow has been battering residents of western New York as well as parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania. In Casa Dega, New York, five and a half feet of snow fell. Erie, Pennsylvania

saw nearly three feet of snow on the ground with Governor Josh Shapiro calling in the National Guard to help. Snow showers also blanketed Western Michigan overnight. The Nebraska lumber plant is working with an unlikely partner to create lumber out of a recycled source, Hawaii's found fishing nets. Nebraska Public Media's Cassidy Arena has details. The partnership between Omaha-based First Start Fiber and Honolulu-based Center for Marine Debris Research draws a direct connection between landlocked Nebraska and the world's oceans.

The center pulls out 200 tons of derelict fishing gear a year from the Hawaiian marine environment and will send several hundred pounds of it to Omaha to be turned into plastic lumber. Jennifer Lynch is the co-director of the center and a research biologist. By keeping that carbon in the material, whether we do it in Omaha or Hawaii, we're not releasing it to our shared atmosphere. The pilot project will produce plastic lumber starting in 2025. For NPR News, I'm Cassidy Arena in Omaha, Nebraska. Big funds for Michigan and Ohio stayed in connection with the Big Ten brawl that broke out over the weekend. I'm Cassidy Arena in Omaha, Nebraska.