When Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson entered the national spotlight, she found praise and also criticism. In her new book, Lovely One, Jackson describes how she endured her confirmation hearing, along with her multi-generational path to becoming the first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court a branch which she tells NPR remains ready to offer credible opinions on the most contentious issues facing the nation, even in the face of waning public confidence. For sponsor-free epis...
Sep 03, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast For about three weeks in 2000, there were zero measles cases in the United States. It was declared eradicated. Fast forward to 2024, and measles cases are surging, especially in Oregon where the state is facing the worst outbreak since the early 1990s. This is happening as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the vaccination rate among kindergartners is dropping, and more and more parents are seeking exemptions to school vaccine requirements. People are vaccinating their c...
Sep 02, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Labor Day is considered the beginning of the end of the Presidential election, but as history shows, things can change a lot by election day. Host Scott Detrow speaks with his colleagues Senior Political Editor and Correspondent Domenico Montanaro and White House Correspondent Franco Ordoez about where things are, and where they could go. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . Learn more a...
Sep 01, 2024•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Raunchy sex comedies had a moment at the end of the 20th century. And perhaps the king of them all, was American Pie . Even people who have never seen the movie probably know the most memorable scene has something to do with a sex-obsessed teenage boy doing something unseemly with a homemade apple pie. Flash forward a quarter century and Hollywood is making fewer teen comedies than it used to. For the 25th anniversary of American Pie, Scott Detrow speaks with one of the film's stars Alyson Hanni...
Aug 30, 2024•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1988, Ben Spencer was sentenced to life in prison for a brutal robbery and murder he has always insisted he did not commit. Spencer spent the next 34 years in prison, dashing off letters almost every day to his wife, his friends, lawyers, to anyone who would listen, claiming his innocence. In 2021, he was officially released from prison. But on Thursday, he was officially exonerated. We hear about his life after decades behind bars and his faith that one day, the truth would prevail. For spon...
Aug 29, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Earlier this month, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and the former head of Google, Eric Schmidt, wrote a piece for Foreign Affairs arguing that the future of warfare is here. They say that the U.S. is not ready for it. The two authors argue recent technological developments have changed warfare more in the past several years than the decades spanning from the introduction of the airplane, radio, and mechanization to the battlefield. And while this new tech has ...
Aug 28, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast When Tim Walz accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president, his son stole the show. In a viral moment, the cameras panned to 17-year-old Gus Walz, who, with tears in his eyes, stood up, clapped loudly, pointed to the stage and appeared to repeatedly yell out: "That's my dad!" Some cheered the new visibility of neurodivergent people. But what do advocates and parents of neurodiverse children actually want from government officials, like Tim Walz, in terms of policy? For sponsor-free epis...
Aug 27, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's been more than three weeks since the U.S. and Russia completed the largest prisoner swap since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Speaking from the White House shortly after news broke that three American prisoners were headed home, President Biden described the release as an "incredible relief." Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was one of those prisoners, and she's sharing what life was like in a Russian prison and how she's adjusting to life at home. For sponsor-free episodes of...
Aug 27, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Both major party presidential nominees Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are on the same side of one issue. Getting rid of taxes on tips. But what would that really look like in practice? Wailin Wong and Darian Woods from NPR's daily economics podcast, The Indicator , dive into the potential guardrails for a policy that many economists believe could easily go off track. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at consid...
Aug 25, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast What happens when political ambition collides with a #MeToo allegation in the Democratic party? Episode 2 of our two-part investigation. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 24, 2024•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Did Eric Garcetti, a powerful Democrat, lie under oath about a #MeToo scandal in his office? That's the question at the center of a new investigation from NPR. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 24, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast College students are trickling back onto campuses for the fall semester, just months after protests exploded across the U.S. over Israel's war in Gaza. University leaders are bracing for more protests and counter-protests this semester. And on some campuses, new rules have already taken effect. We hear from Vanderbilt University chancellor Daniel Diermeier about the academic year ahead. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org ...
Aug 23, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Before she became vice president, Kamala Harris had only ever won elections in California a solid blue state. To win the White House, the Harris-Walz ticket will need to compete in purple and even red areas. At the Democratic National Convention, delegates and other attendees from conservative parts of the country offer what they think their party needs to do to reach voters in swing states and Republican strongholds. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Ap...
Aug 22, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Olivia Julianna, 21, is one of more than 200 digital content creators who has been given media credentials to the Democratic National Convention this week. She has over a million followers across TikTok, Instagram and other accounts, in an age where more young people are learning the news through social media. But she never imagined that her "very working-class" upbringing would lead her not only to the DNC but in front of it. We hear from the Texas native ahead of her speech to the convention. ...
Aug 21, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Earlier this month, student protestors filled the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, in opposition to a controversial quota system for government jobs. Authorities then cracked down on demonstrators, blocking internet access, imposing a curfew and issuing police officers a shoot-on-sight order. In just over a month, more than 600 people have been killed. And as the protests escalated, the demonstrations started to become about much more than just the quota system. Eventually, students were able to fo...
Aug 20, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast They've been called "Hollywood's worst-kept secret." Medications like Ozempic or Mounjaro, which are commonly used to treat diabetes, are part of the zeitgeist these days. More and more celebrities are opening up about taking them to lose weight. So when you imagine where these drugs are prescribed most for weight loss around the U.S., maybe you're thinking Los Angeles or New York. Turns out, the capital of the weight loss drug boom is in Kentucky in a small city called Bowling Green, where at l...
