Consider This from NPR

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...

Trump targets Big Law, and Big Law appears intimidated

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For weeks, President Trump has been issuing executive orders and memos that levy or threaten sanctions on major law firms.The moves suspend security c...

How an obscure legal theory shaped the immunity decision and Trump's second term

23 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the president has "absolute immunity from criminal prosecution" for official acts.To reach that...

On the road in Greenland, north of the Arctic Circle

22 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Greenland is a lot more than an object of Donald Trump's territorial ambitions. It's a place whose small population is facing big questions – about...

The long history of Russia's broken promises to Ukraine

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Representatives from Russia and Ukraine will be in meetings to try to hammer out details of a ceasefire on Monday. But peace is still a long way off.F...

Farming is uncertain — a trade war makes it more so

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Farmers already worry about things like crop prices, the cost of farm supplies and extreme weather.Now, President Trump's signature tariffs — and th...

Trump is taking a hammer to traditional pillars of soft power

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The argument for international aid is in part a moral one, but it's also been about U.S. interests. As then-senator Marco Rubio put it in 2017: "I pro...

Measles is spreading. Are you safe?

18 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Measles continues to spread in West Texas and New Mexico. About 300 cases have been reported, since the outbreak began in January - but the actual num...

Is Trump defying the courts?

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"Oopsie, too late. "That post on X from the President of El Salvador got retweeted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the weekend with a laugh-cry...

Never give up - one Gaza boy's story of trying to survive in Gaza

16 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Nearly 40, 000.That's the United Nations estimate for the number of children who have been killed or injured since Israel began its war with Hamas som...

Trump says the economy is in 'transition.' What comes after?

14 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"A little disturbance," "a period of transition," "a detox period." These are all phrases that President Trump and his administration have used to des...

Over a dozen lawsuits to stop DOGE data access are betting on a 1974 law

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been trying to access the massive amounts of Americans' personal information held in databases t...

The Trump administration's attacks on oversight of executive power

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Trump administration continues to fire, shut down or defund independent elements of the federal government that traditionally work as a check on p...

Fentanyl deaths are plunging, but it's just the first step

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The deadliest phase of the U.S. fentanyl crisis appears to be over. That's according to new research showing fatal overdoses from fentanyl and other s...

Republicans say Medicaid is safe. But budget math says otherwise

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

House Republicans have to get their spending bill passed by Friday to avoid a government shutdown. They can likely afford to lose just one vote. And t...

Riding 'La Bestia' with migrants in Mexico

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Many migrants in Mexico journey north to the U.S. border by riding on top of freight trains. It's a dangerous trip: migrants have been kidnapped by ca...

Marco Rubio pivots to America First diplomacy

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It's been a little more than a week since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Vice President J...

When it comes to the economy, it's all about uncertainty

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Like a lot of economists, Mark Zandi, with Moody's Analytics, thinks President Trump's across-the-board tariffs are a bad idea. Saying, "Tariffs, broa...

Can democrats find their way out of the wilderness?

05 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A hundred minutes — that's how long President Trump had the floor — literally — last night.A hundred minutes he used to lay out his agenda, his ...

How Trump's foreign policy is reshaping the world order

04 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After the Trump-Zelenskyy blow-up on Friday, European leaders held emergency talks in London to put together a roadmap to peace. Then, on Tuesday, Eur...

When it comes to harassment, are federal judges above the law?

03 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

People who work for the federal court system don't have the same kinds of job protections that most other Americans do.A nearly year-long NPR investig...

The political power of the pope

03 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Unlike any other religious leader around the world, the leader of the world's one billion Catholics is also the leader of a sovereign nation. And Pope...

An immigration lawyer on Trump's first month

28 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Tuesday, President Trump will address Congress and the nation in a major speech, where he'll sum up what he's accomplished in his first month. And ...

Former DOGE employee: work could 'cross extreme ethical and legal lines'

27 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Tuesday, 21 DOGE employees resigned. NPR spoke to one of them who says she felt the new administration was causing "harm to the American people." A...

Is there a deal to end Russia's war with Ukraine?

26 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet President Donald Trump at the White House.On the agenda — a deal for Ukraine...

The view from Greenland: 'We don't want to be Americans'

25 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump's calls for the U.S. to take over Greenland have sparked alarm and outrage.Denmark, which is responsible for Greenland's security, rec...

Are Trump's military picks based on merit or loyalty?

