Category: International

For more than a year the PGA, the world’s leading pro golf league, has basically been at war with the upstart Saudi-funded LIV Golf league. Lawsuits and countersuits were filed as the the leagues competed for marquee golfers and control of the narrative around the game. Some PGA players resisted big paydays to join LIV because they were critical of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the source of the league’s seemingly endless supply of money. But last week, the two leagues announced a plan to join forces.

Though the deal has yet to be finalized, it’s already faced backlash from players who remain loyal to the tour, and from human rights activists who see this as an attempt by the Saudi government to use sports to draw attention away from their record of human rights abuses.

NPR’s Susan Davis speaks with Sally Jenkins, a sports columnist for the Washington Post, who wrote a column critical of the merger, and Terry Strada, who chairs the group 9/11 Families United, which represents thousands of surviving family members of those killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Strada has been one of the most vocal critics of the plan.

We also hear from Doug Greenberg, a writer for the sports news site Front Office Sports, who says the Saudi-backed league has actually been good for golf.

Federal Indian boarding schools left a decades long legacy of abuse, neglect and forced assimilation of Indigenous children.

Last year, when the federal government finally acknowledged its role — that painful history drew attention to a few schools that remain open.

NPR’s Sequoia Carrillo and KOSU’s Allison Herrera visited Riverside Indian School in southwest Oklahoma to find out how a school that once stripped children of their Native identity now helps strengthen it.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Every year about 600,000 thousand people are reported missing in the United States per the National Missing and Unidentified Persons database.

In 2022, about 34,000 people reported as actively missing were people of color. But people of color who disappear seldom get the same amount of media attention devoted to white people who go missing – especially white women and children.

The late journalist Gwen Ifill coined the phrase “Missing White Woman Syndrome” to describe the media’s fascination with, and detailed coverage of, the cases of missing or endangered white women – compared to the seeming disinterest in covering the disappearances of people of color.

NPR’s Juana Summers speaks with David Robinson II. His son, Daniel Robinson, has been missing for nearly two years. And Natalie Wilson, co-founder of the Black and Missing Foundation, who has been helping him find answers.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Being Black and an immigrant is an increasingly common phenomenon in the South, where 1 in 10 Black people are immigrants.

Still, despite growing numbers of Black immigrants in the region, their experience is fraught with worries over discrimination and assimilation.

NPR’s Leah Donnella reports on hurdles Black immigrants face in order to drive in Tennessee, a state with one of the fastest growing populations of Black immigrants in the South, and with few options for transportation.

When people speak about God in various religions, the deity is typically referred to using the masculine pronoun “He.”

In Islam, Allah is not depicted as male or female — Allah has no gender. Yet Allah has traditionally been referred to, and imagined by many, as a man.

Some Muslim women have begun to refer to Allah with feminine or gender neutral pronouns.

NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks with Hafsa Lodi, who wrote about this movement in the religion magazine The Revealer, about what’s driving this.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Wars are expensive. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had an impact on the economies of both countries.

NPR’s Julian Hayda, in Kyiv, reports that international assistance is allowing Ukraine to stabilize its economy and avoid collapse.

The Russian economy seems to have remained resilient in the face of sanctions and other trade and financial restrictions. But NPR’s Stacey Vanek Smith reports on how that could be changing.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

While it may seem like Black-focused media is at a high these days, the reality is only 4% of all media in the U.S. is Black-owned.
Moreover, experts say that biased practices from advertisers make it harder for Black-owned media companies to be profitable.
NPR’s Eric Deggans talks to Byron Allen, about his ambitions to grow his media empire, hold advertisers to account, and control the narrative of how Black people are represented in media.
In participating regions, you’ll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what’s going on in your community.
Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Lullabies. We all know one. Whether we were sung one as a baby or now sing one to our own children. Often, they’re used to help babies gently fall asleep. But lullabies can be more than that. They can be used to soothe, to comfort, and to make children feels closer to their parents and vice versa.

We hear from Tiffany Ortiz, director of early-childhood programs at Carnegie Hall, about their Lullaby Project, which pairs parents with professional musicians to write personal lullabies for their babies. Also NPR’s Elissa Nadworny takes a look at a program inside a South Carolina prison that helps incarcerated mothers write lullabies for their kids. And NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin examines the science behind a good lullaby.

In the months ahead of the election, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced criticism for his government’s response to devastating earthquakes and for crushing inflation.

Yet, he still managed to come out ahead in this week’s runoff election, extending his two-decade tenure leading Turkey by another five years.

His victory was a case study in how to use populism, intimidation and division to harness a democracy and stay in power.

NPR’s Fatma Tanis breaks down his victory and what it means for democracy in Turkey and more broadly.

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

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The right to repair movement scored a big victory last week in Minnesota, where it got legislation signed into law that requires manufacturers to let independent shops and consumers buy the parts and tools necessary to repair their own equipment. The new law could make fixing your own devices, gadgets and appliances a lot easier in states across the country.

NPR’s Eric Deggans speaks with Gay Gordon-Byrne the executive director of the Repair Association, about the importance of the new law. And Minnesota State Rep. Peter Fischer talks about how he got involved in the movement and the obstacles he and others faced on the path to getting this law passed.