NPR News: 11-29-2025 2PM EST
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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Rahm. Top Food and Drug Administration officials say they plan to take a much tougher approach to regulating vaccines. They claim they have uncovered new evidence questioning the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines. NPR's Rob Stein reports.
What new regulations is the FDA proposing for COVID-19 vaccines?
FDA Commissioner Marty McCary says the agency will require much stricter evidence that vaccines are safe and effective. McCary says the new approach was prompted by evidence that the deaths of at least 10 children were caused by the COVID vaccines. McCary's top deputy, Vinay Prasad, made that claim in an email distributed Friday. NPR obtained the email after it was reported by other news organizations. Independent public health experts, however, questioned the claim that the COVID vaccines caused these deaths, citing the administration's pattern of making unsupported and misleading claims. Rob Stein, NPR News.
Holiday spending began with a record-setting Black Friday. Adobe Analytics, which tracks online transactions, says sales this year are topping last year by more than 9%. NPR's Alina Selyuk reports.
Adobe Analytics says online shoppers on Black Friday spent big on televisions, the latest Nintendo Switch and Apple AirPods, appliances, toys and gift cards. Adobe says retailers are offering deeper discounts than anticipated and earlier in the season to get shoppers to spend despite all the worries about inflation, tariffs, and economic uncertainty. Consumer sentiment is near the lowest level since the pandemic. Still, the National Retail Federation forecast overall holiday sales might top $1 trillion for the first time. Shoppers say they are hunting for deals, but also... eager to celebrate with family and friends ready to deck the halls. Plus, much of the spending has been propped up by wealthier shoppers this year.
Alina Seluk, NPR News.
Holiday flights this weekend are facing some disruption after Airbus ordered immediate software fixes for a number of its aircraft. Rebecca Rosman has more.
About 6,000 Airbus A320 jets worldwide, including several hundred in the U.S., are affected by the required software update. The order stems from an investigation into a jet blue flight last month that suddenly lost cabin pressure while traveling from Cancun to Newark. An analysis found that intense solar radiation may have corrupted computer code critical to the aircraft's flight control systems. In response, the Federal Aviation Administration is directing airlines to install the software fix immediately. American Airlines says around 200 of its aircraft are impacted. Delta and United report only a small number of affected jets. For NPR News, I'm Rebecca Rossman in Paris.
In the U.S., the weather may complicate a traveling by car. Winter storm warnings are in effect from South Dakota to Ohio. This is NPR News in Washington. At least 150 people are still missing after Wednesday's deadly fire in Hong Kong. The fire swept through a high-rise apartment complex, killing at least 128 people. Investigators want to know why fire alarms didn't go off and whether construction materials met fire safety requirements. Tony and Oscar award-winning playwright Tom Stoppard has died. He was 88. In a career that lasted more than seven decades, Stoppard wrote nearly three dozen plays, including Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Jeff London reports.
Born Thomas Straussler in what was then Czechoslovakia, his family fled the Nazis during World War II. His father was killed, his mother remarried a man named Stoppard, and the family settled in England, the playwright told NPR in 2022. I'd been turned into a little English boy. I was very happy being a little English boy. and wrote dense, intellectual, linguistically complex plays. His big break was the existential Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead that focused on two minor characters in Hamlet. He became a superstar playwright with works like The Real Thing and the semi-autobiographical Leopoldstadt. Stoppard won a screenwriting Oscar in 1999 for Shakespeare in Love.
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