Consider This from NPR
Episodes
The songs that define America
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Independence Day means different things to each of us. On this 249th birthday for America, we spend some time looking at different definitions of Amer...
The Trump domestic policy megabill is set to become law
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump put essentially his entire domestic agenda in one bill.It would significantly cut clean energy incentives, Medicaid and food assistanc...
Saving history one story at a time
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This summer marks 80 years since the end of World War II when Allied forces liberated Nazi-occupied Europe, and also began to discover the horrific sc...
House Speaker may have to make a lot of promises to get bill to Trump's desk
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The massive tax and spending bill central to President Trump's agenda is one step closer to reality.After weeks of negotiations and 49 consecutive vot...
Why a GOP senator says the budget bill breaks Trump's promise
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The massive budget bill that Senate Republicans are debating pays for some of its tax cuts by slashing hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid spe...
What this term says about where the Supreme Court is headed
29 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A number of Supreme Court decisions handed down this term have expanded the power of the president while limiting the power of the courts. How has thi...
Iran's nuclear sites got bombed. North Korea? It's another story
28 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Although President Trump launched air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, the administration has chosen a different path when dealing with Kim ...
The Supreme Court just lifted a key check on presidential power
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Three different federal judges have issued nationwide blocks to President Trump's executive order to deny U.S. citizenship to some babies born to immi...
Autism rates have exploded. Could the definition be partly to blame?
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has spent years spreading doubt about the safety of vaccines and linking them to autism....
We're not built for this heat
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tens of millions of people across the US are currently under a heat advisory. And the extreme heat isn't just affecting people. You may have seen vide...
Medical views on self-managed abortion shifting since overturn of Roe
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Three years ago, the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to an abortion in the United States.As the legal landscape shifted, the medical land...
Iran launches missiles at U.S. base in Qatar
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Monday, Iran struck back against the United States, firing missiles at a U.S. base in Qatar. The retaliatory strikes come two days after the U.S. a...
What are the wider repercussions of the U.S. bombing of Iran's nuclear sites?
22 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. joined Israel's war on Iran and over the weekend bombed three of the country's nuclear sites, including Fordo, located deep inside a mountain...
Covering the military parade and a No Kings rally on the same day
21 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Langfitt has covered the world. Now he reports for NPR as a roving correspondent, focusing on stories that help us understand a changing America...
How Gabby Giffords is grappling with the rise in political violence
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last weekend, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed at their home by a man impersonating a pol...
Afghans in the US have lost protected status. What happens now?
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Many Afghans who helped the US military or who were persecuted by the Taliban for other reasons found refuge in the United States. They were granted T...
Lessons from Iraq, as Trump teases attacks on Iran
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2003, the U.S. launched a war in Iraq based on what turned out to be bad intelligence about weapons programs, then spent years mired in a conflict ...
What's at stake in the conflict between Israel and Iran?
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The United States has worked for decades to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. Now Israel says it is attacking Iran to remove that threat. W...
The big SCOTUS decisions looming
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Around this time every year, the U.S. Supreme Court ends its term with a bang. The Justices typically save their biggest rulings for June.Outstanding ...
Is this the end of the rule of law in America?
15 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Since the start of his second term, President Trump has been at odds with the federal courts.The protests in Los Angeles are just the latest series of...
The spending cuts one state could face if Trump's massive bill becomes law
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kentucky is one of the poorest states and is likely to see billions of dollars cut from Medicaid and other government benefits if Trump's spending bil...
Israel struck Iran. What's next?
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Early Friday local time, Israel finally did what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been threatening to do for years: It launched a massive attack ...
What's next in the case that symbolizes Trump's immigration crackdown?
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kilmar Abrego Garcia: a name that's become near-synonymous with the Trump Administration's immigration crackdown.Abrego Garcia was arrested by ICE age...
Is Trump's immigration bet working?
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The White House's message on what's happening in Los Angeles is simple: this is what President Trump was elected to do.It is true that polls have foun...
Fentanyl deaths among the young are dropping. Can the trend continue?
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fentanyl and other street drugs killed more than 230,000 people under the age of 35 in the U.S. over the last decade. But now new federal data shows d...
