Month: July 2022

How serious is the U.S. about investigating Russian war crimes in Ukraine? They put Eli Rosenbaum on the case. He’s best known for directing the Department of Justice special investigations unit which tracked down Nazis who had gone into hiding after World War II.

He lays out the challenges of conducting an investigation in the midst of an ongoing war.

This episode also features reporting from NPR’s Jason Beaubien and Brian Mann on Russian airstrikes that killed Ukrainian civilians.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Interest in birth control and emergency contraception has surged since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion. But safe and reliable birth control isn’t always easy to access.

Now the FDA is considering whether to make birth control pills available without a prescription. If approved, it would be the first over-the-counter oral contraceptive in the U.S.

We also hear from NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce about the most popular form of contraception for women in the U.S. – permanent contraception, colloquially known as “getting your tubes tied” – and why barriers to access leave many requests for this procedure unfulfilled.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The televised probe into the mob attack on the Capitol has dropped plenty of bombshells as insider testimonies pull back the curtain on the efforts of former President Donald Trump and his allies to hold onto power after he lost his reelection bid.

But at Tuesday’s hearing, one of the most compelling witnesses was not a former staffer or official but Stephen Ayers. A staunch believer in Trump, Ayers came to D.C. on Trump’s command and stormed the Capitol. After his arrest, he looked at the facts about the 2020 election and realized he was fed and had believed a lie.

Polls, studies and surveys warn that Americans are deeply and bitterly divided by politics. Can the January 6 hearing help close that partisan gap? We speak with Didi Kuo, Associate Director for Research at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Public health experts know what it takes to get a disease outbreak under control – widespread testing and treatment, and vaccines made available to communities most at risk.

But in the last two months of the Monkeypox outbreak, the response has not met the need. And there’s been criticism that the missteps look a lot like the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, with more than 1,400 confirmed cases in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more help is on the way. Testing capacity is increasing along with vaccine doses.

NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky about the federal government’s response to Monkeypox and whether it’s enough to contain the outbreak.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Your vote is secret. But the fact that you voted in an election is typically public record.

So some people who falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen have tried to audit the results themselves by going door to door in neighborhoods across the country.

NPR’s Miles Parks and Colorado Public Radio’s Bente Birkeland report on this canvassing effort. It’s part of a controversial movement to galvanize everyday Americans to try to uncover voter fraud in their own communities.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

In a tweet sent on December 19, 2021, former President Trump issued what Democrats now say was a “clarion call” to his supporters. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” he wrote. “Be there, will be wild!” This week, in a hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol, we learned more about what happened in the days and weeks after the President sent that tweet — and the tense moments in the White House just hours before.

Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the House committee investigating January 6th, tells NPR that next week’s primetime hearing — the final scheduled hearing of the committee — will unravel minute-by-minute events at the Capitol and present an account of what President Trump was doing during that time.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

A new omicron subvariant is now the most dominant strain of COVID-19 in the U.S. It’s called BA.5 — and it appears to evade neutralizing antibodies, making it easier for fully-vaccinated people to become infected or those who recently had COVID to get re-infected.

Dr. Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the African Union’s Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance, warns that more variants will follow unless global vaccine efforts get more aggressive.

Atul Gawande, head of global health for the U.S. Agency for International Development, says Congress needs to authorize a new round of spending to help get vaccines to countries where many people still have not been vaccinated.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Mass shooting deaths represent just a fraction of people killed by gun violence in America, and more than half of all gun deaths are suicides.

The numbers are staggering: in 2020, the most recent year with available data, 45,000 people in America were killed by guns. This episode, a few of the people touched by that violence share their stories.

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or contact the Crisis Text Line: text HELLO to 741741.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

When the Women’s NBA All-Star Game gets underway this weekend, the league will be missing one of its superstars, Brittney Griner.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist and star center for the Phoenix Mercury has been detained in Russia on drug smuggling charges since February.

This week, Griner pleaded guilty to the drug charges, saying she did not intend to break the law. If convicted, she could face a maximum penalty of up to ten years in a Russian prison. The country’s prison system is known for some of the harshest conditions in the world.

Her supporters have called on President Joe Biden to step up efforts to bring her home. But negotiating with Russia, about anything, is seldom easy.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

A wave of decisions by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has lead to criticism that the court is more politicized than it used to be. Now there’s data to support that claim. Researchers with The Supreme Court Database — which is run by legal scholars from multiple universities — have shown that the court produced more conservative decisions this term than at any time since 1931.

NPR’s Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg joined Jamal Greene, a Constitutional law professor from Columbia University, and Tom Goldstein, the founder of SCOTUSBlog, to talk about the implications of the decisions from the term.