24 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Friday, Donald Trump fired Chairman of the Joint Chief's of Staff CQ Brown, along with several other top Pentagon officials. Now, Senator Jack Reed...

Trump's tariffs and rhetoric strain historic Windsor-Detroit friendship

23 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Donald Trump's tariffs and comments about turning Canada into the 51st state have tested U.S. relations with the country. One example is the...

What happens if the Education Department is abolished?

21 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

"The Department of Education is a big con job." That's just one of the things President Trump has said about one of the most high profile departments ...

The fate of Ukraine hangs in the balance as Trump sides with Russia

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia. Three years ago Russian troops poured over Ukraine's border...

Is the U.S. headed for autocracy?

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Is the United States headed toward autocracy?That's a question prompted by a steady stream of executive orders seeking to consolidate power in the Whi...

Will New York's mayor survive widening scandal?

18 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, along withother top officials spent much of Tuesday weighing whether to use her power to remove New York City Mayor Er...

Why are Israel's deals to exchange hostages so lopsided?

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

An Israeli delegation is in Cairo to hash out details for the second phase of a ceasefire deal with Hamas. Under the first phase of the deal, Hamas ag...

After weeks of chaos, the future is uncertain for thousands of federal workers

16 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Across the country and around the world, tens of thousands of federal workers face uncertainty amid an unprecedented reduction and restructuring of th...

Bonus Episode: The Aphasia Choir

15 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There are at least two million people in America who have thoughts and ideas they can't put into words. People who have had strokes or traumatic brain...

Ousted Kennedy Center president says artists must feel "welcome and safe"

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Donald Trump is now chairman of The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Trump replaced 18 members of the board with a...

In Panama economic needs threaten to erase a way of life

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Panama has been looking for solutions to a long-term problem. Every time a ship passes through the Panama Canal, more than 50 million gallons of fresh...

Trump says the U.S. will 'own' Gaza — what that could mean for the Middle East

12 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Gaza Strip – ground zero of Israel's war with Hamas – is only about twice the size of Washington, DC. It has about 25 miles of coastline along...

Are we in a constitutional crisis?

11 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump's blizzard of executive orders has run into a snowplow of legal challenges. There are dozens of cases challenging the White House's ac...

What DOGE could mean for Medicare and Medicaid?

10 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is quickly expanding its reach through the federal government.It recently accessed systems at the Cent...

Trump 2.0 or Project 2025?

09 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Project 2025, is a 900-plus page blueprint for a conservative President. It was unveiled in the spring of 2023, well before Donald Trump had won the r...

Bonus Episode: "Margery," the medieval memoirist

09 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, scholars only had one version of the life of Margery Kempe, an English mystic who lived in the 14th and 15th centuries — until a ping...

Is there a Trump Doctrine for Foreign Policy?

07 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A lot of labels have been applied to Trump's foreign policy approach. America First, Isolationist, transactional, imperialist, protectionist. "I'm a n...

The wider impact of DEI changes under the Trump administration

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As President Trump dismantles Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practices at the federal level, organizations across the country are also shifting ...

Trump's Plan for Gaza: American intervention and mass relocation

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump floated two stunning ideas about Gaza on Tuesday. The first is he said the U.S. would take over the territory, which has been devastat...

What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?

04 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Washington these days, Elon Musk seems to be everywhere.In the 15 days Donald Trump has been back in the White House, Musk and his Department of Go...

The people and the waterway at the center of the Panama Canal

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Panama Canal has sat at the center of global trade for more than a century, connecting two oceans. The things Americans use every day pass through...

Is Trump testing limits or trying to eliminate them?

02 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Most presidents want as much power as they can get. And it's not unusual to see them claim authority that they don't, in the end, actually have. We sa...

A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation

31 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Schools, corporations, even churches, are wrestling with how to approach issues of racial and social justice in a highly polarized U.S. But what happe...

Investigators look for answers in worst U.S. airline crash in two decades

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What went wrong in the midair collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet over Reagan National Airport, outside of D.C.? As officials ...

What would RFK Jr. mean to HHS?

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced senators today in a contentious confirmation hearing to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary under President Trump...

Meet first time Grammy nominee Charley Crockett

28 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Country music singer Charley Crockett was born and raised in Texas, grew up in a single-wide trailer with his mom and says his family lineage traces a...

Can Susie Wiles keep Trump on track?

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Susie Wiles is doing something no woman has done before. She is the first in history to hold the position of White House Chief of Staff. Now, we will ...