The Insurrection Act is back on the table
09 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The last time a President deployed the National Guard over a governor's objections was more than 50 years ago.Over the weekend, President Trump did ju...
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass reacts to federalized National Guard troops in her city
08 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Citing a rarely used law, President Trump bypassed California's governor Gavin Newsom, and ordered two thousand national guard troops to Los Angeles f...
Reporting on abuse by federal judges means cracking open a culture of fear
07 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In March, NPR Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson reported on problems with the way federal courts police sexual harassment and bullying. A culture ...
Do private school voucher programs work?
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
House Republicans' reconciliation bill, which includes a first-of-its-kind national private school voucher program, is now in the hands of the Senate....
A new travel ban is coming. Will it hold up in court?
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump has signed a new travel ban. Travelers from 12 countries will be barred from entering the US, and people from an additional seven coun...
How New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern broke the political mold
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whether it was her history making win in 2017.Or the history she made as only the second woman elected to lead a country to give birth while IN office...
What's going wrong with aid in Gaza?
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tuesday morning brought another shooting near a food distribution site in Gaza — the third in as many days. This time, more than two dozen people we...
What's the message behind Trump's military parade?
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the past, most military parades in the U.S. were staged to signal the end of a war and welcome home of those who fought. The last major military pa...
Three years into his war on Ukraine, what does Putin really want?
01 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump wants to make a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Putin says Russia wants to engage in peace talks, but Putin has al...
What's behind Trump's crackdown on universities — and why it matters
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Trump administration has thrown so many curveballs at colleges and universities, it can be hard to keep track. But there's logic behind the many e...
The CDC changed its COVID vaccine guidance. What does that mean for you?
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced new COVID recommendations this week, it raised questions among clinicians and...
Children of ISIS fighter find new life in Minnesota
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When ISIS was at its height, its ranks included several hundred Americans. They were often young men radicalized online by savvy marketing that promis...
NPR takes Trump to court
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
NPR and three public radio stations in Colorado sued President Trump on Tuesday over his executive order that seeks to end federal funding for NPR and...
What Trump's cuts to intelligence could mean for national security
26 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's a classic Washington power move — the late-on-Friday news dump. This past Friday, at 4:30pm, start of a long holiday weekend, about half the st...
Misinformation channels to the Oval Office
25 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump's spreading of the false claim that South Africa is perpetrating a genocide against its white inhabitants is just the latest example o...
The Supreme Court's Trump Dilemma
24 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Supreme Court has become the focal point of the legal battle over President Donald Trump's executive authority – and presidential power more bro...
Can Trump suspend habeas corpus?
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem got a pop quiz at a senate hearing this week. The question came from Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan, of N...
Two Israeli embassy staffers killed amid a rise in antisemitism
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim worked for the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C.This weekend, they were slated to go to Jerusalem — Milgrim was...
A Newark air traffic controller on the moment systems went dark
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Federal regulators are now limiting the number of flights in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport. This comes after a harrowing month for t...
Advice for navigating a volatile economy
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. economy is in flux. And for millions of Americans, a new line item in their budget includes repaying federal student loans.Making ends meet i...
New book alleges Biden aides hid his decline
19 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden has stage four metastatic prostate cancer.The former president made that announcement Sunday afternoon. It came just days before the publica...
Over tea, a deal with Damascus and a possible turning point for Middle East diplomacy
18 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the first major foreign trip of his second term, President Trump met with leaders in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. His arrival was greeted with...
The whiplash of covering the trade war from inside China
17 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this week, the White House announced that the U.S. and China had agreed to lower the reciprocal tariffs they had put in place in April – but...
Connecting the dots on DOGE
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's been six months since President Trump first announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency initiative, which has dramatically ...
Birthright citizenship goes to the Supreme Court
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump's order that would end automatic citizenship for the children of many categories of immigrants has been blocked from going into effect...
Palestinians are counting lentils, as Gaza food crisis worsens
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly half a million people in Gaza now face starvation, according to a new report from the IPC, the international panel of famine experts who advise...
Poland's plan to resist a Russian attack
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As a neighbor of Ukraine's and host to more than 2 million of its war refugees, Poland has seen, heard and felt what Russia is capable of, and it's no...
