Month: August 2023

A growing body of research makes it clear that noise pollution can have severely harmful impacts on our health. It has been tied to heart disease and thousands of premature deaths around the world.

Still, our communities seem to get louder and louder. Some people are fighting back – pushing for more regulation and quieter cities.

NPR’s Pien Huang takes a sonic tour of Providence, Rhode Island with researcher Erica Walker and talks about noise pollution solutions with Jamie Banks the founder and president of Quiet Communities, and New York City Council member Gale Brewer.

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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The Biden administration is under intense political pressure from Republicans over immigration, who accuse the president of being too lenient toward migrants.

Now, the administration is locking up more unauthorized immigrants and asylum-seekers in detention facilities, and NPR has exclusively obtained more than 1,600 pages of confidential inspection reports examining conditions inside those facilities.

They describe barbaric practices, negligent medical care, racist abuse and filthy conditions.

NPR’s Tom Dreisbach reports on the abysmal conditions detainees are forced to endure.

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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The CDC says that a new omicron variant called EG.5 is causing a summer wave of COVID cases.

Yet, COVID is nowhere near the threat that it was more than three years ago at the beginning of the pandemic.

And that might be one of the reasons that people are cruising again on big ships following a COVID-19 decline.

WLRN reporter Tom Hudson tells us how one of the hardest hit industries during the peak of the pandemic is trying to make a comeback.

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 grand jury in Georgia has indicted Donald Trump for his role in failed efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results, implicating the former president as the head of a sweeping conspiracy to subvert his defeat.

The indictment also includes charges against former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman and Jenna Ellis, and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, along with a number of so-called fake electors.

In charging former President Donald Trump and his allies, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is relying on Georgia’s broad set of RICO anti-racketeering laws

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’s been two years since the Taliban entered Kabul, throwing the final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan into chaos. Crowds of people desperate to leave the country surrounded the airport.

Tens of thousands of Afghans were airlifted out before American troops pulled out. Many more are still trying to reach the U.S. Some are risking their lives to cross the border from Mexico.

NPR’s Tom Bowman has the story of one family who traveled from Afghanistan to Virginia, by way of Pakistan and Mexico, to get medical care for their young daughter.

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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For the past few months, President Biden’s top foreign policy advisors have been working as intermediaries between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Eventually they want to get the two countries to agree on a deal to finally establish formal diplomatic relations.

It would be a breakthrough for Israel to get that recognition, after decades of Arab hostility stemming from the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Saudi Arabia is home to two of Islam’s holiest sites, and it’s an oil giant in the region.

But it seems like an almost impossible three-way agreement. So, what’s standing in the way?

NPR’s Daniel Estrin, who covers Israel, speaks with Felicia Schwartz from the Financial Times, Bader Al Saif, an assistant professor of history at the University of Kuwait, and fellow NPR correspondent Aya Batrawy, who covers Saudi Arabia, to understand what challenges remain for the two countries to normalize relations.

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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As the battle over book bans in schools and libraries continues to play out in various states across the U.S., the toll it’s taking on librarians is coming at a great cost — personally and financially.

Many librarians are speaking up about fearing for their jobs and safety.

Yet some conservative activists see the current fight playing out as necessary to protect children.

NPR’s Tovia Smith traveled to Louisiana where tensions have been flaring up — pitting librarians against book ban advocates in the local community.

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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Hawaii may be a tourist attraction to many Americans, but for over a million people, it’s their home. And like any state in the US, it is not immune to the effects of climate change.

This week brought a devastating reminder, as wildfires stoked by Hurricane Dora spread across the island of Maui. Dozens have been killed in the fires and thousands have been evacuated. Much of the historical town of Lahaina lies in ruins.

Hawaii, like many other places on the planet, has experienced less rainfall in recent years, making it more prone to devastating wildfires that seemed unimaginable a generation ago.

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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The number of overdoses from fentanyl continues to soar, as do concerns from those in Washington. Immigration authorities say illicit fentanyl is flowing into the U.S. from Mexico through official ports of entry.

Not everyone believes that’s the full story.

NPR’s Joel Rose traveled to the border to find out what’s really happening.

Fentanyl is largely smuggled by U.S. citizens and other authorized border crossers. We hear the story of one of the smugglers.

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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In past wars, updates have trickled out slowly — often tightly controlled by the militaries involved. In the war in Ukraine, every day is a firehose of nearly real-time information, in the form of cell phone footage captured by civilians, updates from satellite intelligence companies and embedded military bloggers.

NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre explains how that’s shaping perceptions of the war in Russia, in Ukraine and around the world.

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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