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Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al Qaeda, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan over the weekend. For years, al-Zawahiri was Osama Bin Laden's deputy — and was known as the mastermind behind the 9-11 attacks. NPR's Greg Myre and Diaa Hadid discuss the implications of al-Zawahiri's death for the U.S., Afghanistan, and America's decades-long war on terror. This episode also featur...

Dee Davis remembers watching his grandmother float by in a canoe during the 1957 flood that hit Whitesburg, Ky. The water crested at nearly 15 feet back then--a record that stood for over half a century, until it was obliterated last week. The water was more than six feet higher than the 1957 mark when floodwater destroyed the gauge. The flooding took out bridges and knocked houses off their found...

You may have never heard the phrase abortion doula, but for years they have been working to support people navigating the process and experience of ending a pregnancy. With Roe overturned, depending on where you live, figuring out how to obtain an abortion has gotten much harder. This could make the role of abortion doulas more critical than ever --- and more risky. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with...

This week, Pope Francis has been in Canada, on what he calls a "Pilgrimage of Penance". He's been going around the country to apologize for the Catholic Church's role in Canada's residential school system. These schools – funded by the Canadian government and administered by the Catholic Church – were aimed at erasing the culture and language of indigenous people. The apology from Pope Francis thi...

The BA.5 variant is the most dominant strain of COVID-19 in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's highly transmissible and it's driving up COVID cases and hospitalizations. This week NPR learned that the Biden administration may scrap plans to let more younger adults get second COVID-19 boosters this summer. Instead, officials are trying to speed up availab...

Residential hotels used to play a huge role in the American housing landscape, providing flexible accommodation for anyone who needed it, from the rich and famous to the barely scraping by. Slate staff writer Henry Grabar argues that a return of extended-stay hotels could help solve some of today's housing market dysfunction. KNKX's Will James reports on what happened after tenants of a residentia...

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured images of the universe that have stunned both scientists and the public. But for more than twenty years before its launch, the mission faced multiple delays, cost overruns, technical difficulties and threats from Congress to kill it altogether. We'll speak with some of the leaders of the Webb telescope mission who fought to keep it alive — and hear from...

Food, gas, rent — prices are climbing across the board. As inflation hit a 40-year high last month, millions of Americans are adjusting their spending and looking for ways to stretch their budgets. The Federal Reserve is taking action, too. Policy makers are meeting this week to consider whether and how much to raise interest rates in an effort to curb inflation. We talk to NPR's chief economics c...

This week dozens of family members of victims of the Uvalde Texas school shooting showed up at the town's first school board meeting since a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in May. The atmosphere became tense and emotional as families confronted board members, demanding assurances that students and staff would be safe in the coming school year. The school board meeting followed the rele...

This week the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol wrapped up its first set of public hearings. The final hearing focused on former President Trump's actions - or lack of action - as rioters breached the Capitol. As the hearings continue, the Department of Justice is conducting its own investigation. And Attorney General Merrick Garland is under pressure...

Record high temperatures have wreaked havoc around the world this week. In Southern England, railway tracks bent from the heat. In China, the roof tiles on a museum melted. In Texas, heat and a dry spell have caused nearly 200 water main breaks over the past month. And extreme heat puts lives at risk, too. It's more deadly than tornadoes, hurricanes, and all other weather events combined. Extreme...

Talking about abortion can be difficult even among adults. So how do you talk to kids about it? We asked listeners to send us their questions — and brought together two experts to answer them. Reena B. Patel, a parenting expert and licensed educational psychologist in San Diego, California, and Dr. Elise Berlan, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist in Columbus, Ohio, join us to talk a...

How serious is the U.S. about investigating Russian war crimes in Ukraine? They put Eli Rosenbaum on the case. He's best known for directing the Department of Justice special investigations unit which tracked down Nazis who had gone into hiding after World War II. He lays out the challenges of conducting an investigation in the midst of an ongoing war. This episode also features reporting from NPR...

Interest in birth control and emergency contraception has surged since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion. But safe and reliable birth control isn't always easy to access. Now the FDA is considering whether to make birth control pills available without a prescription. If approved, it would be the first over-the-counter oral contraceptive in the U.S. We also hear from NPR's Nel...

The televised probe into the mob attack on the Capitol has dropped plenty of bombshells as insider testimonies pull back the curtain on the efforts of former President Donald Trump and his allies to hold onto power after he lost his reelection bid. But at Tuesday's hearing, one of the most compelling witnesses was not a former staffer or official but Stephen Ayers. A staunch believer in Trump, Aye...

Public health experts know what it takes to get a disease outbreak under control - widespread testing and treatment, and vaccines made available to communities most at risk. But in the last two months of the Monkeypox outbreak, the response has not met the need. And there's been criticism that the missteps look a lot like the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, with more than 1,400 confirmed c...

Your vote is secret. But the fact that you voted in an election is typically public record. So some people who falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen have tried to audit the results themselves by going door to door in neighborhoods across the country. NPR's Miles Parks and Colorado Public Radio's Bente Birkeland report on this canvassing effort. It's part of a controversial movement to galva...

In a tweet sent on December 19, 2021, former President Trump issued what Democrats now say was a "clarion call" to his supporters. "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th," he wrote. "Be there, will be wild!" This week, in a hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol, we learned more about what happened in the days and weeks after the President sent that tweet —...

A new omicron subvariant is now the most dominant strain of COVID-19 in the U.S. It's called BA.5 — and it appears to evade neutralizing antibodies, making it easier for fully-vaccinated people to become infected or those who recently had COVID to get re-infected. Dr. Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the African Union's Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance, warns that more variants will follow unless globa...

Mass shooting deaths represent just a fraction of people killed by gun violence in America, and more than half of all gun deaths are suicides. The numbers are staggering: in 2020, the most recent year with available data, 45,000 people in America were killed by guns. This episode, a few of the people touched by that violence share their stories. If you or someone you know may be considering suicid...

When the Women's NBA All-Star Game gets underway this weekend, the league will be missing one of its superstars, Brittney Griner. The two-time Olympic gold medalist and star center for the Phoenix Mercury has been detained in Russia on drug smuggling charges since February. This week, Griner pleaded guilty to the drug charges, saying she did not intend to break the law. If convicted, she could fac...

A wave of decisions by the Supreme Court's conservative majority has lead to criticism that the court is more politicized than it used to be. Now there's data to support that claim. Researchers with The Supreme Court Database — which is run by legal scholars from multiple universities — have shown that the court produced more conservative decisions this term than at any time since 1931. NPR's Lega...

Donald Trump's lie that the election was stolen from him continues to spread. That's, in large part, because of a group of people crisscrossing the country, spreading false claims about voter fraud. NPR's Investigations team used social media and news reports to track four key figures in the movement: MyPillow CEO and longtime Trump supporter Mike Lindell, former U.S. Army Captain Seth Keshel, for...

COVID vaccines are available to children as young as six months old. Still, plenty of parents and caretakers have questions before they get their children the jab. NPR Health Correspondent Rob Stein and Dr. Nia Heard-Garris , a pediatrician at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, answer some of those questions from listeners. In participating regions, you'll also hear a loca...

Trigger bans. Restraining orders. State and local disputes. New fights about old laws. After Roe, states are awash in abortion-related legal challenges. Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer tells NPR 'there's a lot of confusion,' and 'it's a terribly anxious time.' The chaos has trickled down from state courts to individual abortion care providers, where staff and patients have been struggling to ad...