Category: International

Your vote is secret. But the fact that you voted in an election is typically public record.

So some people who falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen have tried to audit the results themselves by going door to door in neighborhoods across the country.

NPR’s Miles Parks and Colorado Public Radio’s Bente Birkeland report on this canvassing effort. It’s part of a controversial movement to galvanize everyday Americans to try to uncover voter fraud in their own communities.

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.

In a tweet sent on December 19, 2021, former President Trump issued what Democrats now say was a “clarion call” to his supporters. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” he wrote. “Be there, will be wild!” This week, in a hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol, we learned more about what happened in the days and weeks after the President sent that tweet — and the tense moments in the White House just hours before.

Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the House committee investigating January 6th, tells NPR that next week’s primetime hearing — the final scheduled hearing of the committee — will unravel minute-by-minute events at the Capitol and present an account of what President Trump was doing during that time.

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

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A new omicron subvariant is now the most dominant strain of COVID-19 in the U.S. It’s called BA.5 — and it appears to evade neutralizing antibodies, making it easier for fully-vaccinated people to become infected or those who recently had COVID to get re-infected.

Dr. Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the African Union’s Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance, warns that more variants will follow unless global vaccine efforts get more aggressive.

Atul Gawande, head of global health for the U.S. Agency for International Development, says Congress needs to authorize a new round of spending to help get vaccines to countries where many people still have not been vaccinated.

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.

Mass shooting deaths represent just a fraction of people killed by gun violence in America, and more than half of all gun deaths are suicides.

The numbers are staggering: in 2020, the most recent year with available data, 45,000 people in America were killed by guns. This episode, a few of the people touched by that violence share their stories.

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or contact the Crisis Text Line: text HELLO to 741741.

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.

When the Women’s NBA All-Star Game gets underway this weekend, the league will be missing one of its superstars, Brittney Griner.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist and star center for the Phoenix Mercury has been detained in Russia on drug smuggling charges since February.

This week, Griner pleaded guilty to the drug charges, saying she did not intend to break the law. If convicted, she could face a maximum penalty of up to ten years in a Russian prison. The country’s prison system is known for some of the harshest conditions in the world.

Her supporters have called on President Joe Biden to step up efforts to bring her home. But negotiating with Russia, about anything, is seldom easy.

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.

A wave of decisions by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has lead to criticism that the court is more politicized than it used to be. Now there’s data to support that claim. Researchers with The Supreme Court Database — which is run by legal scholars from multiple universities — have shown that the court produced more conservative decisions this term than at any time since 1931.

NPR’s Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg joined Jamal Greene, a Constitutional law professor from Columbia University, and Tom Goldstein, the founder of SCOTUSBlog, to talk about the implications of the decisions from the term.

Donald Trump’s lie that the election was stolen from him continues to spread. That’s, in large part, because of a group of people crisscrossing the country, spreading false claims about voter fraud.

NPR’s Investigations team used social media and news reports to track four key figures in the movement: MyPillow CEO and longtime Trump supporter Mike Lindell, former U.S. Army Captain Seth Keshel, former high school math and science teacher Douglas Frank, and former law professor David Clements.

NPR’s Miles Parks explains their findings.

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.

COVID vaccines are available to children as young as six months old. Still, plenty of parents and caretakers have questions before they get their children the jab. NPR Health Correspondent Rob Stein and Dr. Nia Heard-Garris, a pediatrician at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, answer some of those questions from listeners.

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

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Trigger bans. Restraining orders. State and local disputes. New fights about old laws. After Roe, states are awash in abortion-related legal challenges. Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer tells NPR ‘there’s a lot of confusion,’ and ‘it’s a terribly anxious time.’

The chaos has trickled down from state courts to individual abortion care providers, where staff and patients have been struggling to adjust to rapidly-changing legal realities. NPR’s Sarah McCammon visited one provider in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The shifting legal realities could make accessing abortion care difficult for members of the military who are stationed in certain states. NPR’s Brian Mann spoke to women in the military about their concerns.

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

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It may be too soon to crown the “song of the summer”. NPR Music’s Stephen Thompson says there’s no one quality that the songs that carry that title have… it’s a collective feeling, a shared vibe.

For so many Americans on this July 4th, songs of the summer and songs of protest feel one and the same.

NPR’s Ann Powers is a music critic, and Shana Redmond is a professor at Columbia University, and the author of “Anthem: Social Movements And The Sound Of Solidarity In The African Diaspora.” They explain the role of protest music in this moment.

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.