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Episode four of On Our Watch from NPR and KQED investigates the case of a plainclothes Stockton police officer who grabbed a Black 16-year-old, took him to the ground and punched him, knocking the teen's two front teeth onto a convenience store floor. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences...

After months of bipartisan negotiation, the Senate may finally vote this weekend on a 2,700 page infrastructure bill that includes $1 trillion in spending on things like roads, bridges, public transit, and broadband. 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

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is refusing to resign after this week's explosive report from the state's attorney general. It detailed multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Cuomo. Cuomo has categorically denied harassment and groping allegations. And he said that people have "sought to unfairly characterize and weaponize everyday interactions." Multiple high profile politic...

It's been exactly one year since a massive explosion in Beirut's port killed over 200 people, injured thousands and caused billions of dollars in damage. 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

At the stroke of midnight last Saturday, a federal moratorium that had been in place for nearly eleven months expired. After the Supreme Court ruled that the CDC could not extend that moratorium, the Biden administration asked Congress to take action. But Congress failed to maintain protections for renters before the House went into August recess. Now, many renters fear eviction could coming knock...

The United States has reached yet another turning point in this pandemic—one that may feel particularly unrelenting and confusing. 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

In episode three of On Our Watch , we examine the records that were unsealed by this transparency law to piece together what exactly happened on September 14, 2014 when Pedie Perez was shot and killed outside a liquor store by a police officer, Wallace Jensen. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship pr...

The Delta variant is more dangerous and contagious than many experts initially realized. In response to the uptick in cases and hospitalizations countrywide, some government leaders are implementing mask mandates. President Biden announced on Thursday that federal government employees will be asked to attest to their vaccination status. White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients expl...

When Simone Biles dropped out of her Olympic competitions this week, the whole world took notice. At 24 years old Biles is the most decorated gymnast ever, she's won 36 medals—27 of those are gold. And she said via Instagram that it can feel like she "has the weight of the world," on her shoulders at times. When an athlete performs on a stage as hallowed and renowned as the Olympics, it's not surp...

Four police officers offered harrowing testimony of their experiences protecting the U.S. Capitol on January 6th during the first hearing for a new Democrat-led House Select Committee investigating the attacks. The committee was proposed as a bi-partisan effort by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi but after she rejected two nominees from Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the hearings have begun without sup...

Rising seas are threatening coastal communities around the world, which will need billions of dollars to protect themselves. It's clear the water is coming. What's not clear is who pays. This tension is playing out on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay, where the wealthiest companies in the world have built their headquarters next to low-income communities of color. Both need protection, but as ci...

Food service workers in America have newfound bargaining power, and they're using it — quitting jobs for better ones at record rates. NPR's Alina Selyukh reports on why some are leaving the restaurant industry for good. Additional reporting this episode from NPR's Andrea Hsu , who examined the pros and cons of one-time hiring bonuses for workers. Follow more coverage from NPR's special series, Whe...

One officer in Los Angeles used car inspections to hit on women. Three hundred miles away in the San Francisco Bay Area, another woman says an officer used police resources to harass and stalk her. 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

Starting over can be scary. But not for Rodrigo Amarante. After an established musical career in Brazil, he made the jump to the U.S., where his relative anonymity was a source of creative energy — and an opportunity to reinvent himself. Amarante's second solo album, Drama , is about rejecting traditional forms of masculinity and embracing imperfections — then releasing them as a beautiful symphon...

It's still unclear who is responsible for planning and funding the assassination of Haiti's president Jovenel Moïse earlier this month. But violence and unrest in the country has been ramping up for months. The United Nations says that over the last six weeks nearly 15,000 people have been forced from their homes in Port-au-Prince. NPR's Jason Beaubien reported the story of one family who fled in...

The delta variant now makes up an estimated 83% of coronavirus cases in the U.S., a sharp increase over recent weeks. Cases are rising more rapidly in places with low rates of vaccination. Arkansas is one of those places. The state's Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, tells NPR what he's doing to try to convince more people to get a shot. Amid those localized surges and reports of breakthrough i...

Tens of millions of American families are beginning to receive direct cash payments as part of the expanded child tax credit, which was part of the COVID relief bill passed back in March. Those payments top out at $3,600 a year per child — an amount experts say could lift tens of millions of children out of poverty. But the expanded credit is only scheduled to last one year. The question now is: w...

Medical education must always keep up with the times. But the pandemic forcing medical students to learn virtually revealed new fault lines and opportunities to rethink the way medical professionals should learn. The medical field is grappling with which of those changes should become permanent and which ones could jeopardize the quality of healthcare. To get a better understanding of how technolo...

From police officer misconduct to deadly shootings, internal affairs investigations are how law enforcement agencies investigate their own and promise to hold themselves accountable. In California, those investigations were secret — that is, until a new police transparency law unsealed thousands of files. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsor...

Jodie Turner-Smith in Anne Boleyn . Mindy Kaling in Scooby Doo . Dev Patel in The Green Knight , and last year's David Copperfield . It seems like Hollywood gatekeepers are opening up more traditionally white parts to other performers. But as NPR film critic Bob Mondello explains, cross-cultural casting isn't new — and it's always raised eyebrows. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local...

The protests that erupted in Cuba over the weekend are the biggest the country has seen in decades. Cubans are suffering through a summer of shortages, from food and electricity to medicine. All of which have been made worse by the pandemic. Officials in the authoritarian government are tying to stamp out the unrest quickly. These demonstrations present a political opportunity for President Biden....

In a speech this week, President Biden said Democrats must 'vigorously challenge' what he described as the '21st Century Jim Crow assault' on voting rights, attacking Republican-led state efforts to pass new voting restrictions. Democrats, Vice President Kamala Harris told NPR, must respond on multiple levels: "It will be litigation, legislation, it will be activating the people." Harris spoke to...

The U.S. military will be fully out of the country by August 31. The Taliban already control more than half of it. A U.S. intelligence assessment reportedly says the Afghan government could collapse in as little as six months. Some members of the Afghan military feel "abandoned and alone," Commanding General of the Afghan Army Sami Sadat tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly . Additional reporting this ep...

The Biden administration is emphasizing vaccine outreach by 'trusted messengers' — community volunteers, faith leaders, and primary care providers — who are best-positioned to convince people to get vaccinated. NPR's Maria Godoy reports on that kind of outreach in Maryland, one of just a handful of states where at least half of the Latino population is vaccinated . In participating regions, you'll...

'Cancelling' is a term that originated in young and progressive circles, where it was used to mean 'boycott,' University of Pennsylvania linguist Nicole Holliday tells NPR. Now the term 'cancel' has been co-opted and weaponized by some conservative media and politicians. Something similar happened in the 1990s with the term 'politically correct.' John K. Wilson wrote about that time in a book call...