Month: September 2021

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority allowed a Texas law banning most abortions to go into effect. Almost immediately, abortion providers had to begin turning people away.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports on the court’s interpretation of the Texas law and its controversial enforcement provision, which allows any private citizen to sue someone who helps a person get an abortion — with the plaintiff due $10,000 in damages and court costs.

Kathryn Kolbert, co-founder of the Center for Reproductive Rights, explains how abortion rights activists are responding.

Additional reporting in this episode came from stories by NPR’s Wade Goodwyn and Ashley Lopez of member station KUT.

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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Some states in the south are have more people in the hospital than at any point during the pandemic — fueled by the highly transmissible delta variant and low vaccination rates.

Dr. David Kimberlin, co-division director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, tells NPR the hospital system is Alabama is on the verge of collapse. He spoke to reporter Pien Huang.

So what happens — for patients and the people who treat them — when hospitals are full? NPR put that question to two people in charge of hospitals: Dr. Aharon Sareli, Chief of Critical Medicine with the Memorial Healthcare System near Miami; and Dr. Adriano Goffi, a medical director at Altus Lumberton Hospital east of Houston.

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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The U.S. military’s mission in Afghanistan is over. For many still living in the country, a new struggle has begun: how to move forward after they were not able to make it before the U.S. withdrawal.

Mark Schmitz is also grappling with how to move forward. His 20-year-old son, Jared, was one of 13 U.S. service members killed in an attack on the Kabul airport. Schmitz spoke to NPR’s Rachel Martin — his interview was produced and edited by the staff of NPR’s Morning Edition, where it originally aired. More from the interview here.

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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Hurricane Ida’s winds intensified rapidly as the storm approached coastal Louisiana over the weekend — making landfall at its most powerful. NPR’s Rebecca Hersher explains how Ida was supercharged by climate change.

Now the hurricane’s remnants are moving north and east, where millions are bracing for flooding and tornado threats. Janey Camp with Vanderbilt University tells NPR why climate change means flooding will become more common in areas where people haven’t been accustomed to it in the past.

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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A federal bankruptcy judge says he’ll rule Wednesday in the case of Purdue Pharma, makers of OxyContin. The company is owned by the Sackler family, who are at the center of a national reckoning over the deadly opioid epidemic.

NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann has been covering the story of Purdue Pharma for years, and explains how the Sacklers may emerge from Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings with their personal fortunes in tact. Find more of Brian’s reporting here or follow him on Twitter @BrianMannADK.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Venezuela is facing an economic and humanitarian crisis as extreme poverty and violence have forced many to flee the country in recent years. How did a country once wealthy with oil resources fall into such turmoil?