NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-14-2024 12AM EST

Episode Date: December 14, 2024

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Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Duah Lisi Kautau. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated three more conservatives to join his new Office of Management and Budget, along with Russ Vogt, who was earlier nominated for director. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez has been watching this closely and offers this background on Mark Paoletta. He was a top lieutenant to vote at OMB in Trump's first term. Trump also announced that he's going to nominate or he'll nominate Congressman Dan Bishop, who's a member of the Freedom Caucus as the deputy director. And he picked conservative activist Ed Martin as chief of staff.

This is perhaps the most fleshed out team of any agency to be announced so far. Ordonez explains that the Office of Management and Budget, also known as OMB, is the nerve center of the executive branch. And under Trump, he says these picks will be a real test for Congress to see how much they are willing to protect their own power of the purse. A federal appeals court has rejected TikTok's request to pause the start of a law next month that could ban the wildly popular video app from operating in the U.S. TikTok is vowing to take its fight to the Supreme Court, as NPR's Bobby Allen reports.

Earlier this month, a panel of federal judges in Washington, D.C. sided with the Biden administration that a law banning TikTok nationwide is legal because it protects U.S. national security interests. TikTok is owned by Byte protects U.S. national security interests. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a tech company in Beijing. The law banning TikTok starts January 19th unless ByteDance fully divests from the app, which the company says is not going to happen. Now the same court has denied TikTok's request for the start date to be delayed. The one wild card in TikTok's future is President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised

to rescue TikTok but has not explained how. According to the company, TikTok is used by some 170 million Americans, half the U.S. population. Bobbi Allen in PR News. The Teamsters Union is threatening to strike at two major Amazon facilities in New York City. More from NPR's Andrea Hsu. Over the past year, the Teamsters have ramped up a campaign to unionize drivers and warehouse workers at Amazon facilities around the country. As part of that, the Teamsters have taken over the union fight at a large Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, where workers originally voted to join the Amazon labor union in 2022. Now, the Teamsters are demanding that Amazon

start bargaining contracts for multiple facilities in New York, California, Illinois, and Georgia by Sunday. But Amazon maintains it has no obligation to bargain with the Teamsters. In a statement, the company accuses the union of illegally coercing Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, saying the Teamsters do not represent them. A note, Amazon is among NPR's recent financial supporters. Andrea Hsu, NPR News. On Wall Street, the Dow closed down 86 points.

The Nasdaq closed up 23 points. The S&P closed down a fraction. This is NPR News. A New York doctor is being sued by the state of Texas for prescribing abortion pills to a 20-year-old woman from Collin County, just northeast of Dallas, Fort Worth. Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit on Thursday, accusing Dr. Margaret Daly, carpenter of violating Texas law, by mailing abortion-inducing drugs to Texas, where there is a near total

abortion ban. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, states passed what's many called shield laws to protect health care providers from investigation or prosecution when they prescribe abortion pills to patients in places where abortion is banned. The president of France has named a new prime minister after the government collapsed in a no-confidence vote last week. And Piers Eleanor Beardsley reports. Many hope François Bayrou will avoid the fate of his predecessor, conservative Michel

Barnier, who was taken down in a no-confidence vote by parliamentarians on the far left and far right just three months into his term. After snap elections this summer, the French parliament is divided into three mutually detesting blocks where none has a majority. The priority for Bayrou will be passing a special law to roll over the 2024 budget, with a nasty battle over the 2025 legislation looming early next year. The far-left France Unbowed party said it would immediately attempt to remove Bayrou if he ignores their tax and pensions concerns. Bayrou is Macron's fourth prime minister since he was re-elected in 2022.

Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris. And I'm Dua-Hli Seicao-Tau. NPR News from New York.