Category: International

Most kids are now in their third year of school during the pandemic. It’s been a time of ups and downs; adjustments and re-adjustments. Some have flourished in online school and want to stay home — others have floundered and are excited to go back.

NPR spoke to a group of kids ages 6 and up about what the pandemic has been like, and how they’re feeling about the new school year.

Two experts in childhood education and development explain how the pandemic has challenged kids and what we can do to help them: Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Education; and Katie McLaughlin, a psychologist at Harvard University.

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The good news is that firefighters in California have regained control of the Caldor Fire near Lake Tahoe and tens of thousands of evacuated residents can now return to their homes. The bad news is the Caldor Fire is the second wildfire this season to burn through the Sierra Nevada Mountains from one side to the other. Something that never happened before this year.

The other fire to do it is the Dixie Fire further north, which is on pace to be the largest California wildfire on record. And while thousands have been impacted with evacuations, millions of people in western states have been living with the smoke for weeks.

The general guidance when living with hazy and polluted air is to stay indoors. But NPR’s Nathan Rott reports on new research that shows the air behind closed doors may not be much better.

And NPR’s Lauren Sommer reports on a region of the country that is leading the way with fire prevention that may surprise you.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority allowed a Texas law banning most abortions to go into effect. Almost immediately, abortion providers had to begin turning people away.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports on the court’s interpretation of the Texas law and its controversial enforcement provision, which allows any private citizen to sue someone who helps a person get an abortion — with the plaintiff due $10,000 in damages and court costs.

Kathryn Kolbert, co-founder of the Center for Reproductive Rights, explains how abortion rights activists are responding.

Additional reporting in this episode came from stories by NPR’s Wade Goodwyn and Ashley Lopez of member station KUT.

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The U.S. military’s mission in Afghanistan is over. For many still living in the country, a new struggle has begun: how to move forward after they were not able to make it before the U.S. withdrawal.

Mark Schmitz is also grappling with how to move forward. His 20-year-old son, Jared, was one of 13 U.S. service members killed in an attack on the Kabul airport. Schmitz spoke to NPR’s Rachel Martin — his interview was produced and edited by the staff of NPR’s Morning Edition, where it originally aired. More from the interview here.

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Some states in the south are have more people in the hospital than at any point during the pandemic — fueled by the highly transmissible delta variant and low vaccination rates.

Dr. David Kimberlin, co-division director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, tells NPR the hospital system is Alabama is on the verge of collapse. He spoke to reporter Pien Huang.

So what happens — for patients and the people who treat them — when hospitals are full? NPR put that question to two people in charge of hospitals: Dr. Aharon Sareli, Chief of Critical Medicine with the Memorial Healthcare System near Miami; and Dr. Adriano Goffi, a medical director at Altus Lumberton Hospital east of Houston.

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A federal bankruptcy judge says he’ll rule Wednesday in the case of Purdue Pharma, makers of OxyContin. The company is owned by the Sackler family, who are at the center of a national reckoning over the deadly opioid epidemic.

NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann has been covering the story of Purdue Pharma for years, and explains how the Sacklers may emerge from Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings with their personal fortunes in tact. Find more of Brian’s reporting here or follow him on Twitter @BrianMannADK.

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Hurricane Ida’s winds intensified rapidly as the storm approached coastal Louisiana over the weekend — making landfall at its most powerful. NPR’s Rebecca Hersher explains how Ida was supercharged by climate change.

Now the hurricane’s remnants are moving north and east, where millions are bracing for flooding and tornado threats. Janey Camp with Vanderbilt University tells NPR why climate change means flooding will become more common in areas where people haven’t been accustomed to it in the past.

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Venezuela is facing an economic and humanitarian crisis as extreme poverty and violence have forced many to flee the country in recent years. How did a country once wealthy with oil resources fall into such turmoil?

For Afghans like Fawad Nazami, life under the Taliban would be a fate ‘worse than death.’ Nazami is a political counselor at the Afghan embassy in Washington D.C. He told NPR this week he would never return to an Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

Now, that same Afghanistan confronts a deadly new reality: the emergence of ISIS-K, which claimed responsibility for this week’s attack that killed 13 Americans and dozens of Afghan civilians. Seth Jones with the Center for Strategic and International Studies explains how the group fits into the complex picture of Afghanistan, where the Taliban is still trying to gain international recognition. Mina Al-Lami, a BBC expert on extremist messaging, has been following their efforts.

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New York City, New Jersey, Goldman Sachs, and the Pentagon all imposed new vaccine requirements in the days following the FDA’s full approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Public health officials — and the President — hope more mandates will follow.

But some businesses are trying a different approach to encourage vaccination. NPR’s Andrea Hsu visited one offering $1,000 bonuses to vaccinated employees.

Meanwhile, Delta airlines announced unvaccinated employees would face a monthly surcharge. And some are arguing that airline passengers should be subject to vaccine requirements, too. Juliette Kayyem spoke about that with NPR’s Noel King — originally aired on Morning Edition.

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