Aug 19, 2024•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast The state of the presidential race is a far cry from what it was just a few months ago. Vice President Kamala Harris's rise to the top of the Democratic ticket has sparked waves of excitement, and some tension, among democratic leaders and voters across the country. Thousands of delegates now head to Chicago for the party's convention this week, where Harris is expected to deliver the biggest speech of her political career to date. NPR's Adrian Ma speaker with co-host Ari Shapiro, about how this...
Aug 18, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Twenty-five years ago this month, one film, and one filmmaker, became synonymous with the big plot twist. So what was it about The Sixth Sense that made it such a cultural phenomenon at the time of its release? And how did that shape the rest of controversial director M. Night M. Night Shyamalan career? Haley Joel Osment joins Scott Detrow in conversation to reflect on the impact it had on his work, and how he used that success to propel his career forward. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider ...
Aug 16, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Donald Trump is pledging to go further on immigration than he did in his first term as president, if he is re-elected in November. Internal emails and documents from Trump's time in office obtained by NPR through the Freedom of Information Act shed light on how realistic his plan is to radically expand the United States' deportation system. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . Learn more...
Aug 15, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast So often, telling the story of the Israel-Hamas war is reduced to a catalog of numbers. But this war is much more than all of that. It is the daily life of the people living in the midst of the war that has now been raging for 10 months. The war has also come to encompass a sense of insecurity that permeates, as the humanitarian crisis worsens in Gaza through famine, unclean water and dwindling resources. Pair that with the prospect of a wider regional conflict with Iran that looms nearby. On Th...
Aug 14, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, the Biden administration announced it is taking on more of what it calls "everyday headaches and hassles that waste Americans' time and money." And it's doing that by having federal agencies make new business rules. There are actions to simplify health insurance paperwork, crack down on fake product reviews, streamline parent-teacher communications in schools and circumvent those automated customer service calls that the White House labels "doom loops." It's all part of a wider econom...
Aug 13, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast By most measures, the new Democratic ticket has had an impressively smooth launch. But there is one caveat to that controversy over how vice presidential nominee Tim Walz described his military service. A spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign has said in a statement that the Democratic vice-presidential nominee "misspoke" when talking about his military service. Walz, who served for 24 years in the National Guard, had made a comment that sounded like he had been to war. Walz's Republican oppo...
Aug 12, 2024•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Overdose death rates have spiked dramatically for young adults, rising 34 percent between 2018 and 2022, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet, there are ways to mitigate the risk of overdose, and even ways to reverse it. Notably there's Narcan. It's a brand of the medication naloxone, and it's often used in the form of nasal spray. If administered quickly, it can fully reverse an opioid overdose. Are college campuses and their students prepared? For s...
Aug 11, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Three Taylor Swift concerts were canceled in Austria this week, after authorities foiled planned attacks on the venue. Three young men are now in custody, and at least two of them recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State specifically an affiliate group known as ISIS-K. This isn't the first time Islamic State-related groups have been tied to attacks in Europe over 140 people were killed in an attack on a Moscow concert hall earlier this year, and an explosion at an Ariana Grande concert i...
Aug 09, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ever since women began competing in weightlifting in the Olympics, in the year 2000, only one American woman has won a gold medal. This year, there are hopes that might change. And many of those hopes rest on the (very strong) shoulders of a 21-year-old college student in Chattanooga, Tenn. named Olivia Reeves. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . Learn more about sponsor message choices...
Aug 08, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Speaker of the House Emerita Nancy Pelosi once told Washington Post Columnist Karen Tumulty quote "Nobody ever gives away power. If you want to achieve that, you go for it. But when you get it, you must use it." That was in 2020, and Nancy Pelosi used her power then. She's still using it. Most recently to influence President Joe Biden's decision to end his presidential campaign. First as a volunteer and democratic fundraiser, then as a member of Congress, and finally as the most powerful woman i...
Aug 07, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kamala Harris has tapped Minnesota governor Tim Walz to be her running mate. Democrats hope he can secure Midwestern swing states. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Aug 06, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast There are some 43 million refugees in the world, according to the U.N.'s refugee agency. The 37 of them competing in Paris as the Refugee Olympic Team are fighting for something more than just athletic excellence. We hear from judoka Muna Dahouk and kayaker Saman Soltani. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Priva...
Aug 05, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over the last decade, calls to tax the rich have grown louder around the world but the needle hasn't exactly moved. Now, the Brazilian government has a new proposal: a 2 percent global wealth tax on the uber-rich. It would impact the 3,000 wealthiest people around the world. Economists say this 2 percent hike would unlock an extra $250 billion per year. That money could go toward addressing a number of issues, like climate change and global poverty. G20 nations would have to agree on this propos...
Aug 04, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sport Climbing kicks off at the Olympics in Paris next week. It's a strength-to-weight ratio sport. Meaning, aside from your technique or mental game, the lighter you are relative to your strength, the easier it'll be to get up a wall. That's led some climbers to fall into the mindset that losing weight is the path to better performance. One recent study of 50 elite climbers found that more than a third intentionally lost weight before a competition primarily by fasting and skipping meals, and o...
Aug 03, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
