Year: 2021

After the protests last year, we heard the phrase “racial reckoning” a lot, as some groups of people struggled to catch up with what’s just been reality for many others. On this episode of NPR’s new Book of the Day podcast, we’ve got two books that might help you reckon with that reckoning, in two different ways: Traci Todd and illustrator Christian Robinson’s bright and powerful picture book biography Nina: A Story of Nina Simone and poet Claudia Rankine’s Just Us: An American Conversation, in which she puts together poetry, essays and images to bring readers into an uncomfortable but necessary conversation about race.

Listen to NPR’s Book of the Day on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or NPR One.

Large parts of the West have been hot and dry for so long that reservoirs are running low and some communities are mandating conservation. California is talking about a statewide mandate, too. Meanwhile, farmers are preparing to flood their fields to replenish aquifers, while ranchers are selling off parts of their herds and worried about feeding the rest.

NPR’s Dan Charles reports from California and NPR’s Kirk Siegler reports from North Dakota.

Also in this episode: water rights lawyer Christine Klein, who originally spoke to NPR’s daily economics podcast The Indicator from Planet Money, in one of a series of episodes on the drought and the economy. Listen to more of The Indicator via Apple, Spotify, or Google.

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.

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Patricia Maginnis, who was 93 when she died on August 30, may have been the first person to publicly call for abortion to be completely decriminalized in America. Despite her insistence on direct action on abortion-rights at a time when many were uncomfortable even saying the word “abortion,” Maginnis is not a bold letter name of the movement. That may be because she didn’t seek the limelight and she cared more for action then self-presentation.

Guests include Lili Loofborow, who profiled Maginnis for Slate; Professor Leslie J. Regan, who wrote the book When Abortion Was a Crime; and the artist Andrea Bowers whose video piece, Letters to An Army of Three recreated the messages people would send Maginnis when they were desperate to access abortion services.

Special thanks to the Schlesinger Library, where the 1975 oral history of Pat Maginnis is housed.

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.

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Hate and division on Facebook are not just a problem in the U.S. That’s one of the messages whistleblower Frances Haugen took to Congress last week, where she accused Facebook’s algorithms of quote, “literally fanning ethnic violence in Ethiopia,” a country that’s endured nearly a year of civil war.

Freelance reporter Zecharias Zelalem has been keeping track of how inflammatory posts on Facebook have led to attacks in the real world.

And NPR’s East Africa Correspondent Eyder Peralta describes what Ethiopia looks like from the ground as he moves closer toward the conflict.

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.

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In many parts of the U.S., China remains a huge business opportunity despite recent friction. That’s the country where Apple makes its phones and Nike stitches its shoes. Yet inside the Washington Beltway, China is a security threat. Full stop. It’s one of the few things Democrats, Republicans and most everyone else in the capital agree on.

NPR correspondents Greg Myre and John Ruwitch report on this gap between how China is viewed in Washington policy circles and how many outside the proverbial beltway think about the country.

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.

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After decades of Indigenous stories told by non-Natives, two shows from this past year signal a change.

Reservation Dogs from FX on Hulu was created by and stars Native people. It follows four Indigenous teenagers growing up on a reservation in rural Oklahoma, with dreams of adventuring to California. Vincent Schilling, a Native journalist and critic for Rotten Tomatoes, calls Reservation Dogs ‘a show about Native American resilience.’

Rutherford Falls is a sitcom on NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock, which follows a conflict over a historical statue in a small town. When the show was co-created by Sierra Teller Ornelas, she became the first Native American showrunner of television comedy. Teller Ornelas told Audie Cornish this year: “There are five Native writers on staff. We had a Native director for four of the episodes, and this is really a reflection of our shared experience as Native people from nations all over the country.”

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.

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Thirty-five years ago, Janet Jackson released an album that changed the course of her career, and of pop music. Control took over radio, reinvented the playbook for Black artists crossing over into pop and ushered in a whole new sound for R&B.

But after the wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, Janet’s reputation took a hit, and she’s yet to receive the flowers she deserves.

In this episode of NPR’s It’s Been A Minute, host Sam Sanders wants to set the record straight.

Listen to It’s Been A Minute on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or NPR One.

Last month, R&B singer R. Kelly was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking. Days later, a judge suspended Jamie Spears as the conservator of his daughter Britney Spears’ estate. While these cases are completely unrelated, they do have one crucial thing in common: a massive online following, and an ecosystem of think pieces and documentaries that fuel conversation online.

NPR’s TV critic Eric Deggans discusses the role documentary series have played in cases like R. Kelly’s and Britney Spears. He says it’s part of a larger movement that some are calling “consequence culture.”

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.

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One day after a worldwide outage on multiple of its platforms, Facebook was accused by a whistleblower of hiding concerns about its products from the public and its shareholders. Both crises reveal the same thing: just how powerful Facebook is on a global scale.

Ayman El Tarabishy of George Washington University explains what Monday’s outage meant to small businesses around the world.

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.

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Meth-related overdoses have tripled in recent years. In the west, 70 percent of police departments identify meth as their biggest problem. Now one state — California — is on the brink of implementing a major new treatment program that would pay drug users to stay clean. KQED‘s April Dembosky reports.

The meth surge has hit some Black and Native American communities the hardest. NPR’s addiction correspondent Brian Mann has this look at what kind of help people in those communities say they need.

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.

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