Last week's jobs report for the month of August show signs the delta surge is slowing the economic recovery, just as some pandemic safety net programs disappear. The Supreme Court recently struck down a federal eviction moratorium, and supplemental pandemic unemployment benefits expired on Monday. NPR's chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley explains what that could mean for the pace of the recovery. With a federal eviction ban no longer in effect, renters could tap into billions of dollars...
Sep 08, 2021•15 min
The good news is that firefighters in California have regained control of the Caldor Fire near Lake Tahoe and tens of thousands of evacuated residents can now return to their homes. The bad news is the Caldor Fire is the second wildfire this season to burn through the Sierra Nevada Mountains from one side to the other. Something that never happened before this year. The other fire to do it is the Dixie Fire further north, which is on pace to be the largest California wildfire on record. And whil...
Sep 07, 2021•12 min
Most kids are now in their third year of school during the pandemic. It's been a time of ups and downs; adjustments and re-adjustments. Some have flourished in online school and want to stay home — others have floundered and are excited to go back. NPR spoke to a group of kids ages 6 and up about what the pandemic has been like, and how they're feeling about the new school year. Two experts in childhood education and development explain how the pandemic has challenged kids and what we can do to ...
Sep 06, 2021•15 min
The Supreme Court's conservative majority allowed a Texas law banning most abortions to go into effect. Almost immediately, abortion providers had to begin turning people away. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports on the court's interpretation of the Texas law and its controversial enforcement provision, which allows any private citizen to sue someone who helps a person get an abortion — with the plaintiff due $10,000 in damages and court costs. Kathryn Kolbert, co-founder of the Center for Reproductive...
Sep 03, 2021•13 min
Some states in the south are have more people in the hospital than at any point during the pandemic — fueled by the highly transmissible delta variant and low vaccination rates. Dr. David Kimberlin, co-division director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, tells NPR the hospital system is Alabama is on the verge of collapse. He spoke to reporter Pien Huang . So what happens — for patients and the people who treat them — when hospitals are full? NPR put tha...
Sep 02, 2021•13 min
The U.S. military's mission in Afghanistan is over. For many still living in the country, a new struggle has begun: how to move forward after they were not able to make it before the U.S. withdrawal. Mark Schmitz is also grappling with how to move forward. His 20-year-old son, Jared, was one of 13 U.S. service members killed in an attack on the Kabul airport. Schmitz spoke to NPR's Rachel Martin — his interview was produced and edited by the staff of NPR's Morning Edition , where it originally a...
Sep 01, 2021•14 min
Hurricane Ida's winds intensified rapidly as the storm approached coastal Louisiana over the weekend — making landfall at its most powerful. NPR's Rebecca Hersher explains how Ida was supercharged by climate change. Now the hurricane's remnants are moving north and east, where millions are bracing for flooding and tornado threats. Janey Camp with Vanderbilt University tells NPR why climate change means flooding will become more common in areas where people haven't been accustomed to it in the pa...
Aug 31, 2021•12 min
A federal bankruptcy judge says he'll rule Wednesday in the case of Purdue Pharma, makers of OxyContin. The company is owned by the Sackler family, who are at the center of a national reckoning over the deadly opioid epidemic. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann has been covering the story of Purdue Pharma for years, and explains how the Sacklers may emerge from Purdue's bankruptcy proceedings with their personal fortunes in tact. Find more of Brian's reporting here or follow him on Twitter @...
Aug 30, 2021•12 min
Venezuela is facing an economic and humanitarian crisis as extreme poverty and violence have forced many to flee the country in recent years. How did a country once wealthy with oil resources fall into such turmoil? See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 29, 2021•55 min
For Afghans like Fawad Nazami, life under the Taliban would be a fate 'worse than death.' Nazami is a political counselor at the Afghan embassy in Washington D.C. He told NPR this week he would never return to an Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Now, that same Afghanistan confronts a deadly new reality: the emergence of ISIS-K, which claimed responsibility for this week's attack that killed 13 Americans and dozens of Afghan civilians. Seth Jones with the Center for Strategic and International Stu...
