Author: Matt

More than 400,000 Americans have been killed by the coronavirus. That’s more Americans than were killed in all of World War II, President Biden pointed out this week. He calls his new plan to fight the pandemic a “wartime effort.”

That effort begins with taking charge of a bottlenecked vaccine rollout. NPR pharmaceutical correspondent Sydney Lupkin reports on several factors that are slowing the process down. And NPR’s Yuki Noguchi explores why it may take some time for pharmacies to become major vaccine distribution sites.

The need for more vaccine is a national story, but the wait is especially excruciating in Los Angeles. NPR’s Leila Fadel visited one hospital pushed to the brink, where doctors compare their work to “battlefield medicine.”

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President Biden followed through on a day-one promise to send a massive immigration reform bill to Congress. Now the hard part: passing that bill into law.

Muzaffar Chishti of New York University’s Migration Policy Institute explains the president’s plans — and the signal they send to other countries around the world.

Biden is also pursuing big changes in how the U.S. admits refugees. Corine Dehabey, an Ohio-based director of the refugee settlement organization Us Together, says families who’ve been separated for years are looking forward to reuniting.

Follow more of NPR’s immigration coverage from Southwest correspondent John Burnett.

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“Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew,” President Biden said in his inaugural address on Wednesday. “And America has risen to the challenge.”

Outgoing Vice President Pence was present for the inauguration of the 46th president. President Trump was not. He left the White House in the morning after an overnight issuance of commutations and pardons — including for Steve Bannon, his former adviser who was arrested on charges of wire fraud and money laundering.

NPR’s Franco Ordonez reports on what President Biden did during his first day in office.

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When Joe Biden takes the oath of office at noon ET on Wednesday, he will become the oldest president to ever hold the office. His journey to the White House spans nearly half a century in public life.

New Yorker writer Evan Osnos has written a book about that journey called Joe Biden: The Life, The Run, And What Matters Now. He explains how Biden’s deep “acquaintance with suffering” prepared him to meet the country at a moment of grief and loss.

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President-elect Joe Biden has outlined a plan to administer 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in his administration’s first 100 days. But before that he’ll have to convince Congress to pay for it.

NPR White House correspondent Scott Detrow spoke to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris about that, and her reaction to the siege at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Listen to more of their interview on the NPR Politics Podcast on Apple or Spotify.

It’s been almost a full year since the first case of coronavirus was detected on Jan. 20, 2019 in Washington state. NPR science correspondent Allison Aubrey looks back at what lessons the U.S. has learned — and what lessons we’re still learning.

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In this episode from the team at NPR’s Embedded, hear the stories of two NPR teams that spent January 6th on the grounds of the Capitol — and stories from a lawmaker, photographer, and police officer who were inside the building.

Subscribe to or follow Embedded on NPR One, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and RSS.

The QAnon conspiracy theory originated in 2017, when an anonymous online figure, “Q” started posting on right-wing message boards. Q claims to have top secret government clearance. Q’s stories range from false notions about COVID-19 to a cabal running the U.S. government to the claim there’s a secret world of satanic pedophiles. This culminates in the belief that President Trump is a kind of savior figure.

Today, U.S. authorities are increasingly regarding QAnon as a domestic terror threat — especially following last week’s insurrection at the Capitol. But the people in the best position to address that threat are the families of Q followers — and they’re at a loss about how to do it.

Some of those family members spoke with us about how their family members started following QAnon and how that has affected their relationships.

Travis View researches right-wing conspiracies and hosts the podcast QAnon Anonymous. He explains how the QAnon story is not all that different from digital marketing tactics, and how followers become detached from reality.

Dannagal Young is an associate professor of communications at the University of Delaware and studies why people latch onto political conspiracy theories. She share some ways to help family members who are seemingly lost down one of these conspiracy rabbit holes.

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President-Elect Biden’s plan to attack COVID-19 includes a $20 billion plan for vaccine distribution in the U.S., hiring 100,000 public health workers to do vaccine outreach and contact tracing, and funding to ensure supplies of crucial vaccine components like small glass vials.

But in order to truly contain and end the COVID-19 pandemic, every country needs to vaccinate its population. As of last week, at least 42 countries had started rolling out safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, but none of them were low-income countries. The World Health Organization says that’s at least in part because rich countries have bought up the majority of the vaccine supply. In South Africa, health official Anban Pillay shares his country’s challenge securing doses.

NPR correspondents Rob Schmitz in Berlin, Phil Reeves in Rio de Janeiro and Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem discuss how the vaccine rollout looks in Germany, Brazil and Israel.

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House Democrats — joined by 10 Republicans — voted to impeach President Trump on Wednesday. Now the process moves to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he hasn’t made a final decision — and that he’ll listen to the legal arguments presented in the Senate. GOP strategist Scott Jennings, who is familiar with McConnell’s thinking, spoke to NPR about why that might be.

No matter what McConnell does, Trump will not be president by this time next week. But between now and then, there are growing concerns about more violence in Washington, D.C., and in cities around the country, as NPR’s Greg Allen has reported.

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California Rep. Adam Schiff, who led House Democrats in their first effort to impeach President Trump, tells NPR what they are hoping to achieve in doing it a second time. He spoke to NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly.

And while a debate about the consequences for Trump plays out on Capitol Hill, his supporters are facing consequences of their own in federal court.

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