5 things to know for Nov. 15: Trump’s Cabinet, Measles, Tropical Storm Sara, UFO sightings, Ford

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Look up at the night sky this weekend for a celestial double feature. November’s full moon will shine bright today as the last supermoon of the year. Sky-gazers may also be able to see the Leonid meteor shower as it reaches its peak on Saturday night into early Sunday. Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day. President-elect Donald Trump has chosen vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his secretary of Health and Human Services, the latest in a series of controversial Cabinet picks. Analysts say that Trump’s decision to put RFK Jr. in charge of the health of 350 million Americans, despite his stances on vaccines that contradict the science-based research of most medical experts, is likely to ignite a new debate about the real-world implications of a second Trump term. If, for instance, Kennedy’s advice led to a lowering of the penetration of vaccines in the US population, a significant number of lives could be at risk. Trump also selected North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to run the Department of the Interior and said his criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche will be the No. 2 lawyer at the Department of Justice. Global measles cases surged by more than 20% to an estimated 10.3 million last year, the CDC and WHO said Thursday. Around 107,000 people, mostly young children, died — an “unacceptable” death toll from a disease that’s preventable through vaccination, the health groups said. Measles can be deadly and debilitating, but it is preventable with two doses of the highly effective measles vaccine. One dose is 93% effective against measles, and two doses are 97% effective. But since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a global decline in the number of people getting even standard vaccinations. In the US, a dip in measles vaccination rates among kindergartners meant coverage has been well below the federal target for four years in a row. Tropical Storm Sara is unleashing heavy rainfall in northeastern Honduras, with life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides anticipated this weekend, according to the National Hurricane Center. Earlier forecasts from the NHC cautioned residents along the eastern Gulf of Mexico to monitor the storm for its potential to reach the US, but the center now believes the storm might not survive its trek through Central America and Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. However, parts of Honduras are bracing for rainfall up to 30 inches and floods that may also impact other parts of the region. Sara, which formed Thursday afternoon, is the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. The Pentagon has received hundreds of reports of new UFO sightings, including “several particularly interesting cases,” according to the director of the office that investigates these reports — but reiterated it found no evidence of alien activity. The Pentagon, working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and other government agencies, has received a total of 1,652 reports to date, according to a newly released annual report, including 757 new reports between May 2023 and June 2024. The growing number of new sightings represents an expanding effort by the US government to catalog, track and investigate what are officially called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, especially since a number of the sightings are near military bases and national security facilities.