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Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has taken over after a turbulent time. Former President Donald Trump was frequently at odds with the American intelligence community, including some of his hand-picked intel chiefs.

In her first interview after a month on the job, Haines tells NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly “it has been a challenging time” for the U.S. intel community.

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Bayard Rustin, the man behind the March on Washington, was one of the most consequential architects of the civil rights movement you may never have heard of. Rustin imagined how nonviolent civil resistance could be used to dismantle segregation in the United States. He organized around the idea for years and eventually introduced it to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But his identity as a gay man made him a target, obscured his rightful status and made him feel forced to choose, again and again, which aspect of his identity was most important.

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It’s been almost a decade since Washington and Colorado became the first states in America to legalize recreational marijuana. Now a new generation of states are wrestling with how to do it with a focus on racial equity that was missing from early legalization efforts.

WBEZ reporter Mariah Woelfel reports from Chicago on why legalization plans in Illinois are still leaving Black businesses behind.

VPM reporters Ben Paviour and Whittney Evans explain how lawmakers in Virginia are designing new marijuana legislation with equity in mind.

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Just because the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump is done, it doesn’t mean the story of what happened on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol is over.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to set up a commission, similar to the one created after the Sept. 11 attacks, to investigate what happened that day and what measures might prevent a future attack. That’s not so easy in this moment, when Congress is often gridlocked over the most basic things. And when lawmakers themselves are also witnesses to the attack — and make partisan arguments about what motivated the Trump extremists who were involved.

NPR national security correspondent Hannah Allam was at the Capitol the day it was attacked. She shares how her beat and coverage of domestic extremism has changed over the years, from when she was a teenager living in Oklahoma City during the 1995 bombing to present day. You can follow more of her work here.

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Natural gas utilities face a bleak future in a world increasingly concerned about climate change. An NPR investigation shows how they work to block local climate action and protect their business.

More from NPR’s Jeff Brady and Dan Charles: As Cities Grapple With Climate Change, Gas Utilities Fight To Stay In Business. Additional reporting in this episode from NPR’s Nathan Rott.

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After more than 500,000 deaths and nearly a full year, experts say there are a growing number of reasons to be optimistic about the direction of the pandemic. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths have all fallen dramatically in recent weeks.

Among those falling numbers, a vaccine from Johnson & Johnson that may be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration this week. Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University explains why the shot is just as desirable as already-authorized vaccines from Pzifer and Moderna.

Here’s NPR’s tool for how to sign up for a COVID-19 vaccination in your state.

The Biden administration has promised to ramp up vaccination efforts even more as soon as Congress authorizes more money to do so. NPR congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell has an update on the $1.9 trillion rescue package speeding through the House.

Additional reporting on the drop in COVID-19 case rates in this episode came from NPR’s Allison Aubrey and Will Stone.

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Last summer, the city of Austin, Texas, slashed the budget for its police department. More recently, the city council voted on a new way to spend some of that money. KUT reporter Audrey McGlinchy explains what other changes have taken place in Austin.

A powerful new player is joining calls for reparations for Black Americans: the American Civil Liberties Union. Civil rights attorney Deborah Archer — the ACLU’s newly elected board president and the first Black person to assume that role — explains the organization’s new stance.

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Why is it so hard to feel the difference between 400,000 and 500,000 COVID-19 deaths — and how might that impact our decision making during the pandemic?

In this bonus episode from NPR’s daily science podcast Short Wave, psychologist Paul Slovic explains the concept of psychic numbing and how humans can often use emotion, rather than statistics to make decisions about risk.

To hear more about new discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines, listen to Short Wave via Apple or Spotify.

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is on track to pass a number next week that once seemed unthinkable: Half a million people in this country dead from the coronavirus.

And while the pandemic isn’t over yet, and the death toll keeps climbing, artists in every medium have already been thinking about how our country will pay tribute to those we lost.

Poets, muralists, and architects all have visions of what a COVID-19 memorial could be. Many of these ideas are about more than just honoring those we’ve lost to the pandemic. Artists are also thinking about the conditions in society that brought us here.

Tracy K. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, has already written one poem honoring transit workers in New York who died of the disease. Smith says she wants to see a COVID-19 memorial that has a broader mission, that it needs to invite people in to bridge a divide.

Paul Farber runs Monument Lab, an organization that works with cities and states that want to build new monuments. He says he wants to see a COVID-19 monument that is collective experience and evolves over time. He also wants it to serve as a bridge to understanding.

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Millions of people in Texas have gone three or more days without power, water or both. Texas has had winter weather before, so what went so wrong this time?

Reporter Mose Buchele of NPR member station KUT in Austin explains why the state’s power grid buckled under demand in the storm. And Marshall Shepherd, director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia, explains the link between more extreme winter weather and climate change.

Additional reporting in this episode from NPR’s Camila Domonoske, who reported on the Texas power grid, Ashley Lopez of KUT, Laura Isensee of Houston Public Media, and Dominic Anthony Walsh of Texas Public Radio.

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.

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