Category: International

When it comes to American politics, Florida regularly finds its way to the center of the conversation. Often important, if not pivotal in presidential elections, Florida is home to former President Trump and his strongest opponent in the Republican presidential primary for 2024, Governor Ron DeSantis. As he campaigns for the nomination Gov. DeSantis has taken center stage in some of the most contentious battles of the culture war, those around trans rights, book censorship and immigration.

But just how did the Sunshine State end up the center of the political universe? NPR’s Political Correspondent Kelsey Snell and National Correspondent Greg Allen explain.

Russian President Vladimir Putin faced a direct challenge to his authority over the weekend. Mercenary fighters with the Wagner group took over a military headquarters and launched a march toward Moscow.

The group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, eventually called off the uprising. He’s apparently accepted a deal to live in exile, and claims the weekend’s events were a protest, not an attempt to overthrow the government.

NPR’s Charles Maynes in Moscow, and Greg Myre in Kyiv, explain what the turmoil could mean for the future of Putin’s rule and the course of the war in Ukraine.

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 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act is a $1.2 trillion law meant to spur a massive infrastructure renewal and rebuilding program complete with new bridges, railroads and highways.
It also allocates $65 million to expand internet access to all.
Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans, is the man Biden tapped to make sure the massive job gets done.
We speak with Landrieu about the Affordable Connectivity Program – which provides monthly $30 subsidies for lower-income individuals to buy Internet access.
Then we speak with Kathryn de Wit, project director for the Pew Charitable Trust’s Broadband Access Initiative, about why accessing the internet is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
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.

Last June, when the Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision, which had stood for nearly 50 years, the constitutional right to abortion ceased to exist.

While reproductive health providers had been fearing, and preparing for the possible reversal for years, it still left millions of people seeking reproductive health care in flux.

A year on, state controlled access to abortion continues to shift in many locations across the country.

We hear from people who have been forced to make decisions that they never imagined. And, we learn how lawmakers plan to defend reproductive rights.

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.

There has been no shortage of confrontations between the U.S. and China this year. This week, shortly after a trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing, intended to thaw relations with China, President Biden likened Chinese President Xi Jinping to a “dictator” in off the cuff remarks. A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry called that “an open political provocation.” Before that there were dust ups over TikTok and a Chinese spy balloon.

But one of the most intractable and volatile issues continues to be the fate of Taiwan. And a new report sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations says that the U.S. and China are ‘drifting toward a war’ over the island.

Two of the report’s authors, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon and Admiral Mike Mullen, formerly the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argue the U.S. should take action now to prevent that outcome.

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.

As climate change gets worse, California is seeing larger and more dangerous wildfires. And in response some insurers are leaving the state behind, finding the growing risk too high to pay.

Host Ailsa Chang talks with Michael Wara, who directs a climate and energy policy program at Stanford, about the financial calculus insurers are making as the threat of climate-fueled disasters grows.

Time is running out to locate the submersible vessel that went missing Sunday, on a voyage to visit the wreckage of the Titanic. The U.S. Coast Guard estimates the five people aboard the vessel, known as the Titan, could run out of air by Thursday morning.

CBS Sunday Morning correspondent David Pogue was aboard the same vessel to take the same voyage last year. He says its interior is the size of a minivan, it’s built with a combination of off-the-rack and highly technical components and it has a hatch that’s bolted shut from the outside.

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 Black people in this country have been celebrating Juneteenth for decades, what is sometimes referred to as Emancipation Day or America’s “second Independence Day” is only being celebrated as a national holiday this year for the third time.

June 19th marks the date in 1865 when the last enslaved people in the U.S. learned they were free. on that day, Major General Gordon Granger of the Union Army delivered the news to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas.

But for African Americans, the fight for freedom began long before the Civil War. And it didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation. So to mark the day we’re looking at a turning point in the fight for civil rights — The Children’s Crusade.

NPR’s Debbie Elliot traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, which is marking the 60th anniversary of the movement, when leaders like Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. looked to children to join the struggle for equal rights. The vicious response from white segregationists shocked the world and galvanized support for the Civil Rights Act.

Made in America. It may be a catchy political slogan, but it’s a lot more complicated than it sounds. So many things we use everyday come from China. In 2018 – former President Donald Trump launched a trade war with the country, eventually slapping tariffs on more than 300 billion dollars worth of Chinese imports. Two and half years into the Biden presidency – those taxes are still here.

To understand why, NPR’s White House correspondent Asma Khalid spoke with policy makers, economists and even went out to a factory floor in Minnesota.

It depends on when, and where you grew up, but you can probably name a few of your favorite sit-com dads – from Mike Brady and his “bunch”, to Homer Simpson, to Andre Johnson from Blackish.

There is no single, universal way to be a father. There are as many ways to be a dad as there are dads.

This year, for Father’s Day, we asked a variety of different dads to tell us their stories about what fatherhood means to them.

And we have a story that puts a new twist on the old saying “like father, like son”.

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.