Author: Matt

This week, Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin said he cannot support the Build Back Better Act, which contains more than half a trillion dollars in climate investments. The White House has been negotiating with Manchin for months, hoping he would cast a key vote for the plan in the Senate, where their party’s majority is razor thin.

Without Manchin’s support, the Biden administration’s most ambitious action on climate may be dead, and the U.S. could fall short of key goals to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

Reporters from NPR’s climate change team — Jeff Brady, Lauren Sommer, and Dan Charles — take stock of where things go from here.

NPR’s Jennifer Ludden also contributed to this episode. Read her piece Manchin says Build Back Better’s climate measures are risky. That’s not true.

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The HBO show Succession is compelling in part because it portrays a world most of us will never see: the backroom deals between cutthroat billionaires and their fraught family relationships. But the show’s dark comedy also gives us insight into the world we all inhabit, and how that world treats women across a spectrum of relationships.

From entrenched sexism to performative feminism, writer Flannery Dean explains the different forms of misogyny on display in Succession.

(Note: Spoilers ahead for those not caught up on the latest season!)

Then, actor J. Smith-Cameron – who plays the character Gerri Kellman – discusses navigating through the toxic machismo of Succession‘s world, and how she made the role her own.

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This holiday season we all deserve a little peace and quiet with the people we love, but the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 threatens to complicate things for everyone.

As tests appear to be in short supply in places like New York City, the White House announced plans to send 500 million at-home tests to Americans who want them and new federal testing sites to meet the demand in the coming weeks.

But despite the rising cases and concern, Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, says this is not March 2020 all over again. And he offers some guidance to help us through the next few weeks.

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Public school enrollment dropped three percent nationwide during the 2020-2021 school year.

NPR’s education team continued to track enrollment this school year and found that while districts have gained students, a significant majority are still not back to where they were prior to the pandemic.

A similar story has unfolded in Los Angeles, Chicago and at more public schools across the nation.

NPR education reporter Cory Turner looked into why students are still not coming back to school and what schools are trying to do about it.

Meanwhile, some of the students not enrolled in public school have started being homeschooled during the pandemic. WBHM education reporter Kyra Miles spoke to Black families in Alabama who are choosing that option in increasing numbers.

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NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast has a tradition to look back on some of their favorite things from the last 12 months of television, movies and music. In this episode they’re revisiting the pop culture that thrilled them, moved them and kept them company during another challenging year.

Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on NPR One, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

On Jan. 6, three Fox News hosts desperately urged former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to get the president to tell supporters to stop attacking the Capitol building.

The texts, which were made public this week as the House of Representatives voted to hold Meadows in contempt, reveal a starkly different message than the one those same Fox hosts delivered to their audiences about the insurrection.

NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik and investigative correspondent Tom Dreisbach discuss the gap between Fox’s messaging behind closed doors and in front of the camera.

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The COP26 Summit, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow last month brought together people from all over the world. And everyone had stories of how climate change is already affecting their lives. But, did the conference accomplish what it set out to do?

Alok Sharma, president of COP26, gives us a behind-the-scenes glimpse into what the conference felt like from the inside, why he apologized for the process, and what it was like trying to get delegates from nearly 200 countries on the same page.

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Five days after tornadoes first touched down in the Midwest and South of the U.S., survivors are coming to grips with what they have lost.

Of the several states that the storms tore through last weekend, Kentucky was the hardest hit. At least 74 people have been confirmed dead there. Many more are unaccounted for.

As survivors, volunteers, and officials sort through and pick up what’s left, how might they think about shoring up homes, businesses and buildings for the future? NPR’s Audie Cornish speaks with University of Florida civil engineering professor David Prevatt about how to prepare buildings for tornadoes and hurricanes.

The severity and timing of these storms have also raised the question of whether climate change has anything to do with tornadoes. NPR correspondent Dan Charles reports.

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Kevin Dawes, an American from California, traveled to Syria in 2012 with hopes of a launching a career as a foreign correspondent. But shortly after crossing the border he was arrested and jailed for three-and-a-half years. And he hasn’t shared his story publicly until now.

NPR correspondent Deborah Amos interviewed Dawes about his nightmarish experience in a Syrian prison, how he’s seeking to bring the government to court, and how he hopes to help do the same for the family of a British doctor he met in the cell next to his.

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Almost two years into the pandemic, at-home rapid tests can still be difficult to find in the U.S. If you do find them, they’re often expensive. Other countries are faring better, like the U.K. and South Korea, which provide free tests each day to anyone who wants them.

Why is the U.S. different? NPR’s Yuki Noguchi reports.

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