Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Blue Sky: NPR

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Today’s top news

President-elect Donald Trump has announced his nomination of Linda McMahon to head the U.S. Department of Education. During President Trump’s first term, she was selected to head the U.S. Small Business Administration. She is best known for building the professional wrestling company WWE into a powerhouse with her husband.

🎧 The role was surprising because McMahon wasn’t one of the education candidates with true conservative credentials, NPR’s Cory Turner tells Up First. She served on the Connecticut State Board of Education for about a year. After she was nominated, she told the committee that she was attending college with the intention of becoming a teacher. Most recently, he served as president of the America First Institute for Policy Studies, which supports school choice. Mr. Turner said he was informed by a bipartisan group that Mr. McMahon, or the Secretary of Education, could not possibly win a wrestling match regarding the closure of the Department of Education. This department was created by Congress, and only Congress can abolish it.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was grilled yesterday by Congress over accusations that FEMA was slow to respond to disasters and discriminated against some hurricane victims for political reasons. Meanwhile, the Biden administration wants more funding for disaster recovery in the wake of this year’s onslaught of hurricanes, flash floods and wildfires.

🎧 Criswell was especially pressed about FEMA’s response to Hurricanes Helen and Milton, which hit the Southeast in quick succession, NPR’s Debbie Elliott said. In one particular incident that drew scrutiny, a now-fired FEMA supervisor directed workers to skip a home in Florida with Trump campaign signs in the aftermath of the Milton incident. A former crew leader claimed standard procedures were followed to avoid the hostility faced by workers on site after disinformation spread in the wake of Helen’s incident. Criswell dismissed any broader problems with the way FEMA provides disaster assistance, saying the actions of its employees do not indicate a broader cultural problem at FEMA.

At least 100,000 people have left social media platform X since Trump won the presidential election, which became known as X-odus. X is owned by Elon Musk, an ardent Trump supporter and currently one of his key advisers. The platform was flooded with posts about Musk and Trump. Many people looking for an alternative are turning to Bluesky.

🎧 “After Trump won, many people at X noted that Trump content was on the rise,” says NPR’s Bobby Allyn. In the run-up to the election, Musk tinkered with algorithms to boost his posts. While the app has always had conservative content, users have noted that the views are no longer mixed. Bluesky is still a small social network, but CEO Jay Graeber says it has added about 1 million users a day since the election. Allyn said it’s too early to say whether Bluesky will become the new Twitter. The main reason for this is that we currently have limited infrastructure and staff.

Find common ground

Over the past few years, and throughout this year’s contentious election season, the way people talk to each other has become coarser. NPR Network reporters look for examples of people working through their differences. These stories explore how some people are trying to bridge the gap.

As the holiday season approaches, many people are preparing to have conversations with loved ones who may have different opinions. Research in neuroscience and psychology shows that despite disagreements, there are effective ways to bridge the gap. When you encounter disagreements where mutual respect exists and you are interested in constructive dialogue, science provides several tools to help make the conversation more productive.

How to listen today

HBO’s new series Dune: Prophecy stars Emily Watson and Olivia Williams as two sisters who form a powerful sisterhood that later becomes known as the Bene Gesserit. The show takes place 10,000 years before the rise of Paul Atreides, the novel’s savior. Watson and Williams jokingly put the time period at 10,000 BC, which predates Timothee Chalamet, who plays Atreides in Dune. This sisterhood works to set humanity on the right path after a massive war in which humans defeated machines. The six-episode season premiered on Sunday. Morning Edition host Michelle Martin spoke to Watson and Williams about the series’ approach to how women view and exercise power.

3 things to know before you go

South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace has authored a bill that would ban transgender women from the women’s restrooms at the Capitol. This comes weeks before Democratic Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, is scheduled to be sworn in. Alex Jones filed a lawsuit against satirical news outlet The Onion on Monday to stop Infowars from gaining control of the outlet. Rust has its world premiere today at a Polish film festival called Camerimage. More than three years have passed since cinematographer Halina Hutchins was shot and killed on set.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.