Category: International

Thousands of people who claim Johnson & Johnson baby powder caused them to develop cancer cannot sue the company, which used a controversial legal maneuver in bankruptcy court to freeze lawsuits against it.

NPR’s Brian Mann explains. More from his reporting here.

Additional reporting this episode from NPR’s Scott Horsley.

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Roger Latimer says he was beaten by guards in a security camera blind spot at Western Illinois Correctional Center. He complained at the prison. He complained to local officials. He asked medical staff to take pictures. Nothing happened. Then another prisoner, Larry Earvin, died after an altercation with guards in the same blind spot.

In this episode of WBEZ Chicago’s Motive podcast, host Shannon Heffernan tracks the pattern of beatings in that blind spot, surfacing nine additional cases, sometimes involving the same guards, using very similar behavior in the same location. We ask the question of why this pattern persisted, even as prisoners like Latimer tried to stop it.

Season 4 of Motive investigates the hidden world of big prisons in small towns. Places where everyone knows each other and difficult truths get buried.

Listen to Motive on Apple podcasts and Spotify.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, there has been intense focus on Russian oligarchs – elites with enormous wealth and close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The United States and international allies have imposed travel bans and economic sanctions on the billionaires, freezing accounts and impounding yachts and private jets. The goal is to disrupt the covert money funneled to Putin and his regime and to make the oligarch’s lives difficult enough that they might pressure Putin to loosen his grip on Ukraine.

Now President Biden’s KleptoCapture task force faces the difficult and time consuming task of tracking down assets hidden in intricate webs of financial secrecy – many created by US regulations – that allow the oligarchy to hide their money and maintain power.

We speak with Paul Massaro, a congressional foreign policy adviser who specializes in sanctions and illicit finance.

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Binge watching a show you love is enjoyable, but not always productive. But artists Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear turned their binge into a Grammy nomination.

They were inspired by Season 1 of Netflix’s series Bridgerton, and used that inspiration to write a full musical theater album. They didn’t intend to write a full album, but as they workshopped the songs on social media, fans everywhere watched as Barlow & Bear wrote the songs live — offering followers a front row seat to the music making process.

This weekend at the 64th annual Grammy Awards, Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow will be in the audience waiting to hear if their album, The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical, wins in the category of Best Musical Theater Album.

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Researchers say the intersection between far-right movements and environmentalism is bigger than many people realize — and it’s growing. Blair Taylor, researcher at the Institute for Social Ecology, explains.

Alex Amend, who researches eco-fascism, says climate change will only fuel the link between the far-right and environmentalism. Dorceta Taylor of Yale University traces the rise of the American conversation movement, which was partly motivated by a backlash against the racial mixing of American cities. Hop Hopkins of the Sierra Club opens up about racism in the organization’s past.

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Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is a longtime conservative activist who has been public about her views and support of former President Donald Trump. And text messages that surfaced last week showed that she went as far as peddling falsehoods about the 2020 election directly to former White House staff and urging them to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.

Earlier this year, Clarence Thomas was the sole dissenter as the Supreme Court ruled to give a House select committee investigating the January 6th attack access to White House communications during that period.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports on why this possible conflict of interest is a true dilemma for the court and spoke with legal experts about what should happen next.

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An omicron subvariant known as BA.2 could soon become the dominant form of the coronavirus in the United States. It’s not more deadly, but it is more transmissible. At the same time, the Biden administration has authorized a second booster shot for people over 50 and other people vulnerable to infection.

But against that backdrop, Congress has so far refused to authorize more COVID spending measures, which would fund the stockpiling of more vaccine doses and public health surveillance for emerging variants.

NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin reports on the funding debate. NPR’s Michaeleen Doucleff looks at another variant whose creation gives scientists insight into how COVID-19 variants change, and why.

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In 2008, Russia invaded another former Soviet republic: Georgia, a small country on the southeast edge of Europe. Today, Georgia is seeing an influx of Russians who are fleeing their home country in opposition to its invasion of Ukraine. Mary Louise Kelly traveled to Georgia to hear how people who live with Russian troops on their doorsteps are feeling as they watch the war in Ukraine play out.

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Even if you’re not a fan of celebrity gossip, you’ve probably heard that there’s something going on with the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. He’s exhibited increasingly erratic behavior, including relentless online harassment of his ex-wife, reality TV queen Kim Kardashian and her current boyfriend, comedian Pete Davidson. Now he’s been banned from performing at the Grammys, and was recently suspended from Instagram for a day.

For years Ye’s behavior has been puzzling to observe – ranging from announcing plans to run for President, to moving into a windowless basement room inside of a stadium to complete his last album, to high profile feuds with everyone from Jay Z to Jimmy Kimmel. He has admitted that he struggles with bipolar disorder and that instead of medical treatment he uses his art as therapy

.Fans, critics and those who write and talk seriously about the arts are just not sure how to talk about the situation.

Aisha Harris of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour joins us to unpack some of the complexities. And we speak with mental health advocate Bassey Ikpi who offers a personal perspective on Ye’s behavior.

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The film Flee has already made Oscars history: it’s the first to be nominated for best documentary, animated feature and international film.

Flee tells the story of a boy whose family left Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Now an adult and identified by an alias to protect him and his family, Amin Nawabi reveals a painful secret about his childhood journey to Denmark—a secret he has told almost no one.

The film opens with the question: “What does the word ‘home’ mean to you?”

Nawabi gives NPR his first interview with a news outlet, along with the director of “Flee,” Jonas Poher Rasmussen.

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