Why Bill Gates is giving away his money faster
12 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, the Gates Foundation announced it would spend more than $200 billion over the next 20 years — including nearly all the personal wealth of...
Looking for clues from Pope Leo XIV's sermons
11 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The election of the first American pope is a remarkable moment in the two thousand year history of the Catholic Church. But in choosing his name, it's...
Why covering the Vatican is a really tough reporting assignment
10 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When NPR listeners think of reports from Italy or the Vatican, usually one name comes to mind: Sylvia Poggioli. She covered much more, of course, ove...
After two years of civil war, Sudan's capital is a shell of its former self
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's been more than two years since civil war exploded in Sudan. By some estimates the conflict has killed as many as 150-thousand people, and displac...
This American pope
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The cardinals have elected a new pope: Robert Prevost, a cardinal born in Chicago. He has taken the name Leo XIV. He is the first American pope in the...
America's air traffic control problem
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Newark Liberty International Airport has been a mess the past week, with hundreds of flights cancelled and hundreds more delayed. It was triggered in ...
For LGBTQ Catholics, a lot depends on the next pope
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the eve of the conclave to elect a new pope, some of the biggest questions hanging in the air have to do with LGBTQ Catholics. Will the church cont...
Trump's spending cuts are hitting communities of his supporters
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump's rapid-fire spending cuts have affected communities all over the country–including strongholds of his supporters. One of them is Ri...
Prelude to a conclave: understanding the selection process of a new pope
04 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Days before the beginning of the conclave to select the next pope, NPR's Scott Detrow is in Rome. He speaks with Sylvia Poggioli about the rituals and...
Despite talk of peace, Ukraine is still under a barrage of deadly attacks
03 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past few months, world leaders and diplomats have talked about grand plans for ending the war in Ukraine. But what about daily life there ri...
A legal architect of Guantanamo questions Trump's El Salvador plan
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. has sent people it has detained — people it calls terrorists — to a prison overseas — indefinitely.This is true in 2025, after the Trum...
Ford CEO does the math on Trump's auto tariffs
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Americans are rushing to car dealerships as they worry about what President Trump's tariffs will do to car prices in the coming months. New vehicle sa...
Trumps first 100 days have pushed the limits of presidential power to new levels
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump is pushing the boundaries of executive power in nearly every area of policy. From his trade war, to immigration, to education, to the ...
Trump uses government powers to target perceived enemies
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
An NPR investigation has been following President Trump's efforts to retaliate against his perceived enemies since he returned to the Oval Office in J...
A severe autism advocate responds to RFK Jr.'s research initiative
28 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
About one in 31 children in the U.S. has been identified with autism spectrum disorder, according to CDC data released this month.When Health and Huma...
How Canada's national election has been largely shaped by Donald Trump
27 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st state have become some of the biggest issues facing Canadians as they head...
How a punishing two years shaped Pope Francis
26 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Long before he was elected to run the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis was essentially exiled from his Argentinian Jesuit order. Francis often refe...
Federal agencies are reeling from Trump administration cuts to government
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whether a "chainsaw," per Elon Musk, or "scalpel," as President Trump has said — the Trump administration is making deep cuts to the federal governm...
Americans are protesting the Trump administration. Do they work?
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When you think of a successful protest movement, most Americans probably think of the American Civil Rights movement, and the March on Washington in 1...
Israel's changing story of an attack on rescue workers
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On March 23, the death toll in Gaza surpassed 50,000 people killed by Israeli fire in the war with Hamas.This is the story of 15 people who were kille...
Maintaining stability is key to the economy. That's getting harder.
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does it take to keep the economy stable? That is a question that Jerome Powell considers every day in his role as Chair of the Federal Reserve. I...
Pope Francis I has died. What happens now?
21 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Monday morning in Rome Cardinal Kevin Farrell Camerlengo or Cardinal Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church announced the death of Pope Francis I.Tha...
Dismantling Democracy: Lessons from Hungary's Viktor Orban
20 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Viktor Orban is in his fourth consecutive term as Prime Minister of Hungary. In that time, he has dismantled democratic checks and balances, taken con...
