Month: January 2021

Every Fall NPR asks our critics and staff to pick their favorite books from the past year. Those nominations – there’s hundreds of them – are then sorted down to a semi-manageable number. This year is our largest list yet with 383 titles.

Click here to visit NPR’s Book Concierge for 2020.

The hosts of Consider This all submitted their picks to the list. Here are some of their favorites:

Ari Shapiro recommends Susanna Clarke’s novel Piranesi. A mythic story about a man who is disoriented and trapped in a mysterious sort of house.

Mary Louise Kelly has a suggestion great for a book club. Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet explores the connection between what was arguably William Shakespeare’s greatest play, Hamlet, and the death of his only son four years before.

Ailsa Chang’s pick is a good read for ages 10 and up. Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri takes you on a journey through myth, youth and cultural clash as a young boy and his family flee Iran and end up in Oklahoma.

Audie Cornish chose to share Just Us by poet Claudia Rankine. It’s a collection of essays, photos, poems and conversations that Rankine has been having with friends and strangers about race.

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Americans got some good news on Wednesday morning when the White House announced that it had secured another 100 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar released a statement afterward saying the U.S. will now have enough supply “to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021.”

Even with these announcements questions remain on how exactly everyone will get vaccinated. States are having varying levels of success with the vaccine rollout process. Dr. Jose Romero, Arkansas health secretary and chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention immunization advisory committee, discusses the success Arkansas has had with vaccine distribution and the lessons learned in the process.

In Seattle, NPR’s Will Stone has been following vaccine distribution, including to health care workers who have been caring for COVID-19 patients for nearly a year.

One of the questions that remains as more people get vaccinated is should volunteers who got a placebo during the vaccine trials now be offered the real thing? NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks with Dr. Steven Goodman of Stanford School of Medicine who is advising the Food and Drug Administration about this.

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After seven months since the last coronavirus relief bill, Congress finally passed a new one on Monday. Neither Democrats or Republicans are completely happy with the $900 billion package, but it does provide some relief.

Included in the newest bill are extended unemployment benefits and $600 direct deposit payments to most Americans. But for many people who previously lost their jobs and livelihoods, this relief comes too late. NPR’s Lauren Hodges reports on the millions of people who are have been in financial limbo since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

And the financial impacts of the pandemic have not been felt evenly. Women and communities of color are bearing the greatest burden. NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly spoke with associate professor of economics Michelle Holder of John Jay college at City University of New York, about how industries like retail and hospitality have been disproportionately gutted and when they might return to pre-pandemic levels.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged who was behind the cyber attack on Friday, saying Russia used third-party software to get inside the systems of multiple U.S. government agencies.

But the attack didn’t happen last week. It started in March. To help make sense of how an attack of this magnitude went undiscovered for months, NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Fiona Hill, who served as President Trump’s most senior Russia adviser on the National Security Council until last year.

Now that it’s clear who was behind the attack, how do deal with Russia will be a big question for the incoming Biden administration. NPR’s Russia correspondent Lucian Kim explains how the U.S.-Russia relationship may change as Biden takes office in January.

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Every year, Americans buy tens of millions of Christmas trees. But decorative evergreens don’t just magically show up on corner lots, waiting to find a home in your living room. There are a bunch of fascinating steps that determine exactly how many Christmas trees get sold, and how expensive they are.

On this episode of Planet Money, NPR’s Nick Fountain and Robert Smith visit the world’s largest auction of Christmas trees — and then see how much green New Yorkers are willing to throw down for some greenery.

Listen to more episodes of Planet Money on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Prisons and jails are hotbeds for COVID-19. Public health experts say they should be given early access to a coronavirus vaccine. But only six states have prioritized vaccination for people who are incarcerated.

Sharon Dolovich, director of UCLA’s Prison Law & Policy Program, tells NPR why the debate over vaccinating inmates is a particularly American one.

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An emerging coronavirus relief package may not do enough to help restaurants hobbled by the pandemic, many of which have struggled to make ends meet all year — with 100,000 restaurants closed on a permanent or long-term basis, according to a survey from the National Restaurant Association.

Andrew Genung, the writer behind the restaurant industry newsletter Family Meal, explains why so many restaurants did not get enough help in the first round of relief passed by Congress early in the pandemic.

Nya Marshall, owner of Ivy Kitchen and Cocktails in Detroit, describes the adjustments necessary to run her restaurant this year.

And at least one restaurant-adjacent business is doing well: Auction Factory, which repairs and sells liquidated restaurant equipment. Cleveland-based owner Russell Cross tells NPR his warehouse is full of equipment from shuttered restaurants.

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In an Oregon hospital, a disabled woman fought for her life as her friends and advocates pleaded for proper care. Her case raises the question: Are disabled lives equally valued during a pandemic?

NPR investigations correspondent Joseph Shapiro reports on what happened to Sarah McSweeney.

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Electors in every state officially sealed Joe Biden’s presidential victory this week, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., congratulated the president-elect on Tuesday.

Biden is now 36 days away from inauguration, waiting to face a public health and economic crisis that is growing by the day.

NPR political correspondent Asma Khalid reports on the economic experts close to Biden’s team who are advising the next president on how he can offer economic relief to Americans without Congress.

And Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tells NPR why he’s urging Democrats to reject an emerging pandemic relief package if it does not include direct cash payments to individual Americans. Sanders spoke to NPR’s Ailsa Chang.

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The U.S. officially began vaccinating people against COVID-19 on Monday, starting with Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse in New York City. The first vaccination came the same day that the country hit another grim milestone of 300,000 dead from the disease.

Though vaccinations have begun, the pandemic is still raging and affecting people in all kinds of ways, including their relationships with partners, family and friends.

We asked you to share your questions with us on how to navigate those changing relationships. To help answer those questions, we’re joined by Dr. Lexx Brown-James, a marriage and family therapist and sexologist based in St. Louis, and NPR’s Cory Turner, who covers parenting and education.

To hear more about how parents can help their kids feel less anxious right now, check out this episode of NPR’s Life Kit podcast. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

In participating regions, you’ll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what’s going on in your community.

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