Month: April 2023

2023 is on track to beat last year’s record when it comes to book bans. The free speech group PEN America counted 2,500 instances of book bans in U.S. schools during the 2021-22 academic year.

Author Judy Blume has had a number of her books banned. She spoke to NPR ahead of the release of a documentary about her life, “Judy Blume Forever,” streaming on Amazon Prime April 21.

And NPR’s Tovia Smith spoke to other authors of banned books about how the scrutiny has negatively impacted their sales – and about alternative ways they’ve found to get their stories to readers, outside of schools.

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Black Americans are killed by police at more than twice the rate of White Americans. And there’s a growing number of Black families who have to live with the pain of losing a loved one at the hands of police.

NPR’s Juana Summers speaks with two women who have been living that reality for years.

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The legal and political worlds officially moved into uncharted waters when former President Donald Trump was arraigned on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

NPR’s Carrie Johnson breaks down the case against Trump, and the difficult path to conviction for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

And Peter Skinner, an attorney who worked alongside Bragg for several years in the Southern District of New York, talks about what Bragg is like as a prosecutor.

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The FDA has approved over-the-counter sales of Narcan, a nasal spray version of the life-saving medication naloxone. The medication is known for its ability to rapidly reverse an opioid overdose.

The FDA’s move will make Narcan more widely available than ever before. But experts say this is just one step in the right direction, when it comes to preventing overdose deaths.

NPR’s Ailsa Chang speaks with Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the University of North Carolina who has been studying opioid overdose prevention and addiction treatment since 2002, about what this means for the opioid epidemic.

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In the twenty-five years since the Japanese media franchise Pokémon launched in the US, it has become a staple of American culture — from trading cards to t-shirts, from action figures to videogames, from Oreo cookies to McDonald’s Happy Meals. And of course, the animated series.

Since the launch of that series the biggest stars have undoubtedly been aspiring Pokémon Master Ash Ketchum and his adorable pocket monster sidekick Pikachu. But now fans must say goodbye to these iconic heroes as the series moves on without them.

Host Scott Detrow talks to Izzie Ramirez, culture writer for Vox Media, about the legacy of the show and the future of the Pokémon franchise after Ash and Pikachu. And we hear reactions from fans and from Sarah Natochenny, who has voiced Ash since 2006.

Former President Trump has been indicted by a New York grand jury, making him the first former president in American history to face criminal charges.

The case involves hush money paid by Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Trump.

NPR’s Andrea Bernstein says the lengths Trump’s company went to cover up the hush money payment is part of a larger pattern of how Trump has long operated his businesses.

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