Author: Matt

The United States is experiencing an adolescent mental health crisis. Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Surgeon General are stressing the urgent need to address the mental health needs of children and teens.

The pandemic focused attention on this issue as young people dealt with isolation, the uncertainty of lockdown and grief over the death of loved ones. But while the pandemic exacerbated the problem, it has been building for years.

We speak with Judith Warner, a journalist and author, to find out how we got to this point, and what can be done to help kids now. Warner’s most recent piece, “We Have Essentially Turned a Blind Eye to Our Own Children for Decades,” appears in The Washington Post Magazine.

This episode deals with suicide. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or the Crisis Text Line by texting “HOME” 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.

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Sasa Woodruff loves food—she’s been accused of having far too many cookbooks. But in 2019, a phone call from an unknown caller changed her relationship to eating.

A genetic counselor called to tell her that she had a rare genetic mutation which could lead to a lethal form of stomach cancer.

The only way to prevent that cancer was to get her stomach surgically removed.

While she’s now grateful for the information that genetic testing gave her, Woodruff’s story raises questions about what kind of information patients should have and how they can use it.

Professor of law and philosophy at Duke University, Nita Farahany and professor of law and biosciences at Stanford University, Hank Greely discuss the implications of growing access to genetic testing and how to weigh health decisions.

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.

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Inflation dipped slightly in April, but it’s still at a historically-high 8.3 percent. Research suggests lower-income families suffer the most when prices rise.

NPR’s Scott Horsley explains how people around the country are coping with inflation, and what the Federal Reserve is doing to try to bring it under control.

This episode also includes reporting from NPR’s Jennifer Ludden, on eviction rates rising in the face of increased rent and the end of pandemic rent aid in some places.

And it features reporting from NPR’s Brittany Cronin, on what’s driving rising fuel prices.

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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Some countries in Latin America are expanding abortion rights. Other countries, like Poland, have all but outlawed the procedure. Meanwhile, health officials in Canada have signaled Americans would be welcome to seek abortion services across the border if they cannot access care at home.

All of that speaks to the reality that America’s abortion debate is not happening in vacuum, and is being watched closely around the world.

Mary Louise Kelly spoke about how abortion laws around the world compare to those in the U.S., with NPR correspondents Mara Liasson in Washington D.C., Philip Reeves in Brazil, and Rob Schmitz in Germany.

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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The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is gaining followers in the U.S. — not Russian immigrants, but American converts drawn to its emphasis on “traditional values.”

NPR’s Odette Yousef reports some new converts are using the religion to spread white nationalist views. More from her story here.

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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Debates about the status of Roe v. Wade continue after the Supreme Court’s draft opinion was leaked last week. This week, the Senate is planning to vote on legislation that would codify abortion rights into a federal law, but it’s likely to fail given the 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans. That means abortion access will be left up to states — and some already have restrictive abortion laws.

Reproductive justice advocates are concerned about the disproportionate impact those laws will have on Black and Brown communities if Roe is overturned.

NPR’s Sandhya Dirks spoke to some advocates about how women of color are situated in this abortion access debate. And NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin explains how restricting abortion access means restricting health care for people across all demographic backgrounds.

You can also hear more from Dr. Diana Green Foster, who spoke to NPR’s science podcast Shortwave, which examined what happened when people had access to abortion and what happened when they were denied.

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Earlier this week, a leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court suggested that after nearly 50 years, the court intends to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Almost as soon as abortions became legal, opponents began organizing efforts to repeal the law. Eighteen states now have so-called “trigger laws” that will ban abortions the moment that Roe v. Wade is overturned or pre-“Roe” era bans that remain on the books, ready once again, to fall into place.

We’ll look back at the longstanding efforts by legal, political and religious groups – on both sides of the debate – that have led to this moment. And we’ll discuss what comes next.

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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Audio in the podcast from Supreme Court arguments of Roe v. Wade was obtained from Oyez.org multimedia archive.

For a few months, it looked like COVID-19 was retreating in the United States. But cases are rising across the country again. Still, public health leaders are signaling that the U.S. is turning another corner in this pandemic, and that continued COVID surges might just be part of the new normal.

NPR Science correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff reports on what the new Omicron variant could have in store for the U.S. in coming weeks and months, and what scientists know about Americans’ COVID immunity.

Andy Slavitt, former senior advisor to President Joe Biden on COVID, explains what the “endemic phase” could look like.

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Twin babies Lenny and Moishe were born via surrogate in Ukraine, just as Russia invaded the country. Their parents live in Chicago and had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of their new sons.

Rescuers exfiltrated the babies, dodging Russian artillery fire and driving through a snowstorm before finally arriving at a Polish hospital, where new father Alex “Sasha” Spektor met the boys for the first time. But a more difficult journey for the family was just beginning.

NPR’s Ari Shapiro followed up with Spektor and his partner, Irma Nuñez, as they navigated the complicated bureaucratic process of getting their twins from Poland to the United States.

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Bipartisan members who serve on state and county boards of canvassers in Michigan have an important job: certifying the results of elections, making them official.

In 2020, Former President Trump and his allies urged them not to certify as part of his campaign to undermine and overturn the presidential election, even though Joe Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes.

Since then, local GOP leaders have replaced many of the Republican canvassers who upheld their oaths and voted to certify the results for Biden.

Michelle Voorheis, a Republican canvasser in Genessee County until last year, is one of them. She says she wasn’t re-nominated because she pushed back against false allegations of election fraud.

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