Consider This from NPR

In Kansas City neighborhood organizations do the work of violence prevention one block, and one person at at time. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

Quote – "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." That statement, from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the U-S Embassy, came two days after Russian missiles began raining down on his country two years ago. After weeks of speculation and warnings Russian President Vladimir Putin had declared war. Fueled by grit, patriotism and billions of dollars from the US, Ukraine has waged a...

Keyser, West Virginia, was once known for coal. But the jobs have been disappearing. First because of automation, then cheap natural gas. And now, the urgency to address climate change is one more pressure on this energy source that contributes to global warming. Now the town, like so much of the country is attempting to transition to renewable energy. The country's first major climate policy, kno...

Brian Mann covers the U-S opioid and fentanyl crisis for NPR. That means he talks to a lot of people struggling with addiction. Again and again, he's heard stories of people who have succumbed to their addiction — last year 112, 000 — more than ever in history. But when Mann traveled to Portugal to report on that country's model for dealing with the opioid crisis, he heard a very different story....

Much of the world has spent the weekend mourning Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. And asking why he chose to return to Russia, after he'd been poisoned, and when it was clear he was in danger. Filmmaker Daniel Roher, who interviewed Navalny for the Oscar-winning documentary "Navalny," says the Russian opposition leader was an incredibly optimistic and certain about himself and his mission...

About two years ago, New Jersey's Democratic Governor Phil Murphy said that the state would be partnering with the Danish company Orsted, the largest developer of offshore wind projects in the world. The company had agreed to build Ocean Wind 1, the state's first offshore wind farm, powering half a million homes and creating thousands of jobs in the process. The following year, Orsted inked anothe...

Rent has skyrocketed in the United States. That means Americans are handing over a bigger portion of their paycheck to their housing costs. They have less money for things like food, electricity, and commuting. The pandemic and inflation have both played a role in pushing rents higher. Whitney Airgood-Obrycki a Senior Research Associate at Harvard's Joint Center on Housing Studies says rents are a...

For half a century, during the Cold War, every U-S president painted Russia as the dominant threat. America's ideological opposite, a hostile and nuclear-armed power. Ronald Reagan went so far as to call the Soviet Union an Evil Empire. So the events of recent days have been noteworthy. On top of a holdup of U-S aid for Ukraine, former President Trump said he might NOT come to the defense of a NAT...

One single election does not a trend make. But does Democrat Tom Suozzi's victory in the special election for New York's 3rd Congressional District mean something bigger for democrats? The Congressman won his seat – which until recently had been held by disgraced Republican George Santos – by diving head on into an issue that democrats would usually rather avoid – immigration. Was that the opening...

On June 14, Donald Trump will turn 78 years old. Joe Biden turned 81 in November. Whether the candidates like it or not, age, mental acuity and physical fitness are issues dominating the 2024 election cycle. Though the two men were born fewer than four years apart, voters have consistently expressed more concern about Biden's age than Trump's. Is a double standard being applied when it comes to th...

The question looming over the war between Israel and Hamas is what will happen what will happen to Rafah, the city in southern Gaza. More than half of Gaza's population has sought refuge there–an estimated one and a half million people. Israel says that in order to defeat Hamas, it needs to bring the war to Rafah. The Biden administration says a military operation in Rafah cannot proceed. Is this...

Immigration is one of the main things Americans will be voting on in November. And many are currently unhappy with the situation at the US Southern Border, which is widely described as a crisis. As Donald Trump runs for another term, he's hoping to leverage that discontent just as he did in 2016. An across-the-board crackdown on immigration was one of the signature policies of the Trump presidency...

Hollywood films have long tried to capture America's obsession with its most popular sport. So on this Super Bowl weekend, we ask: what do the best football movies have in common? Is it the "Big Speech" with the team down a point and only seconds to go? Or what about the classic underdog story? Scott Detrow discusses that with Brittany Luse, host of NPR's It's Been a Minute, and with Stephen Thomp...

Abortion is a personal issue. But it's also political. And few things motivate voters and politicians like abortion rights. Over and over, U.S. voters have shown they're willing to choose lawmakers, presidents and ballot initiatives based on how they feel about abortion rights. We examine the role abortion could play in the 2024 elections. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This , sign up for C...

When it comes to whether or not Trump should appear on presidential ballots, there are at least two questions to consider. The first is legal — does the 14th amendment apply him? The second is practical. What would happen if Trump WERE removed from the ballot? How might his tens of millions of supporters respond? At a rally last month, the former President suggested if he doesn't get what he views...

The U.S. Immigration system isn't working. The last significant reform was in 1986. Presidents and Congress have been trying to fix it and change it ever since. Congress is at it again, but that effort, like so many others, looks doomed to fail. Just a few hours after the text from the Senate bipartisan bill dropped, Speaker of The House Mike Johnson said IF the bill reaches the house – it will be...

It was a year ago this month that a Norfolk Southern freight train with 38 cars derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Twenty of those train cars carried hazardous materials. In the days after the crash officials, decided to burn off one of those hazardous materials, vinyl chloride. The burn and massive plume of smoke it created caused environmental problems and concerns about the health and safety of...

More than 100 people are killed on U.S. roads every day — more than 40,000 people a year. So, it seemed bold, if not crazy, when city leaders across the country began to set their sights on eliminating traffic fatalities completely. It has now been 10 years since U.S. cities began to adopt the approach known as Vision Zero. NPR's Joel Rose reports on what has worked and what hasn't. For sponsor-fr...

More than two decades of growing internet use has surfaced fears about the social and psychological impacts of nearly unfettered access to pornography. But many researchers and sex therapists worry that the online communities that have formed in response to these fears often endorse inaccurate medical information, exacerbate mental health problems and, in some cases, overlap with extremist and hat...

Former president Donald Trump is facing dozens of criminal charges, including four felony counts on charges of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trump says he's being persecuted, and that idea resonates with his Christian base. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship pre...

For people in the US, 2020 was one of the most dangerous years in decades. The first year of the pandemic saw a huge spike in violence. The number of homicides in the country rose about 30 percent from 2019. Fast forward a couple of years – and things look very different. According to crime analyst Jeff Asher, "2023 featured one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the US in more than 50 years....

Fox News has been the Republican Party's biggest cheerleader almost since it premiered in 1996. Nearly three decades later, many Republicans perceive Fox as the de facto kingmaker for all kinds of Republican candidates — including presidential. That kingmaker status brought Fox News power, ratings and billions in profits and has spawned a succession of imitators and competition. But for Fox, that...

Immigration and management of the U.S. Southern Border is always a politically charged issue, but especially at this moment. House republicans are trying to advance articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They say he has refused to comply with the law and has breached the trust of the public. Meanwhile President Biden is describing the U.S. immigration syste...

A deadly attack on an U.S. military base in Jordan pulled the United States deeper into a regional conflict that it's trying to avoid. How the U.S. responds could determine whether the country enters another full scale war. We ask National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, what comes next. Email us at considerthis@npr.org See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of...

During his time in office, former president Donald Trump talked a great deal about all of the positive changes he was making to improve the economy. When he gave his final State of the Union address in February 2020, employers had added more than six million jobs, unemployment was at three-and-a-half percent and the stock market was soaring. But by March all of that ended as coronavirus spread rap...