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On March 20, 2003, the United States launched its invasion of Iraq. We recall how the war started, and the trauma it left behind. NPR's Eric Westervelt was embedded with the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division as it pushed north from Kuwait. He describes what he saw in the first days of the war. We also hear reporting from NPR's Ruth Sherlock, who spoke to young Iraqis who grew up in the years sin...

Today, when we hear the word pandemic, most people think of COVID-19. But by 2003, while rates of HIV infections and deaths from AIDS had stabilized and fallen in the US, in sub-Saharan Africa, the rates were at epidemic proportions. In his State of the Union address that January, President George W. Bush announced a massive investment in the global fight against HIV –The President's Emergency Pla...

When it comes to TV ratings, women's college basketball is trending upward - even as the men's game is losing viewers. When it comes to resources and media coverage? There's still a wide gap between the men and women. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Chantel Jennings, senior writer covering women's basketball for The Athletic , about the factors that contribute to that gap and how the women's g...

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that he says can keep more guns out of the hands of dangerous people by increasing the number of buyers who have to submit background checks. The White House says that's the closest the U.S. can get to universal background checks without additional legislation from Congress, where Democrats and Republicans remain divided on any new actions aimed at...

A group of volunteers is braving artillery barrages to evacuate residents from towns and cities in Ukraine's Donbas region, including Bakhmut, the epicenter of fighting in the eastern part of the country. NPR's Frank Langfitt speaks with two rescuers, Kuba Stasiak , 29, a former journalist from Poland, and Andre West , 22, from Germany, who document their rescues on Instagram In participating regi...

A new documentary called Sextortion: The Hidden Pandemic has gained attention at screenings hosted by universities, police departments and even the Pentagon. But many of the claims made in the film are poorly supported and overhyped. The film warns parents about the dangers of sexually coercive crimes online and suggests that strangers are targeting potentially millions of minors - pressuring them...

The Biden administration took extraordinary measures to protect the accounts of customers at two banks that failed over the past few days: Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Federal regulators said Sunday that they were taking the emergency measures to prevent contagion at other small and regional banks in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank's implosion. NPR's David Gura reports that, despite tho...

In about the last 10 years, the legalized cannabis industry has grown into a $32 billion business. Today, in 21 states, and the District of Columbia, you can legally purchase recreational marijuana if you are 21 or older. And 37 states have legalized medical marijuana programs. While it's easy to feel that cannabis has come a long way from the scare tactics of Reefer Madness , since 1970's Control...

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says he welcomes a bipartisan effort in Congress to push for new rail safety regulations in the wake of the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Buttigieg spoke to NPR's Ari Shapiro a day after Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw apologized for the East Palestine derailment during a Senate hearing, but stopped short of endorsing specific new regulations for his in...

Some 16 million American households receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will get less money this month. During the pandemic, the federal government temporarily increased SNAP benefits. But those extra benefits have now expired. That means recipients will get about $90 less each month on average, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisa...

Before he was the face of a protest movement and a starting quarterback in the Super Bowl, Colin Kaepernick was a teenager who was trying to figure out who he was and where he was going. Kaepernick's new graphic novel "Change The Game," written with Eve L. Ewing and illustrated by Orlando Caicedo, is about that time in his life. He talked to NPR about his coming-of-age story, his career, and wheth...

He hasn't yet entered the contest, but even so, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is one of the leading Republicans in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. DeSantis has just released a new book that highlights his pugnacious style and hardline stance on issues ranging from education to public health. And he has attracted even more attention as Florida's Republican-led legislature began its se...

Tennessee passed a bill last week restricting drag shows. The law specifically bans "adult cabaret performances" in public or in the presence of children. In more than a dozen states, Republican lawmakers have been pushing similar bills. Historian Jules Gill-Peterson of Johns Hopkins University says laws that target drag have a long history in the U.S, and LGBTQ people have fought back before. In...

When Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her re-election bid this week, many people saw the result as a referendum on how she handled crime. But crime is not just a Chicago issue. Nationally, murders, shootings, and thefts are up. Communities that feel under siege are looking to hold elected leaders accountable for their failure to address the problem. But when agreements on how to solve crime break...

Documents released as part of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit reveal that many Fox News stars knew conspiracy theories about the 2020 election were baseless but invited guests who spewed those claims on air anyway. The documents were released by Dominion Voting Systems as part of its lawsuit against both Fox News and its parent company. They include text messages sent by Fox News personalities a...

The Supreme Court is weighing whether or not the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional based on how it receives its funding. Last fall a panel of three Trump appointees on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals outlined that if funding for a federal agency like the CFPB is not appropriated annually by Congress, then everything that agency does is deemed unconstitutional. While the age...

Raghavan Iyer built his career helping Americans get to know the fundamentals of Indian cooking. Now, after years of treatment for aggressive cancer, he has released what he says will be his last book. NPR's Ari Shapiro talks to Raghavan Iyer, about the book, "On The Curry Trail: Chasing the Flavor That Seduced the World." In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you...

Margaret Elysia Garcia tried hard to rebuild her life in Greenville, California after it was devastated by a wildfire in 2021. But the difficulty of life there — power outages, mud slides, razed streets she could barely recognize — eventually it all became too much. She left her home there and moved to Southern California. Jake Bittle's new book, The Great Displacement: Climate Change And The Next...

The Environmental Protection Agency says tests have not shown any contamination of air or drinking water linked to the train derailment near East Palestine, Ohio. But residents in the area still have safety concerns. NPR's Ari Shapiro asks EPA Administrator Michael Regan about those concerns and about the agency's response to the disaster. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news se...

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley's call for mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 seemed like a direct challenge to President Joe Biden, who is 80. But she could have been referring to the other announced candidate in the race: former President Donald Trump, who is 76. Or other high ranking leaders over the age of 75 - Senators Mitch McConnell and Bernie Sanders, b...

Kherson was the the first major Ukrainian city to fall to Russian troops. With deep historical ties to Russia, it was not expected to be a center of resistance. But an army of citizen spies defied Moscow's expectations, and helped Ukrainian forces liberate the city last November. A year after Russia launched its invasion, NPR's Joanna Kakissis has the story of Kherson's partisans: teachers and acc...

There are a lot of different Advanced Placement history courses out there: art history, European history, U.S. history. Now, after a decade in development, there finally is an AP course focused on African-American studies. The course hasn't official launched yet, but it's currently being piloted in 60 schools across the U.S. The course has drawn national attention after controversies erupted over...

For people who have not experienced it, life in prison can seem unimaginable. So reporters who have themselves been incarcerated can offer an important perspective when covering the prison system. NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Lawrence Bartley, host of the new series Inside Story , which documents life in the US prison system. The series was created by formerly incarcerated people, and aims to rea...

This week marks one year since Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. And in the past year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has undergone a dramatic political transformation. Zelenskyy got his start as a comedian who played an accidental president on TV. He was then elected president in real life, only to see his popularity slump. Now, after a year of war, he is widely considered an i...

The Sierra Club has been at the forefront of the American environmental movement for decades. However, the group has also face criticism for racist and exclusionary attitudes embedded in some of its founding ideals. The Sierra Club's new executive director, Ben Jealous, explains how he aims to advance the group's climate goals, while also reckoning with that past. In participating regions, you'll...