Aug 27, 2021•14 min
12 U.S. service members were killed in an attack at the Kabul airport on Thursday. They were among some 5,000 U.S. troops evacuating American citizens, Afghans allies, and others from Kabul. At least 60 Afghans were also killed. New York Times journalist Matthieu Aikens describes the scene at the airport moments after the attack. NPR's Quil Lawrence reports on reaction from the Pentagon. For more coverage of unfolding events in Afghanistan, listen to NPR's morning news podcast, Up First, via App...
Aug 26, 2021•11 min
New York City, New Jersey, Goldman Sachs, and the Pentagon all imposed new vaccine requirements in the days following the FDA's full approval of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. Public health officials — and the President — hope more mandates will follow. But some businesses are trying a different approach to encourage vaccination. NPR's Andrea Hsu visited one offering $1,000 bonuses to vaccinated employees. Meanwhile, Delta airlines announced unvaccinated employees would face a monthly surcharge. And...
Aug 25, 2021•14 min
The Biden administration said Tuesday that the U.S. was on pace to meet an August 31 deadline to fully withdraw from Afghanistan, but that "contingency plans" are being developed in case they do not complete evacuations in time. Some Afghan evacuees will wind up in America, where one of their main destinations is the Seattle area. NPR's Martin Kaste reports on the resettlement effort ramping up there. President Biden made the decision not to extend evacuations despite calls to do so from some me...
Aug 24, 2021•13 min
School districts can't find bus drivers. The TSA is short on security screeners. Ports can't find enough workers to load and unload shipping containers. Across many different sectors, the unavailability of workers is holding the economy back, and sending prices even higher. NPR's Scott Horsley reports. Fuel truckers are another critical job that employers can't fill fast enough, explains NPR's Camila Domonoske . Also in this episode: reporting from NPR's Andrea Hsu on why millions of older worke...
Aug 23, 2021•13 min
Antioch police officials suspected one of their veteran detectives of leaking operational details as far back as 2010. But they didn't fire Santiago Castillo for another seven years. During that time, he investigated hundreds of cases including several homicides, and his testimony helped put dozens of people behind bars. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 22, 2021•39 min
Across the country, it looks like this time, last year. Schools — some days or weeks into the start of the new year — are forced to close temporarily over COVID outbreaks. In many cases, the closures are necessary because too many teachers and staff members are sick or quarantined. Audie Cornish talks to three teachers about their fear, exhaustion, and hope at the start of a new school year. For more coverage from NPR as kids head back to school around the country, follow NPR Ed's Back to School...
Aug 20, 2021•13 min
As many as 100,000 Afghans — those who worked with the U.S. military over the years, and their families — are trying to get out of the country. But access to the Kabul airport is controlled by the Taliban, and the American military says evacuating American citizens is its 'first priority.' Among the Afghans trying to flee are those who've applied for or been granted a Special Immigrant VISA. James Miervaldis, chairman of No One Left Behind — which helps Afghan and Iraqi interpreters resettle in ...
Aug 19, 2021•14 min
Just weeks after the shock of a presidential assassination, Haiti was hit by a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Saturday. The death toll is nearing 2,000 — and still rising — while thousands more are injured and homeless. Haiti's last major earthquake was in 2010. It killed an estimated 200,000 people and injured 300,000 more. This week's quake struck farther from major population centers, but that's made search and rescue efforts challenging. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports from Haiti where...
Aug 18, 2021•13 min
Hospitals like the University of Mississippi Medical Center are overwhelmed. Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor of the Jackson hospital, told NPR they are nearly out of beds — and treating patients in hallways. Meanwhile, Biden administration health officials are coalescing around a plan that would advise most Americans to get a COVID-19 booster shot eight months after their last dose. A booster is already recommended for immunocompromised people. Here are six things to know if you're immunoco...
