Month: February 2023

The Environmental Protection Agency says tests have not shown any contamination of air or drinking water linked to the train derailment near East Palestine, Ohio.

But residents in the area still have safety concerns.

NPR’s Ari Shapiro asks EPA Administrator Michael Regan about those concerns and about the agency’s response to the disaster.

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

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Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s call for mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 seemed like a direct challenge to President Joe Biden, who is 80. But she could have been referring to the other announced candidate in the race: former President Donald Trump, who is 76. Or other high ranking leaders over the age of 75 – Senators Mitch McConnell and Bernie Sanders, both 81. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is 89, but the oldest sitting member of Congress, by a few months, is Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, also 89. She has announced that she will not run for re-election next year, however her term does not end until January 2025.

On the heels of Haley’s announcement, Democratic Senator John Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to seek treatment for clinical depression, a condition often associated with recovery from a stroke, which he experienced last May.

While Fetterman’s case differs from age-related cognitive decline, both issues raise questions about how much the public has the right to know about a public figure’s mental health, and whether acknowledging these very common, very human conditions alleviates stigma or just reinforces it.

Host Michel Martin talks to former Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy about how his decision to speak publicly about his own issues with mental health.

We also hear from Matthew Rozsa, who writes about health and science for Salon.

Kherson was the the first major Ukrainian city to fall to Russian troops. With deep historical ties to Russia, it was not expected to be a center of resistance.

But an army of citizen spies defied Moscow’s expectations, and helped Ukrainian forces liberate the city last November.

A year after Russia launched its invasion, NPR’s Joanna Kakissis has the story of Kherson’s partisans: teachers and accountants and landscape designers, who became eyes and ears for the Ukrainian military.

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There are a lot of different Advanced Placement history courses out there: art history, European history, U.S. history. Now, after a decade in development, there finally is an AP course focused on African-American studies.

The course hasn’t official launched yet, but it’s currently being piloted in 60 schools across the U.S.

The course has drawn national attention after controversies erupted over what is, and isn’t, in the curriculum. We ask three educators who are teaching the course what they are actually teaching and why it matters.

For people who have not experienced it, life in prison can seem unimaginable. So reporters who have themselves been incarcerated can offer an important perspective when covering the prison system.
NPR’s Ailsa Chang speaks with Lawrence Bartley, host of the new series Inside Story, which documents life in the US prison system. The series was created by formerly incarcerated people, and aims to reach audiences both inside and outside the system.
In participating regions, you’ll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what’s going on in your community.
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This week marks one year since Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022.
And in the past year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has undergone a dramatic political transformation.

Zelenskyy got his start as a comedian who played an accidental president on TV. He was then elected president in real life, only to see his popularity slump. Now, after a year of war, he is widely considered an icon of democracy.

NPR’s Frank Langfitt takes a look at how Zelenskyy became the kind of leader he is today and why some Ukrainians still question his leadership.

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The Sierra Club has been at the forefront of the American environmental movement for decades. However, the group has also face criticism for racist and exclusionary attitudes embedded in some of its founding ideals.
The Sierra Club’s new executive director, Ben Jealous, explains how he aims to advance the group’s climate goals, while also reckoning with that past.
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We’re approaching a year since Russian leader Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, a conflict that has resulted in thousands of dead civilians and over eight million refugees.

Along with sending billions of dollars in military aid to Ukrainian forces, the US has responded with a wide range of sanctions meant to cripple Putin’s war machine, targeting Russian banks, finances, oil, and Russia’s billionaire oligarchs.

But as the war continues, critics are asking just how effective the sanctions have been.

Host Michel Martin speaks with Edward Fishman of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. From 2013 to 2017 he was part of the US State Department, where he was involved in the effort to sanction Russia after its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“This kind of dissent? It doesn’t go away.” That’s what NPR heard from a 20-year-old woman on the street in Tehran.

Mary Louise Kelly and a team of producers traveled there last week to see what life looks like, and what remains of the protests that shook the country for months, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

Amini died in police custody after being detained, reportedly for improperly wearing a headscarf, part of Iran’s strict dress code for women. Human rights groups say the regime cracked down on those protests with killings, arrests and executions.

In Iran, NPR found people frightened of the regime, but who felt nevertheless compelled to air their grievances.

We speak with Ali Vaez, an Iran expert with the International Crisis Group, about the lingering discontent behind the protests and what could happen next.

Find more of NPR’s reporting from Iran.

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The derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3rd sparked fear and uncertainty among residents. They are still concerned, almost two weeks later.
NPR’s Ailsa Chang talks to Stan Meiburg, former acting deputy administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, about the agency’s response and what authorities should focus on in order to prevent accidents in the future.
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.