NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-16-2024 6AM EST

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

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Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autographcollection.com. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korva Coleman. President-elect Trump's cabinet nominees have been starting to visit senators on Capitol Hill seeking their support for confirmation. NPR's Lou Garrett reports this week that will include Health and Human Services Secretary

nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Questions still surround R.F.K. Jr., his views on vaccines, and his nomination as HHS Secretary. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska tells NPR, vaccines quote, saved whole villages. Murkowski is one of the senators meeting with Kennedy. I want to talk to him about the issue of vaccines. During his independent run for president, RFK Jr. campaigned on anti-vaccine messages. Beyond immunization, Murkowski wants to hear Kennedy's ideas on limiting processed foods. We have a troubling, troubling rise in obesity amongst our native people.

R.F.K. Jr. raised national concerns about ultra-processed foods and pesticide use. Luke Garrett, NPR News, Washington. President Biden and Vice President Harris thanked big donors to the Democratic Party yesterday. They attended a holiday reception in Washington. Biden noted that with five weeks left in office, he still plans to remain in public life

when he leaves the White House. Bad news for y'all is I ain't going nowhere. We're going to stay engaged. Harris says that despite defeats on the national and state level, Democrats must keep to their sense of mission. Our spirit is not defeated. We are not defeated. Let's be clear about that.

The Democrats talked about signature legislation they helped pass, such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the Chips and Science Act. That's intended to boost semiconductor chip manufacturing in the United States. The Israeli military has continued striking targets in Syria. It's hit several weapons warehouses early this morning. A British-based monitoring group called the strikes the quote the most violent in more than a decade. And Biers Carey-Kahn has more from Tel Aviv. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Israeli airstrikes hit missile warehouses and other Syrian army sites. It says Israel has hit more than 450 targets in Syria since the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship fell.

Israel's military is not commenting about the latest strikes, but Israel has confirmed hitting hundreds of military targets. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strikes are vital to ensure weapons left from the Assad regime do not fall into the quote, hands of extremists. Syrian rebel leaders say they do not want a confrontation with Israel and complained to the UN about Israeli incursions. Sunday, the Israeli government approved a plan to expand settlements in the Golan Heights that it has occupied for decades.

Keri Kahn, NPR News, Tel Aviv. You're listening to NPR. One of the giants of Indian music has died. Zakir Hussein was a virtuoso Indian tabla player, widely respected as both a traditionalist and as an innovator. And because Felix Contreras reports the 73-year-old musician died at a hospital in San Francisco, according to his family. After being trained in India and moving to the U.S., Zakir Hussain defied genre almost

from the beginning by befriending and jamming with grateful dead drummer Mickey Hart in the late 1960s, playing on a George Harrison album in the early 70s, and forming the Indian and jazz ensemble Shakti with guitarist John McLaughlin in 1974. In a career that spanned over five decades, Zakir Hussein was revered in his home country and beyond as a national treasure of India, while musicians as diverse as jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd and bluegrass musicians Edgar Meyer and Bela Fleck collaborated with him on records and on stage. Felix Contreras, NPR News.

It's not clear how many people have been killed by a cyclone on the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte. The French territory was hit on Saturday. The storm's top winds were more than 120 miles per hour. There's been significant weather across the U.S. this weekend. It began Friday with an ice storm in the Midwest. Parts of western New York state got nearly three more feet of snow on top of the heavy layers already

there. In the west, a tornado touched down about 70 miles south of San Francisco on Saturday. That city also got damaging straight-line winds. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News in Washington.