Blog

Across the country, it looks like this time, last year. Schools — some days or weeks into the start of the new year — are forced to close temporarily over COVID outbreaks. In many cases, the closures are necessary because too many teachers and staff members are sick or quarantined.

Audie Cornish talks to three teachers about their fear, exhaustion, and hope at the start of a new school year.

For more coverage from NPR as kids head back to school around the country, follow NPR Ed’s Back to School liveblog.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

As many as 100,000 Afghans — those who worked with the U.S. military over the years, and their families — are trying to get out of the country. But access to the Kabul airport is controlled by the Taliban, and the American military says evacuating American citizens is its ‘first priority.’

Among the Afghans trying to flee are those who’ve applied for or been granted a Special Immigrant VISA. James Miervaldis, chairman of No One Left Behind — which helps Afghan and Iraqi interpreters resettle in the U.S. — tells NPR the process has been frustratingly slow.

For Afghans and the families who do make it out, those who wind up in the United States will be offered help from organizations like the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the group’s president and CEO, tells NPR how the resettlement process unfolds.

This episode also features stories from family members of Afghan refugees already living in the U.S., which which first aired on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, with production from Hiba Ahmad and Ed McNulty. Correspondent Eleanor Beardsley in Paris reported on Afghan refugees in France.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Just weeks after the shock of a presidential assassination, Haiti was hit by a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Saturday. The death toll is nearing 2,000 — and still rising — while thousands more are injured and homeless.

Haiti’s last major earthquake was in 2010. It killed an estimated 200,000 people and injured 300,000 more. This week’s quake struck farther from major population centers, but that’s made search and rescue efforts challenging.

NPR’s Jason Beaubien reports from Haiti where Tropical Storm Grace has made matters even worse.

And Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S. Bocchit Edmond tells NPR’s Ailsa Chang what the country needs now.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Hospitals like the University of Mississippi Medical Center are overwhelmed. Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor of the Jackson hospital, told NPR they are nearly out of beds — and treating patients in hallways.

Meanwhile, Biden administration health officials are coalescing around a plan that would advise most Americans to get a COVID-19 booster shot eight months after their last dose. A booster is already recommended for immunocompromised people. Here are six things to know if you’re immunocompromised and are considering a third shot.

If a booster is recommended for most Americans, that means millions of people may soon receive a third shot, while many others have yet to receive a single one. But there are still additional public health measures that could work to help stem the delta surge. NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin reports.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The Taliban now control Afghanistan. How did the country’s government fall so quickly — and why didn’t the U.S. see it coming? NPR put those questions to the former commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus.

Afghanistan’s future remains unclear, especially for its women and girls. One of them is Freshta Karim, a Kabul resident and founder of a mobile library project called Charmaghz, who spoke to Audie Cornish. Karim is one of many Afghans who NPR reached in Kabul during the final hours before its collapse into Taliban control. Those interviews aired on Morning Edition, and on special coverage produced by the staffs of Weekend Edition and All Things Considered.

For more Afghanistan coverage listen to Up First via Apple, Spotify, or Google; or the NPR Politics Podcast via Apple, Spotify, or Google.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

In the agricultural town of Salinas, Calif., Police Officer William Yetter repeatedly makes mistakes. First there’s a stolen bike he doesn’t investigate. Then, his bosses discover he’s not filing police reports on time.

In the last week, the Taliban have gained control of large sections of Afghanistan faster than most people expected. The Pentagon is dispatching troops to assist in evacuating staff from the American embassy in Kabul, where refugee camps are growing more crowded. The U.N. says the country may be on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price told Audie Cornish the 300,000-member Afghan military needs “the willpower” to stand up to the Taliban.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

What struck John Kerry the most about this week’s landmark U.N. report on climate change?

“The irreversibility” of some of the most catastrophic effects of global warming, he tells Audie Cornish. Kerry, the U.S. Special Envoy for Climate, tells NPR the U.N. report underscored the need for the world to respond more forcefully to climate change — and he’s called an upcoming U.N. climate summit in Scotland the “last best hope” for global action.

At the same time, the Biden administration faces an uphill battle to take major action on climate at home. Hear more on that from the NPR Politics Podcast via Apple, Spotify, or Google.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

In the next few weeks, millions of children will head back to school. Many of them are too young to be vaccinated. At the same time, children are being hospitalized with COVID-19 in small but growing numbers — and approaching rates higher than the winter surge.

Dr. Marcos Mestre with Niklaus Children’s Foundation Hospital in Miami told NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday many of the children his hospital is treating come from families with unvaccinated parents or caretakers.

Unlike last year, many schools will have no remote learning option this fall. While some may have mask mandates, a handful of Republican governors — including Florida’s Ron DeSantis — have issued executive orders banning those mandates. NPR’s Pien Huang surveyed experts about how to keep children safe during the delta surge. Read more coverage from the NPR science desk here.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The Tigray region in northern Ethiopia is at the center of a civil war that broke out last November, after rebels there attacked a military base. Since then, the political fight has become an ethnic one, with troops no longer distinguishing civilians from rebel fighters.

NPR’s Eyder Peralta visited the war-torn region in May and spoke with the people at the center of the conflict.

The United Nations says more than 400,000 people are now living in famine conditions in Ethiopia, putting them at risk of starvation if the country’s civil war doesn’t let up.

The United States is the country’s largest foreign aid donor. And the person who controls that funding currently is Samantha Power, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). She spoke with Ari Shapiro about she learned from her recent trip the area.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.