Trump’s new decide for legal professional basic. And, Russia’s message to NATO international locations

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In the present day’s prime tales

President-elect Donald Trump introduced former Florida legal professional basic Pam Bondi as his new option to run the Justice Division after former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his bid to turn into legal professional basic yesterday. Bondi is a longtime ally of Trump’s and was one in all his legal professionals throughout his first impeachment trial. Gaetz encountered a controversial bid from the beginning over allegations of intercourse trafficking and drug use.

• 🎧 Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing, however all of his baggage was put entrance and middle the minute he was named as Trump’s decide, NPR’s Ryan Lucas tells Up First. Gaetz stated he hoped to keep away from a “needlessly protracted Washington scuffle.” Trump and his group view the legal professional basic as one of the crucial essential jobs in his incoming administration partly attributable to his rocky relationship with the Justice Division in his first time period. A key query, if Bondi is confirmed, is whether or not she is going to use the Justice Division’s powers to pursue Trump’s want for retribution, Lucas stated.
• ➡️ Trump has picked a number of Cupboard nominees and key advisers up to now as he builds his group. Here is how his new administration is taking form.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in a televised message yesterday that Moscow has the fitting to strike NATO international locations that arm Ukraine. Putin’s statements got here after Russia fired an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile on the Ukrainian metropolis of Dnipro in response to Kyiv’s long-range missile assaults earlier this week.

• 🎧 Putin is sending a message that NATO might turn into a goal, NPR’s Greg Myre says. Michael Kofman, a senior fellow within the Russia and Eurasia Program on the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace, says although Russia might need the higher hand proper now, it is struggling huge casualties and may’t maintain this tempo indefinitely. In the meantime, Ukrainians face extra challenges. Trump says he desires to barter to finish the struggle as soon as he’s in workplace. Kofman believes Putin may not wish to negotiate significantly if he believes he’s gaining floor.

A robust storm often known as an atmospheric river is soaking Northern California and Oregon this week, bringing excessive winds and flood danger. The large query: Is local weather change making these storms worse?

• 🎧 The storms are plumes of moisture that transfer throughout the Pacific Ocean. NPR’s Lauren Sommer explains they’re like a firehose pointed on the West Coast. These storms are essential as that is how California will get as a lot as half of its rainfall yearly. On the subject of local weather change, with the planet warming up, it does make the rainfall extra intense. There’s extra evaporation leading to storms merely having extra to work with.

Searching for widespread floor

Gaia Ferrency, 17, of Swissvale, Pa., waits for his flip in a longsword match as a part of ‘Friday Night time Fights’ hosted by he Damaged Plow and Pittsburgh Sword Fighters on the Church of Liechtenauer in Creighton, Pa., on Oct. 4, 2024.

Justin Merriman for NPR

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Justin Merriman for NPR

Over the previous few years and thru this 12 months’s contentious marketing campaign season, there was a coarsening in the best way folks speak to one another. Reporters throughout the NPR Community are in search of examples of folks working via their variations. These tales discover how some individuals are making an attempt to bridge divides.

Members of the Pittsburgh Sword Fighters membership and faculty depart politics on the door throughout Friday Night time Fights in a former Catholic church. The event of the rule started round 2016 when the membership proprietor, Josh Parise, stated he was fed up with the political discourse within the U.S. It has led to his college students and membership members, who vary politically from spiritual conservatives to progressive, to have the ability to discover widespread floor. Here is what these concerned must say in regards to the no politics being allowed within the house.

Weekend picks

Galinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) are opposites in each approach, compelled to room collectively at Shiz College.

Giles Keyte/Common Footage
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Take a look at what NPR is watching, studying and listening to this weekend:

🍿 Motion pictures: Depraved: Half 1 options Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande taking part in the roles of Elphaba and Galinda, respectively, who’re opposites in each approach but kind a bond simply as Oz enters a interval of social unrest.

📺 TV: The brand new Netflix collection A Man on the Inside follows a widowed retiree, performed by Ted Danson, who goes undercover to unravel a criminal offense in a retirement neighborhood.

📚 Books: Former President Invoice Clinton mentioned his new memoir Citizen: My Life After the White Home with NPR’s Leila Fadel on Morning Version. The memoir takes its title from Clinton’s farewell deal with to the nation.

🎵 Music: Late rapper MF DOOM’s 2004 album MM..FOOD, 20 years later, would be the closest factor to an autobiography — and it is the one to play to listen to the essence of his artistry.

🍽️ Meals: A recipe you would possibly wish to do that Thanksgiving: Mama Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish. Listed here are critiques from some NPR staffers and the recipe.

3 issues to know earlier than you go

Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of Escherichia coli micro organism (inexperienced) taken from the small gut of a kid. E. coli are rod-shaped micro organism which might be a part of the conventional flora of the human intestine.

Stephanie Schuller/Science Supply

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Stephanie Schuller/Science Supply

Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of Escherichia coli micro organism (inexperienced) taken from the small gut of a kid. E. coli are rod-shaped micro organism which might be a part of the conventional flora of the human intestine.

Stephanie Schuller/Science Supply

1. Practically 170,000 kilos of floor beef is being recalled attributable to probably being contaminated with E. coli, in keeping with the U.S. authorities. It’s distributed to eating places throughout the nation.
2. The FAFSA kind formally opened yesterday to college students and households hoping to obtain monetary help to pay for school within the 2025-26 tutorial 12 months.
3. The Illinois Supreme Court docket overturned the conviction of former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett yesterday for allegedly staging a hate crime towards himself in Chicago in 2019. It should spare him from a five-month jail sentence. (by way of WBEZ)

This text was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi.