Consider This from NPR

Normally, foreign policy summits between world leaders involve painstaking planning and organization days and weeks in advance. The hectic and last minute nature of the meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska provided a window into how so much of what’s happening to try and end a brutal war in Ukraine, is being made up on the fly. NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, who...

The people of Northern Gaza are starving. That’s according to an official declaration by a United Nations-backed group of experts, who comprise the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification or IPC. They say that famine has officially reached Gaza city and could soon reach other areas of the territory. Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has says there is no famine in Gaza, and tha...

In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, leaving more than 1300 people dead and becoming the most expensive hurricane in history with overall economic losses estimated at $125 billion.  It was also a harbinger of what would happen to hurricanes in the years to follow, as climate change would make them an increasingly powerful and a regular threat. NPR Alejandra Borunda expla...

President Trump says the administration’s takeover of DC is making life safer. But many of the city’s residents and business owners are questioning the administration’s moves?  So what exactly is the goal of the federal takeover in DC? For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.org . This episode was p...

Anna Corrigan grew up in Dublin, Ireland. She thought she was an only child, until she was in her 50s and discovered a family secret. Corrigan found documents showing her mother had spent time in one of Ireland’s so-called mother and baby homes — places where single women went to give birth. And that she had given birth to two sons there. Two brothers that Corrigan never knew she had. It's part of...

In the last few days, President Trump has met separately with the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, in an attempt to break the deadlock and end the war.  Today’s meeting at the White House between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seemed to go much better than last time, when Zelenskyy left early after a heated argument in the Oval Office. In fact, Zelenskyy hailed today’s meeting...

President Trump turned to the Heritage Foundation help pick his appointee to lead a traditionally non-partisan agency. NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with political science professor E.J. Fagan, author of “The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics” to understand why Trump’s close relationship with the conservative think tank matters. For sponsor-free episo...

Paris has increasingly found itself on the frontline of the climate crisis and covering the city and the rest of France now means regularly reporting on deadly climate events. NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with Eleanor Beardsley about how climate has become core to the Paris beat. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for C onsider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org .  Email us...

This summer, the island of Puerto Rico has been under the thrall of Bad Bunny. His 30-concert residency at a stadium in San Juan is a homecoming for the global superstar. It's also a homecoming for many thousands of people who left home – but are flocking back for the shows. NPR’s Adrian Florido reports on how the concerts are resonating with Puerto Ricans on and off the island. For sponsor-free e...

American Presidents have been trying to manage Russian President Vladimir Putin since the beginning of this century. There was George W. Bush, who met with Putin 28 times. Barack Obama and Putin sat down together 9 times. Joe Biden met with Putin only once. Past presidents had hoped to strike deals and push Russia toward a more democratic society. Instead, Russia started wars and tried to expand i...

”The global trading system as we have known it is dead.” Those are the words of former US Trade Representative Michael Froman. He’s now President of the Council on Foreign Relations. If the era of global free trade is over, the question is…what comes next?   For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org . Email us at considerthis@npr.o...

Two minutes — that’s how long President Trump says it will take him to figure out whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious about finding a way to end his war with Ukraine. Details are still scarce — but Putin and Trump are set to meet Friday in Alaska. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t invited. What does Trump hope to achieve, and can he get it from Putin?  Ambassador John...

President Trump said he’s taking over Washington and announced he’s deploying the National Guard to the city. And he made another big promise: that his administration would take control of the D.C. police. The president also mentioned other cities across the country with what he says are high levels of crime. As President Trump pledges to use his executive authority to control law enforcement in t...

The Trump administration announced this past week that it has entered talks with the Cook Islands to research and develop seabed mineral resources. The Polynesian archipelago is one of only a handful of countries worldwide that has begun permitting this type of exploration, called deep-sea mining. Deep-sea mining is not regulated. There's no blueprint for how to do it safely, or responsibly. Which...

The question of whether Russian interference in the 2016 election was a decisive reason Donald Trump won the presidency is one that has dogged Trump for the better part of a decade. It's also been the subject of numerous investigations. But even though that question has been asked and answered, the current Trump administration is launching another investigation in an effort to reach a different co...

The FBI is investigating at least 250 people who may be tied to online networks that target children. These networks encourage kids to hurt themselves, other minors or even animals. In some countries, they have been tied to mass casualty and terrorism plots. NPR's domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef has spoken with a family that experienced this firsthand. For sponsor-free episodes of C...

In 2006, Ari Shapiro reported on how Hurricane Katrina made an already broken public defender system in New Orleans worse. The court system collapsed in the aftermath of the storm. Katrina caused horrific destruction in New Orleans. It threw incarcerated people into a sort of purgatory - some were lost in prisons for more than a year. But the storm also cleared the way for changes that the city's...

Fights over Congressional maps never used to be this intense. On Tuesday, Texas Republicans voted to issue civil arrest warrants for Democrats who fled the state. The GOP is trying to redraw house districts, and the proposed new map could give Republicans as many as five more House seats. That change could easily decide control of Congress. This fight is rippling out to other states too with Presi...

Google's AI Overviews feature can deliver an answer to your question before you click a single link. But it spells bad news for the publishers that write the articles that power these AI summaries: their business models depend on site visits to sell ads. And some smaller publishers have already gone out of business as the use of AI summaries grows. "The extinction-level event is already here," sai...

Some young people are hesitant to start a family because they are worried about the impact it will have on the environment. But some experts argue, there are good reasons to still consider having children. One of them is Dean Spears. He's an economist and demographer at the University of Texas - Austin, and co-author of the new book, "After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People....

The job of a media reporter is to examine the role the press plays in our democracy, and the choices the large corporations operating newsrooms are making every day. It's a tough assignment, even more so when it means covering the place you work. For this week's reporter's notebook series, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik talks about how he navigates his beat, reporting on his employer and...

Thursday night, President Trump announced new tariff rates, and a new deadline. For weeks, the administration said that new, tougher tariffs would go into effect August 1 — instead, most countries won't see the new rates kick in for at least a week. Meanwhile, new numbers from the Labor Department show job growth slowed sharply this spring, as President Trump's earlier, worldwide tariffs started t...

"In an era where false claims are the norm, it's much easier to ignore the fact-checkers." Those are the final words of the final column of Glenn Kessler, who has been The Fact Checker at the Washington Post these last 14 years. Kessler is one of many journalists making high-profile exits from the Post, some of whom cite the new direction the paper's leadership is taking as the reason they're leav...

This year, hundreds of employees at the Justice Department have been fired, sometimes over clashes with the Trump administration, and other times for unknown reasons. Those departures are spreading fear across the workforce and transforming the Justice Department. NPR Justice correspondent Carrie Johnson spoke with a few of the career civil servants who have lost their job for reasons they say are...

President Donald Trump is aiming to fundamentally shift how the country manages homelessness with a new executive order he signed last week. It calls for changes that would make it easier for states and cities to move people living on the street into treatment for mental illness or addiction, and in some cases, potentially force people into treatment. Consider This: The Trump administration says t...