McMahon Ed Secretary, FEMA Chief Testifies, X-odus Fuels Bluesky, Gaza Sniper Drones

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🗓️ 20 November 2024

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

President-elect Donald Trump taps WWE executive Linda McMahon to lead the Department of Education, sparking questions about her qualifications and Trump's promise to close the agency. Republicans accuse FEMA of political bias in disaster response as its chief testifies before Congress amid a funding request for the agency. Dissatisfaction with Elon Musk's platform X fuels the rise of Bluesky as a social media alternative. And, Eyewitness accounts allege the Israeli military is using sniper drones to target civilians in Gaza, raising questions about the human toll of advanced warfare.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	President-elect Donald Trump picks the co-founder of the WWE to run the Department of Education.
0:07.3	Linda McMahon ran the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term but has little experience in education,
0:12.3	and it's a department that many conservatives want to shut down.
0:14.8	I'm Michelle Martin. That's A. Martinez, and this is up first from NPR News.
0:20.9	FEMA is under fire.
0:22.4	Some Republicans accuse the agency of playing politics with disaster aid.
0:26.4	FEMA essentially treats the homes of President Trump supporters as if they were homes of people with vicious dogs.
0:33.4	Could this jeopardize future funding for disaster relief?
0:36.1	And a large number of people have left the social media platform X since Donald Trump won the election.
0:40.8	And now a smaller platform called Blue Sky is seeing a surge in users.
0:44.7	Can it become the next Twitter?
0:46.5	Stay with us.
0:47.1	We've got all the news you need to start your day.
1:01.4	President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominations continue to roll in, and we got one more late yesterday.
1:08.9	Trump has tapped Linda McMahon to run the U.S. Department of Education, and that's an agency that conservatives have wanted to shut down for years.
1:11.7	She is probably best known as a co-founder of the WWE, the professional wrestling company. For more on this, we're joined by NPR's Corey Turner.
1:17.1	So, Corey, tell us about Linda McMahon. Yeah, she is a surprise insofar as there were a handful
1:23.5	of education candidates out there, with real conservative credentials, and McMahon is not one of them.
1:30.0	She is co-founder and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, better known as WWE, as you said.
1:36.5	She's been friends with Donald Trump for many years, going back to those early wrestling days.
1:42.0	She's also twice run as Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut,
1:46.8	but she lost both times. During Trump's first term, he picked McMahon to run the small business
	...

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