Consider This from NPR

Last week, South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Korean adoption agencies were responsible for widespread fraud, malpractice and even human rights violations. More than 140,000 South Korean children were adopted by families living abroad in the decades after the Korean war. The report documented cases in which agencies fabricated records and others in which abandoned childre...

The AI boom has caused a huge surge in energy consumption, so how is the tech industry thinking about its environmental footprint as it invests in new AI models? Emily Kwong , host and reporter for NPR's Short Wave podcast, finds out what solutions are being considered that might meet both consumer demand and address climate concerns. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsid...

After reaching historic levels, fatal overdoses from opioids are dropping rapidly. Today we bring you a reporter's notebook from NPR's national addiction correspondent Brian Mann . He tells host Scott Detrow what it's been like to cover America's addiction crisis and explains the significance of the recent decline in opioid deaths. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider...

Bezalel Smotrich's views were once fringe in Israel. He's an ultranationalist West Bank settler, who has repeatedly called for Israel to resettle the Gaza Strip. Today, as finance minister, he's a key figure influencing the future of Israel's war against Hamas. NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi has the story of Smotrich's rise to power in Israel politics. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up...

Six months ago, Southern Appalachia was devastated by Hurricane Helene. Now, after a dry spell and a windy March — the region faces wildfires that are feeding on the downed trees and vegetation that the hurricane knocked to the forest floor. The North Carolina Forest Service has declared one of them "the highest priority fire in the U.S." And due to climate change and population growth, the Caroli...

In January of 1987, Michel Shehadeh, a Palestinian man who'd lawfully immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager, was taking care of his toddler son at home when federal agents arrived at his door and arrested him at gunpoint. Shehadeh soon learned he was one of eight immigrants arrested on charges relating to their pro-Palestinian activism. Then, in March of 2025, federal agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil...

In the 24 hours since a bombshell Atlantic article, senators have grilled Trump administration intelligence officials — but there are no signs yet that anyone involved will face any repercussions. The article, by Jeffrey Goldberg, details how he was inadvertently added to a chat on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, where key administration figures were planning a U.S. bombing operation in Yemen...

For weeks, President Trump has been issuing executive orders and memos that levy or threaten sanctions on major law firms. The moves suspend security clearances, cancel government contracts, bar employees from federal buildings — and other actions that threaten their ability to represent their clients. While Trump complains the law firms employed "very dishonest people," legal experts say Trump is...

In Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the president has "absolute immunity from criminal prosecution" for official acts. To reach that conclusion, the High Court grappled with this question: how much power a president should have? And some legal scholars say the ruling draws on the unitary executive theory — which, in its most extreme interpretation, gives the president sole autho...

Greenland is a lot more than an object of Donald Trump's territorial ambitions. It's a place whose small population is facing big questions – about climate change, economic development, and identity. Today we bring you a reporter's notebook, traveling with NPR's Juana Summers and her team through Greenland at a time of huge political uncertainty. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up...

Representatives from Russia and Ukraine will be in meetings to try to hammer out details of a ceasefire on Monday. But peace is still a long way off. For starters it's only a partial ceasefire—no strikes on energy infrastructure. It's only for 30 days. And the Ukrainians and Russians aren't even meeting with each other. The U.S. will be a go-between. One of the biggest things working against a new...

Farmers already worry about things like crop prices, the cost of farm supplies and extreme weather. Now, President Trump's signature tariffs — and the federal government under the Trump administration — pose more big question marks. We hear from Ann Veneman, the Secretary of Agriculture under George W. Bush. And Robert Smith and Wailin Wong from NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money report on what...

The argument for international aid is in part a moral one, but it's also been about U.S. interests. As then-senator Marco Rubio put it in 2017: "I promise you it's going to be a lot harder to recruit someone to anti-Americanism, anti-American terrorism if the United States of America was the reason why they're even alive today." Now, as secretary of state, Rubio serves under a president who is dee...

Measles continues to spread in West Texas and New Mexico. About 300 cases have been reported, since the outbreak began in January - but the actual number is likely higher. The communities where measles continues to spread people are largely unvaccinated. At the same time some isolated measles cases have been reported in a dozen other states - largely linked to international travel. In most of the...

"Oopsie, too late. "That post on X from the President of El Salvador got retweeted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the weekend with a laugh-crying emoji over a headline about a judge's ruling. The judge ordered the Trump Administration not to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador. That came after a Brown University physician in the United States on an H1-B visa from Lebanon was sent back. Even...

Nearly 40, 000. That's the United Nations estimate for the number of children who have been killed or injured since Israel began its war with Hamas some 18 months ago. Last year, NPR profiled one injured Gazan boy, Nimer Sadi al-Nimer, who was shot five times by the Israeli military while he and his father were gathering food dropped by parachute outside Gaza City. This week, NPR Gaza producer Ana...

"A little disturbance," "a period of transition," "a detox period." These are all phrases that President Trump and his administration have used to describe the economy, as the stock market has plunged in response to one tariff announcement after another. Trump is adamant that his tariffs will ultimately bring revenue, jobs and factories to the U.S. But economist Matt Slaughter, dean of the Tuck Sc...

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been trying to access the massive amounts of Americans' personal information held in databases throughout the federal government. These databases hold information far more sensitive than name, address or even social security number. Diagnoses and medical data like treatment for mental health and addiction issues is also included in the trove of...

The Trump administration continues to fire, shut down or defund independent elements of the federal government that traditionally work as a check on presidential power. Supporters of President Trump say: That's exactly the point. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . See pcm.adswizz.com for...

The deadliest phase of the U.S. fentanyl crisis appears to be over. That's according to new research showing fatal overdoses from fentanyl and other street drugs continue to plunge and have now dropped from their peak in all 50 states. But with that good news comes with challenges including caring for a larger population of people, who are surviving, but may be deeply unwell. For sponsor-free epis...

House Republicans have to get their spending bill passed by Friday to avoid a government shutdown. They can likely afford to lose just one vote. And that's the easy part. Then they'll have to get working on their plan to extend 4.5 trillion dollars in tax cuts passed under the Trump administration — a plan that will require huge cuts in government spending. Republicans are adamant that cuts to Med...

Many migrants in Mexico journey north to the U.S. border by riding on top of freight trains. It's a dangerous trip: migrants have been kidnapped by cartels or killed by falling onto the tracks. And now, with the Trump administration suspending asylum applications at the border, the chances of crossing into the U.S. are even smaller than they were a few months ago. NPR's Eyder Peralta recently rode...

It's been a little more than a week since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Vice President JD Vance was in the meeting too. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, sat on an Oval Office couch, mostly silent, as Trump and Vance berated the Ukrainian leader. Along the way, the president and vice president made it clear...

Like a lot of economists, Mark Zandi, with Moody's Analytics, thinks President Trump's across-the-board tariffs are a bad idea. Saying, "Tariffs, broad-based tariffs, are a real problem for the economy." But Zandi says – it's not just the tariffs themselves that are the problem, it's the uncertainty created by Trump's rollout. Trump threatened 25% Tariffs on Canada and Mexico would start in Februa...

A hundred minutes — that's how long President Trump had the floor — literally — last night. A hundred minutes he used to lay out his agenda, his grievances and what he argued are the accomplishments of his first six weeks in office. This all came during his "joint address" to Congress — the State of the Union that's not a State of the Union. Since Trump returned to office in January, there's been...