Category: International

It was only a matter of time before cases of the COVID-19 omicron variant started popping up in the U.S., and now, it’s here. Although it’s too early to tell how this virus strain will spread, the threat it poses has already lit a fire under public health messaging.

President Biden announced a new strategy to avoid a winter surge of cases that involves free at-home testing, a vaccine booster messaging campaign and heightened international travel safeguards.

Meanwhile, the race is on to detect how omicron is already spreading in this country. NPR reporter Will Stone gives us a look into what’s happening in labs right now across the country.

And Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, discusses what we know about how effective travel bans are scenarios like this.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Getting an abortion in Mississippi has never been easy, but it hasn’t been impossible. Now, a case before the Supreme Court that centers on a clinic in Mississippi could upend abortion rights for pregnant people across the country.

Today, the conservative-leaning court heard arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The clinic, which is the only abortion provider remaining in Mississippi, is challenging a 2018 state law that bans termination after 15 weeks of pregnancy. If the court upholds the law, it would reverse its own precedent by allowing states to interfere with the right to abortion at that stage of pregnancy.

NPR Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg, SCOTUS Blog’s Tom Goldstein, and Florida State University Law Professor Mary Ziegler parse the arguments and weigh in on the possibilities on how the justices could rule.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Buying stuff is a part of this country’s DNA. It’s a tradition that really took off near the end of World War II, when the American economy was thriving and the market exploded with products Americans didn’t even know they wanted. And even in an economy rocked by a pandemic, buying is on track to exceed 2020 levels this holiday season.

The result of all that spending means consumption drives 70% of our country’s GDP, but it’s also the leading driver of nearly every environmental issue our planet faces.

Journalist J.B. MacKinnon, who also wrote “The Day the World Stops Shopping, How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves,” discusses how curbing consumption could positively affect a warming planet.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The World Health Organization is warning that the omicron variant of the coronavirus, which was first detected in South Africa, has a “very high” global risk because of the possibility that it spreads more easily and might resist vaccines and immunity in people who were infected with previous strains.

On Monday, President Joe Biden said this this variant is a “cause for concern, not a cause for panic.” He urged Americans to get fully vaccinated and get a booster dose if they qualify.

WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris explains what more there is to learn about the severity and transmission of this new variant.

And Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) discusses why vaccine hesitation on a global scale could make this next phase of the pandemic more dangerous.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

After years of jokes about unsuccessful Infrastructure Weeks, months of deliberation, and bouts of gridlock on the political left, a $1.2 trillion package made its way through Congress at long last. The president signed it into law earlier this month. Now, the challenge of actually getting the money where it needs to be remains.

NPR’s White House Correspondent Franco Ordonez followed President Biden around the country earlier this month to report on the changes to come, now that the bill is law.

And NPR’s National Desk Correspondent Nathan Rott reports on the portions of the infrastructure package that address resilience and protecting communities historically hit hardest by climate change.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

This Thanksgiving week, we’re sharing a segment from our special series Play It Forward, in which artists tell us about their own music and the musicians who inspire them.

This episode, opera singer and funk keyboardist Constance Hauman speaks to Ari Shapiro about her new album, Tropical Thunderstorm, her experiences as a multi-genre musician and an artist she’s grateful for: Daf player Asal Malekzadeh.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The commonly-told version of the first Thanksgiving story leaves out a lot: The indigenous Wampanoag people who lived in a complex society long before the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock; Squanto escaping bondage in Spain before becoming an emissary to the Pilgrims; and the long legacy of violent displacement that followed.

Paula Peters, a writer and a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, still lives near where the Pilgrims made landfall on her ancestral homeland. She talks about how the 1621 feast fits into history.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

For Thanksgiving Day, we’re sharing a segment from our special series Play It Forward, in which artists tell us about their own music and the musicians who inspire them.

In this episode, funk legend George Clinton speaks to Ari Shapiro about the longevity and enduring influence of his band, Parliament-Funkadelic, being a hype man for other musicians, and an artist he’s grateful for: opera singer and funk keyboardist Constance Hauman.

On tomorrow’s episode: Constance Hauman plays it forward.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

CTE — chronic traumatic encephalopathy — is a degenerative brain disease found in many former professional football and hockey players, for whom blows to the head have long been part of the job.

But those injuries also occur outside the world of pro sports. And as awareness of CTE has grown, so has a thriving market of dubious remedies marketed to everyday people who believe they are suffering from CTE — a disease that can’t even be diagnosed until after death, through an autopsy of the brain.

In the first of two episodes, Sacha Pfeiffer of NPR’s Investigative Team reports on some of those desperate patients and their hope for a cure.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

CTE — chronic traumatic encephalopathy — is a degenerative brain disease found in many former professional football and hockey players, for whom blows to the head have long been part of the job.

But those injuries also occur outside the world of pro sports. And as awareness of CTE has grown, so has a thriving market of dubious remedies marketed to everyday people who believe they are suffering from CTE — a disease that can’t even be diagnosed until after death, through an autopsy of the brain.

In the second of two episodes, Sacha Pfeiffer of NPR’s Investigative Team reports on some of those desperate patients and their hope for a cure.

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.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.