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Episodes
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 ...
Trump's dismantling of DEI
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Former President Joe Biden championed DEI programs–initiatives aimed at diversity, equity inclusion and accessibility in recruiting, hiring and rete...
Their home survived the fires, but there's still danger everywhere
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As evacuation orders are lifted, people in Los Angeles are returning to their homes--if their homes survived. But the disaster doesn't end when the fi...
When Oscar got it wrong
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do Babygirl, Singing in the Rain and Apocalypse Now have in common? They've all been overlooked by Oscar voters.Some Oscar blunders fall into the...
Is there an American oligarchy?
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Donald Trump was sworn in on Monday, he was flanked by billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.Also on the dais was Apple CEO Tim ...
Breaking down the executive actions Trump is using to govern
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Donald J. Trump began taking decisive steps to implement his agenda hours after being sworn in. In the day since he's once again become Pre...
Trump is back and ready to change America
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump returns to Washington newly empowered. The Republican party has remade itself in his image. The Supreme Court has granted him sweeping im...
Joe Biden's complicated legacy
19 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When he ran for office in 2020, President Joe Biden vowed to turn the page on then president Donald Trump. But it's Trump who is returning to the Whit...
'The birds are back.' Resilience in the ruins of the Palisades fire
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Will Rogers State Historic Park is a vast stretch of natural space in the Santa Monica Mountains. It's a treasure to Angelenos. People get married the...
Will we finally see an end to the war in Gaza?
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the time we publish this episode, Israel's government has yet to accept the terms of the long-negotiated and hard fought ceasefire deal announced y...
America's place in the world during a second Trump term
15 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Confirmation hearings for Trump's cabinet picks are in full swing on Capitol Hill with a number of them appearing before the Senate this week.Nominees...
Keeping America Safe: CIA Director Burns reflects
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On a shelf in his office at CIA headquarters, Director Bill Burns keeps a tiny scaled model of a house. It's the house in Kabul, Afghanistan, where Al...
What happens when wildland fire reaches the city?
13 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Wildfire" is the word we tend to use when we talk about what Los Angeles has been dealing with the past week. But Lori Moore-Merrell, the U.S. Fire A...
On the way out: Transportation Sec. Buttigieg looks back on achievements, challenges
12 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From handling crises in the rail and airline industries to overseeing the distribution of billions of dollars in infrastructure funding, Transportatio...
As longtime housing activist retires, the fight to end homelessness continues.
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While the debate over homeless policy plays out across the country, Project HOME has offered resources to homeless people in Philadelphia for decades....
'He saved our lives.' A former US hostage reflects on Carter's legacy
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jimmy Carter's four years in the White House were largely defined by an event that took place halfway through his term. On November 4th, 1979 Irani...
Wildfires displace thousands and ravage greater Los Angeles
08 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Extremely dry conditions coupled with high winds have led to an explosive wildfire situation in southern California. Multiple fires have erupted acro...
Wild weather spreads across the U.S.
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Washington, D.C., the federal government is closed – as are most of the schools in the area. That's because the first major snow storm in about t...
The battle over the truth of January 6
06 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happened on January 6, 2021? There have been news reports, documentaries and witness testimonies all trying to put that question to rest. But des...
Elon Musk wades into European politics
05 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Billionaire Elon Musk begins 2025 as one of the most influential people in the United States. He's developed a close relationship with President-elect...
What Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech tells us about his presidency.
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As president, Jimmy Carter promised always to tell the American people the truth about what was happening in the country. We'll look at how that affec...
Can we prevent deadly truck attacks like the one in New Orleans?
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
New Orleans is still reeling from the New Year's Day attack that killed 14 people on Bourbon Street. We ask a counterterrorism expert how attacks like...