Aug 17, 2021•11 min
The Taliban now control Afghanistan. How did the country's government fall so quickly — and why didn't the U.S. see it coming? NPR put those questions to the former commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus. Afghanistan's future remains unclear, especially for its women and girls. One of them is Freshta Karim, a Kabul resident and founder of a mobile library project called Charmaghz , who spoke to Audie Cornish . Karim is one of many Afghans who NPR reached in Ka...
Aug 16, 2021•15 min
In the agricultural town of Salinas, Calif., Police Officer William Yetter repeatedly makes mistakes. First there's a stolen bike he doesn't investigate. Then, his bosses discover he's not filing police reports on time. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 15, 2021•51 min
In the last week, the Taliban have gained control of large sections of Afghanistan faster than most people expected. The Pentagon is dispatching troops to assist in evacuating staff from the American embassy in Kabul, where refugee camps are growing more crowded. The U.N. says the country may be on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. State Department spokesperson Ned Price told Audie Cornish the 300,000-member Afghan military needs "the willpower" to stand up to the Taliban. In participatin...
Aug 13, 2021•16 min
What struck John Kerry the most about this week's landmark U.N. report on climate change? "The irreversibility" of some of the most catastrophic effects of global warming, he tells Audie Cornish. Kerry, the U.S. Special Envoy for Climate, tells NPR the U.N. report underscored the need for the world to respond more forcefully to climate change — and he's called an upcoming U.N. climate summit in Scotland the "last best hope" for global action. At the same time, the Biden administration faces an u...
Aug 12, 2021•15 min
In the next few weeks, millions of children will head back to school. Many of them are too young to be vaccinated. At the same time, children are being hospitalized with COVID-19 in small but growing numbers — and approaching rates higher than the winter surge. Dr. Marcos Mestre with Niklaus Children's Foundation Hospital in Miami told NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday many of the children his hospital is treating come from families with unvaccinated parents or caretakers. Unlike last year, many scho...
Aug 11, 2021•15 min
The Tigray region in northern Ethiopia is at the center of a civil war that broke out last November, after rebels there attacked a military base. Since then, the political fight has become an ethnic one, with troops no longer distinguishing civilians from rebel fighters. NPR's Eyder Peralta visited the war-torn region in May and spoke with the people at the center of the conflict. The United Nations says more than 400,000 people are now living in famine conditions in Ethiopia, putting them at ri...
Aug 10, 2021•13 min
A landmark new report from the United Nations warns that the world is running out of time to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming. Those effects are already becoming clear as extreme weather, drought, and fire become more common. One of the latest examples: wildfires are raging amid a record heat wave in Turkey, Lebanon, Italy and Greece. Durrie Bouscaren reports for NPR from Istanbul . And, as NPR's Jeff Brady reports, climate change is also changing lives in subtler ways . Other re...
Aug 09, 2021•14 min
Episode four of On Our Watch from NPR and KQED investigates the case of a plainclothes Stockton police officer who grabbed a Black 16-year-old, took him to the ground and punched him, knocking the teen's two front teeth onto a convenience store floor. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 08, 2021•48 min
After months of bipartisan negotiation, the Senate may finally vote this weekend on a 2,700 page infrastructure bill that includes $1 trillion in spending on things like roads, bridges, public transit, and broadband. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 06, 2021•13 min
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is refusing to resign after this week's explosive report from the state's attorney general. It detailed multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Cuomo. Cuomo has categorically denied harassment and groping allegations. And he said that people have "sought to unfairly characterize and weaponize everyday interactions." Multiple high profile politicians have called for Cuomo to step down, including President Biden. Meanwhile, NPR's Brian Mann disc...
Aug 05, 2021•13 min
It's been exactly one year since a massive explosion in Beirut's port killed over 200 people, injured thousands and caused billions of dollars in damage. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Aug 04, 2021•12 min
