Year: 2024

Ever since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas almost four months ago, U.S. leaders have been afraid that the conflict will grow.

That could have consequences for American troops in the Middle East. Recently, U.S. forces have been attacked in Iraq by Iran-backed militias, for example.

Host Ari Shapiro speaks with NPR’s Jane Arraf in Amman, Jordan and NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman about what all this could mean for troops in the region.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent a career defying political gravity. Now he’s facing his biggest challenge yet.

For decades, Netanyahu has sold himself as a leader who would keep Israelis safe.

Instead, one of the world’s strongest militaries failed to protect its citizens from a long-planned, Mad Max style invasion – with attackers from Gaza coming in on motorcycles, pickup trucks and hang gliders. Israeli authorities say 1,200 people were killed October 7th and more than 200 taken hostage.

Netanyahu promised an investigation after the war with Hamas, but public outrage has grown louder in recent days.

Now as public outrage grows in Israel, Netanyahu’s future seems all but certain. And that future is inseparable from the future of Israel’s war with Hamas, or an eventual peace in Gaza.

In a republican primary field that at one time boasted more than a dozen candidates, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and former President Donald Trump are the last ones standing.

That means Trump’s fire is concentrated on Haley — a daughter of Indian immigrants. And he’s using that heritage to try to undermine Haley’s candidacy, and stoke concern about her legitimacy for the presidency.

For the record, that concern is unfounded – Haley, as the Constitution dictates, is a natural-born US citizen.

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly and Senior Editor and Correspondent Domenico Montanaro dissect the reasons WHY Trump keeps returning to this particular political playbook.

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Alabama has already tried to execute Kenneth Smith once. On the night of November 17, 2022, he was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection, but workers couldn’t find a vein to place an IV. They tried for an hour, during which, he was jabbed with needles in his arms, hands and collar bones.

Smith, one of only two living people in the U.S. to have survived an execution attempt, faces death again. On Thursday, the state of Alabama plans to execute him using a method it calls nitrogen hypoxia. It has never been tested in the U.S.

NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks to investigative correspondent Chiara Eisner about Smith’s execution, and what led Alabama to use a new and untested execution method.

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Just days away from the nation’s first primary in New Hampshire, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suspended his bid for president. What will this mean for the remaining candidates?

The presidential debate has been a right of passage for both primary and general election candidates for more than thirty years.

Now in the midst of another election season, it looks like this well-established tradition might be fading away. But do debates inform voters, and do they change minds?

We take a look at how the modern presidential debate came to be, and what their absence would mean for candidates and voters.

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These days when you think of Boeing, the words that come to mind might be: door plug, 737-max, grounded. But before this month’s safety debacle and the Ethiopian and Lion Air crashes five years ago, Boeing was synonymous with industry and innovation, and the company enjoyed a special relationship with the U.S. government and U.S. presidents.

Former President Barack Obama joked he was Boeing’s top salesman, and former President Donald Trump praised the company at a visit during his presidency.

Now that special relationship between Boeing and the U.S. government is under renewed scrutiny.

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks to transportation correspondent Joel Rose about that relationship and what this latest incident could mean for the company and its oversight.

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Since Israel’s war against Hamas began, the US has tried to prevent a wider regional war from breaking out.

Now, with US attacks against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen, drone strikes in Iraq and fighting across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon is that regional conflict the US wanted to avoid, already here?

The last three presidents have tried to shrink the US footprint in the Middle East. NPR’s Ari Shapiro speaks with Ben Rhodes. Rhodes was Deputy National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama.

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Former President Donald Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucuses this week surprised almost no one, but should news outlets have called the contest before some caucus goers, even had a chance to vote?

That’s one of the questions we explore in today’s episode. NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly looks ahead to what happens next in the race for the republican nomination with senior editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.

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Artificial Intelligence is front of mind these days. Many of us are spending a lot of time pondering how AI can make our lives easier.

Or on the flip side — whether it’s going to put us out of a job. But how would you be thinking about AI… if you were in charge of a major US intelligence agency?

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly spoke to FBI Director Chris Wray and National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone about Artificial Intelligence as a national security threat.

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