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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. President-elect Donald Trump has chosen the head of a pro-Trump think tank to be his agriculture secretary. Trump has tapped Brooke Lawlens to lead the agency responsible for the nation's farm and nutrition programs, as NPR's Sarah McCammon reports.
Brooke Rollins worked for Trump's first administration, most notably as director of the Domestic Policy Council. After leaving the White House, Rollins was among a group of senior advisors who set up the America First Policy Institute to promote Trump's ideas. She's now the nonprofit group's president and CEO.
Rollins has an agriculture degree from Texas A&M and a law degree from the University of Texas. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has around 100,000 employees and oversees several large programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and farm subsidies.
Sarah McCammon, NPR News. The choice of Rollins completes the cabinet-level roster for the incoming Trump administration. A deal reached at the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan to help less developed countries tackle climate change is being sharply criticized for failing to meet the scale of the challenge.
Richer countries agreed to raise their contribution for those countries most vulnerable to climate change to $300 billion a year. Simon Steele, the head of the UN Climate Body, conceded, though, that the agreement is far from perfect. No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work to do. The many other issues we need to progress may not be headlines today,
but they are lifelines for billions of people. So this is no time for victory laps. Two people were found dead in or near floodwaters this weekend after an atmospheric river storm dumped heavy rain on parts of Northern California. From member station KQED in San Francisco, Juan Carlos Lero reports.
More than 50 miles north of San Francisco, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said Saturday one person was found dead in a submerged vehicle. In the city of Santa Rosa, Police Sergeant Patricia Steffens says a man in his 60s was found dead in a creek Saturday morning. Piner Creek at that area, in fact all creeks in Santa Rosa, were extremely high and had been experiencing flooding.
Weather officials say the nearby Russian River has experienced higher water levels than normal for November, and a flood warning for the area remains in effect until further notice.
Downtown Santa Rosa saw more than a foot of rain over three days, which weather officials are calling a once-in-a-thousand-year event. For NPR News, I'm Juan Carlos Lara in San Francisco. A winter storm warning is in effect through Tuesday for California, Sierra, Nevada. In Washington state, tens of thousands remain without power after that weather system hit last week. The outages mostly in the Seattle area. And from Washington, this is NPR News.
Lebanon's military is blaming an Israeli airstrike for killing one soldier and wounding at least 18 others. Israel has not commented, but Lebanon's caretaker prime minister is condemning the attack as an assault on U.S.-led ceasefire efforts. The strike happened in an area of southwestern Lebanon where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing to seek justice in the case of an Israeli rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates. A statement from Netanyahu's office today says the body of Rabbi Sabih Kogan has been found. He went missing Thursday. There were suspicions that he'd been kidnapped.
The Orlando Pride won their first championship in the National Women's Soccer League with a 1-0 win this weekend over the Washington Spirit. The match took place on a neutral site in Kansas City where reporter Greg Eklund is based. Orlando forward Barbara Banda, who grew up in Zambia and played her first season in the NWSL, saved her best for last.
In the playoffs, she scored two goals in the Pride's quarterfinal, a goal in the semis, and the only goal of the title match in the 37th minute. I always want to take on the defenders, so I saw that opportunity and I had to put the ball at the back of the net. For the top-seeded Pride, who lost only two matches all year, it was their first appearance in the championship match.
It was also the first title for Marta Vieira da Silva, their 38-year-old Brazilian superstar known to many fans simply as Marta. For NPR News, I'm Greg Eklund in Kansas City. And I'm Giles Snyder. This is NPR News.
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