Category: International

“What has this pandemic been like for you?”

NPR host Sam Sanders and his team at It’s Been A Minute put that question to their listeners and heard from people all over the world with ages ranging from 0 to 99.

Their stories will stay with you.

Listen to more episodes of It’s Been A Minute on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Health care facilities in rural areas hard-hit by the coronavirus are running out of ways to provide safe care to patients. Unlike earlier in the pandemic, it’s more difficult to find hospitals with capacity to spare.

A travel nurse shares an audio diary recorded for NPR in Fargo, N.D., and two health care workers from North Dakota and Utah describe the unique challenges they’re facing.

WPLN’s Blake Farmer and NPR’s Carrie Feibel have reported on the staffing challenges hospitals are facing.

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.

President Trump and his allies have spent nearly a month promoting an alternate reality of rigged elections and stolen votes.

Now, there’s concern in Georgia that some of the president’s supporters may sit out a crucial runoff election on January 5, which will determine the balance of power in the Senate, as Lisa Hagen with NPR member station WABE reported.

Turnout isn’t the only concern for some Republicans in the state. Election officials like Gabriel Sterling have been the target of death threats. Sterling spoke to NPR’s Ari Shapiro.

Trump’s conspiratorial denials of his own defeat have been bolstered by allies from some relatively new media sources — including the right-wing network Newsmax. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik reported on the network and its efforts to outfox Fox News.

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.

Every 10 years after the U.S. Census, lawmakers in most states have the power to redraw congressional and state legislative districts. It’s called redistricting. The party in power can do it in a way that benefits them politically — and it’s perfectly legal. That’s called gerrymandering.

Now that the 2020 election season is nearly over, a picture is emerging of how redistricting and gerrymandering will unfold in states across the country.

NPR’s Ari Shapiro spoke to reporters in three state capitals: Ashley Lopez with member station KUT in Austin, Texas; Dirk VanderHart from Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland; and Steve Harrison of member station WFAE in Charlotte, N.C.

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.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week that it’s likely that any healthy American who wants a coronavirus vaccine will be able to walk into a drugstore and get one by April. The challenge will be convincing enough people not to put it off.

While the vaccine is months away for most, health care personnel and residents of long-term care facilities will be able to receive the first doses when they become available, a committee from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended this week. NPR’s Pien Huang has reported on that decision and others by the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices.

NPR’s Andrea Hsu reports on the debate over mandatory vaccines in the workplace.

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.

Lawmakers have been deadlocked for months on another coronavirus relief package. Now millions of Americans who have relied on emergency spending programs during the pandemic are about to see their benefits expire at the end of the year — unless Congress and the White House can agree to a spending deal before the holidays.

NPR correspondents Scott Horsley and Chris Arnold explain what could happen weeks from now if American workers, homeowners, renters and student loan borrowers lose key economic lifelines.

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.

Millions of Americans traveled for Thanksgiving despite pleas not to do so from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force says if you’re one of them, assume you’re infected, get tested and do not go near your friends or family members without a mask on.

Because COVID-19 is a largely invisible threat, our brains struggle to comprehend it as dangerous. Dr. Gaurav Suri, a neuroscientist at San Francisco State University, explains how habits can help make the risks of the virus less abstract.

Emergency room doctor Leana Wen discusses why it’s tempting to make unsafe tradeoffs in day-to-day activities and how to better “budget” our risks.

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.

Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda blew up in 2014 off of his song “Hot N****” and the instantly viral Shmoney Dance. But just months after his breakout hit, Bobby and about a dozen of his friends were arrested and slapped with conspiracy charges in connection with a murder and several other shootings.

In this episode of NPR’s new podcast Louder Than A Riot, hosts Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden head to Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York to meet Bobby for an exclusive in-person interview, tour his neighborhood with his crew, grab a bite at his mom’s seafood joint and learn new details of the studio raid that changed Bobby’s life.

Listen to more episodes of Louder Than A Riot on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Student loans can crush an individual. And when a lot of people have more debt than they can handle, the effects ripple into the larger economy.

Judith Scott-Clayton, an associate professor at Columbia University, discusses the economic impact of the $1.6 trillion Americans collectively owe in student debt.

President-elect Joe Biden and some members of Congress have proposed different ways to erase some amount of student debt across the board. NPR’s Anya Kamenetz explains the likelihood of those proposals actually working out.

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 began as a Thanksgiving tradition five years ago for NPR host Ari Shapiro is now a recurring segment on All Things Considered. Play It Forward is a musical chain of gratitude.

Shapiro starts the chain with an artist he’s thankful for, and then that musician chooses someone they’re thankful for, and it continues onward with each artist choosing the next link in the chain.

This episode features interviews with John Mayer, Leikeli47, Indigo Girls and Kae Tempest.

Listen to all the Play It Forward interviews 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.