Month: August 2024

Olivia Julianna, 21, is one of more than 200 digital content creators who has been given media credentials to the Democratic National Convention this week.

She has over a million followers across TikTok, Instagram and other accounts, in an age where more young people are learning the news through social media.

But she never imagined that her “very working-class” upbringing would lead her not only to the DNC — but in front of it.

We hear from the Texas native ahead of her speech to the convention.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Earlier this month, student protestors filled the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, in opposition to a controversial quota system for government jobs.

Authorities then cracked down on demonstrators, blocking internet access, imposing a curfew and issuing police officers a shoot-on-sight order. In just over a month, more than 600 people have been killed.

And as the protests escalated, the demonstrations started to become about much more than just the quota system.

Eventually, students were able to force Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign.

The students who ousted Hasina are now helping to lead Bangladesh.

“We youth are not only the generation of Facebook, YouTube and Instagram,” says 19-year-old protestor Mumtahana Munir Mitti.

“We also love our country. And we also love to participate in [the] rebuilding of our country.”

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

They’ve been called “Hollywood’s worst-kept secret.”

Medications like Ozempic or Mounjaro, which are commonly used to treat diabetes, are part of the zeitgeist these days. More and more celebrities are opening up about taking them to lose weight.

So when you imagine where these drugs are prescribed most for weight loss around the U.S., maybe you’re thinking Los Angeles or New York.

Turns out, the capital of the weight loss drug boom is in Kentucky — in a small city called Bowling Green, where at least four percent of the population got a prescription in the last year.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

The state of the presidential race is a far cry from what it was just a few months ago. Vice President Kamala Harris’s rise to the top of the Democratic ticket has sparked waves of excitement, and some tension, among democratic leaders and voters across the country.

Thousands of delegates now head to Chicago for the party’s convention this week, where Harris is expected to deliver the biggest speech of her political career to date.

NPR’s Adrian Ma speaker with co-host Ari Shapiro, about how this moment couple shape her campaign to the nation.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Twenty-five years ago this month, one film, and one filmmaker, became synonymous with the big plot twist.

So what was it about The Sixth Sense that made it such a cultural phenomenon at the time of its release? And how did that shape the rest of controversial director M. Night M. Night Shyamalan career?

Haley Joel Osment joins Scott Detrow in conversation to reflect on the impact it had on his work, and how he used that success to propel his career forward.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Donald Trump is pledging to go further on immigration than he did in his first term as president, if he is re-elected in November.

Internal emails and documents from Trump’s time in office — obtained by NPR through the Freedom of Information Act — shed light on how realistic his plan is to radically expand the United States’ deportation system.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

So often, telling the story of the Israel-Hamas war is reduced to a catalog of numbers.

But this war is much more than all of that. It is the daily life of the people living in the midst of the war that has now been raging for 10 months.

The war has also come to encompass a sense of insecurity that permeates, as the humanitarian crisis worsens in Gaza through famine, unclean water and dwindling resources. Pair that with the prospect of a wider regional conflict with Iran that looms nearby.

On Thursday, U.S. and Arab mediators will launch new talks to attempt a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. But hopes for tensions to be diffused are not high.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

This week, the Biden administration announced it is taking on more of what it calls “everyday headaches and hassles that waste Americans’ time and money.”

And it’s doing that by having federal agencies make new business rules.

There are actions to simplify health insurance paperwork, crack down on fake product reviews, streamline parent-teacher communications in schools and circumvent those automated customer service calls that the White House labels “doom loops.”

It’s all part of a wider economic mission to eliminate modern business practices that the Biden administration believes exploit Americans.

Neera Tanden, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, breaks down why this is happening and how it will work in reality.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

By most measures, the new Democratic ticket has had an impressively smooth launch.

But there is one caveat to that — controversy over how vice presidential nominee Tim Walz described his military service.

A spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign has said in a statement that the Democratic vice-presidential nominee “misspoke” when talking about his military service.

Walz, who served for 24 years in the National Guard, had made a comment that sounded like he had been to war.

Walz’s Republican opponent, JD Vance, pounced on that comment to accuse Walz of what’s called “stolen valor,” a serious charge among veterans.

But there’s also a history of playing politics with military service – one that’s been used in past elections.

Is Tim Walz guilty of deliberately misrepresenting his military record or the victim of a familiar political smear tactic?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Overdose death rates have spiked dramatically for young adults, rising 34 percent between 2018 and 2022, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Yet, there are ways to mitigate the risk of overdose, and even ways to reverse it.

Notably there’s Narcan.

It’s a brand of the medication naloxone, and it’s often used in the form of nasal spray. If administered quickly, it can fully reverse an opioid overdose.

Are college campuses and their students prepared?

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at [email protected].

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy