-
Oakland, Calif., has named its first Poet Laureate. Dr. Ayodele Nzinga — also known as WordSlanger — will serve a two-year term aimed at making poetry more accessible to Oaklanders.
-
Scott Simon recounts some of the lives lost to gun violence in the past weeks, in and out of the spotlight.
-
In the year since the pandemic caused most prisons to shut their gates to visitors, people have not been able to see their incarcerated friends and family. So, some turned to letter writing.
-
The new movie Cherry follows an Iraq war vet who gets addicted to heroin and starts robbing banks. It's based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Nico Walker, who was just released from prison.
-
NPR's Scott Simon asks journalist Jennifer Chen about the surge in violence against Asian-Americans.
-
Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning spy novel The Sympathizertold the story of a communist double agent just after the Vietnam War — his quest for revolution resumes in The Committed.
-
A company is making changes to stop the spread of the coronavirus in its poultry processing facilities. Close working conditions have contributed to the spread of the virus in such facilities.
-
Araceli Gonzalez-Burkle was hit hard by the pandemic. She lost her job and was hospitalized with COVID-19. She's had to rely on food banks, public assistance, and her mother while she recovers.
-
NPR's Scott Simon asks FDA adviser Dr. Paul Offit about Johnson & Johnson's vaccine and other developments in the pandemic.
-
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who died Feb. 22 at age 101, wrote a string of verses called "What is Poetry." We remember him by excerpting some lines.
-
NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Larry Wilmore about his new Netflix docu-series, Amend: The Fight for America," about the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
-
NPR's Scott Simon asks Pete Pattisson of The Guardianabout his reporting on migrant worker deaths in Qatar, including those who died while constructing venues for FIFA's 2022 World Cup.