Behind two high-profile deportation cases, a legal crisis grows
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, two federal judges handling separate immigration cases escalated their attempts to get the Trump administration to comply with court orders...
Raising kids is costly; Tariffs will make it even more expensive
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to the cost of raising a child from infancy to the age of 17 in the United States – it's hard to settle on a precise figure.There's on...
Can the U.S. banish its citizens?
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Trump administration's move to send immigrants to a maximum security prison in El Salvador is the subject of multiple on-going fights in court. Bu...
Did DOGE take sensitive labor data?
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency team, or DOGE, appears to be grabbing sensitive data from all over the government. A whistleblow...
Vaccine expert worries child measles deaths are being 'normalized'
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Measles is an extremely contagious disease. It's also extremely preventable. There's a vaccine. It's highly effective. For decades it has made measles...
Why one deportation case has legal scholars afraid for even U.S. citizens
13 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Trump administration admitted that it wrongfully deported a man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia.It had also been arguing that courts cannot compel the ...
Big law in Trump's crosshairs
12 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For weeks, President Trump has been targeting certain law firms with executive orders. Some have fought back, but others have cut deals to avoid the d...
How Trump's immigration policy changes who gets arrested and detained
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During his second Presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to carry out the largest deportation program the U.S. has ever seen.And true to his word –...
Drowning in tariffs, American businesses try to stay afloat
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's pretty rare for one person to do one thing that affects nearly every business in the United States. But that's the power of the presidency and th...
Tariffs will boost prices a lot — here's how much
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After a week of market turmoil, President Trump announced he would reset his most extreme tariffs to 10 percent across the board, with the exception o...
What will it take to get measles under control?
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's been 25 years since measles was officially "eliminated" from the United States. That's a technical term. In public health, it means measles has n...
They want America to have more babies. Is this their moment?
07 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Billionaire Elon Musk told Fox News recently that falling birth rates keep him up at night. It's a drum he's been beating for years.Musk is one of the...
How Deportations Work
06 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Deportation is a complicated process — with lots of layers. As the Trump administration expands the number and scope of deportations – what does t...
The video game industry at a crossroads
05 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The video game industry is huge. Last year alone it generated an estimated $187 billion dollars in revenue. But it's also facing a host of serious iss...
A devastating earthquake brings more uncertainty to Myanmar
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The country of Myanmar has been in crisis for years. A civil war has been going on since 2021. And then, last Friday, a devastating earthquake hit, le...
Trump takes aim at trade deficits. Are they actually bad?
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whatever you think of President Trump's tariffs, there's one point you have to concede: his interest in them is not a passing whim. He noted that on W...
Who loses when Trump cuts funding to universities?
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eight-point-seven billion. Four-hundred million. One-hundred-seventy-five million. These are just some examples of the money the federal government ha...
Trump is betting the economy on his tariff theory
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In President Donald Trump's telling, tariffs are the political equivalent of duct tape: you can use them to fix anything. For example, they're a negot...
South Korea admits to widespread adoption fraud. Here's one story
31 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Korean adoption agencies were responsible for widespread fraud, malpractice an...
AI and the Environment
30 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The AI boom has caused a huge surge in energy consumption, so how is the tech industry thinking about its environmental footprint as it invests in new...
Reporting on how America reduced the number of opioid deaths
30 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After reaching historic levels, fatal overdoses from opioids are dropping rapidly. Today we bring you a reporter's notebook from NPR's national addict...
Why did Israel restart the war? One answer: Bezalel Smotrich.
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bezalel Smotrich's views were once fringe in Israel. He's an ultranationalist West Bank settler, who has repeatedly called for Israel to resettle the ...
The Southeastern U.S. faces a future with more wildfires
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Six months ago, Southern Appalachia was devastated by Hurricane Helene.Now, after a dry spell and a windy March — the region faces wildfires that ar...
Campus protesters have faced deportation threats before
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In January of 1987, Michel Shehadeh, a Palestinian man who'd lawfully immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager, was taking care of his toddler son at home...
The fallout from the Signal breach begins
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the 24 hours since a bombshell Atlantic article, senators have grilled Trump administration intelligence officials — but there are no signs yet t...