Chronological feed of everything captured from NPR.
President Trump nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz, a retired Rear Admiral, former Coast Guard chief medical officer, and deputy surgeon general from his first term, as CDC director following months of interim leadership. Schwartz, praised by supervisors and public health leaders for her scientific integrity, preventive medicine expertise, and diplomatic skills, requires Senate confirmation and would serve under HHS Secretary RFK Jr. The nomination accompanies three deputy appointments aimed at restoring CDC's "gold standard of science" amid staffing cuts, budget reductions, and internal leadership infighting.
In late-stage dementia where cognitive and verbal abilities are severely impaired, traditional milestone gifts lose utility, but sensory items like coffee ice cream and watermelon reliably produce visible smiles and immediate pleasure. A perfectly fitted, style-matching sweater evoked a "birthday miracle" smile from the patient, confirmed by her nurse as genuine and non-fakeable. Caregivers can foster family bonding and emotional connection through such targeted gifts despite memory loss, prioritizing presence alongside meaningful objects.
Bigfoot lore experiences a renaissance in 2026, manifesting in an off-Broadway musical, half a dozen low-budget horror films, a new emoji, NPR's Sasquatch board game, and dozens of U.S. festivals. Recent alleged sightings in northeast Ohio gained national attention, often occurring in state parks by intentional searchers. Academics link this popularity to rural white communities' cultural pride and distrust of expertise, positioning Bigfoot as a symbol in disinformation climates and culture wars.
Health Secretary RFK Jr. testified before Senate committees amid a week of hearings defending HHS's FY2027 budget and 15-month achievements like drug price negotiations, new Dietary Guidelines, and rural health investments. Democrats aggressively questioned his unilateral vaccine schedule changes, measles outbreak response, promotional videos, TrumpRx pricing flaws, and inaction on Trump's glyphosate executive order, while Republicans praised nutrition and toxin reduction efforts. RFK affirmed measles vaccine efficacy at 97% effectiveness and claimed $200M funding to reduce glyphosate use despite tensions.
The White House Correspondents' Association has selected mentalist Oz Pearlman as headliner for its 2026 dinner, departing from tradition by replacing a comedian with interactive mind-reading acts aimed at fostering unity among politicians and journalists. Pearlman, a former Wall Street worker turned entertainer post-2015 America's Got Talent fame, plans to engage attendees including President Trump, emphasizing psychological techniques, observation, and showmanship over supernatural claims. Mentalism simulates mind-reading via research, suggestion, and trickery, with experts noting its roots in ancient practices and modern adaptations to technology, while performers stress ethical disclaimers to avoid legitimizing scams.
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, facing Medicaid defunding from Trump-era federal cuts, has launched cash-pay aesthetic services like Botox injections, IV hydration, and plans for fillers and GLP-1 drugs to generate revenue. These services help bridge the funding gap for core reproductive health amid clinic closures, with 75-80% of patients previously on Medi-Cal. California state funding provides short-term relief, but long-term viability hinges on federal policy renewal; the model may blueprint adaptations for other affiliates.
US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advocates replicating Italy's San Patrignano—a 700-acre abstinence-based therapeutic community housing 850 adult residents—as a national network of rural "wellness farms" for addiction recovery, emphasizing work, community, and reparenting without medications like methadone or buprenorphine. The model rejects evidence-based pharmacotherapy, drawing criticism from US experts who cite high relapse risks, overdose dangers from lost opioid tolerance, and the program's history of scandals including wrongful detentions and a covered-up murder. San Patrignano leaders deem large-scale US adaptation impossible due to past expansion failures, while Kennedy inaccurately portrays the program as serving 2,000 children.
Harvard and Beth Israel researchers tested an OpenAI reasoning model on real ER electronic health records, finding it outperformed experienced internal medicine physicians in diagnosis accuracy at triage, during care, and upon admission. The model also surpassed GPT-4 and excelled on NEJM case benchmarks using only text data. While highlighting rapid AI advances in handling clinical uncertainty, experts stress needs for workflow integration trials beyond ER settings.
NPR received $113 million in philanthropic gifts, led by $80 million from Connie Ballmer and $33 million from an anonymous donor, to fund digital tools, technology, and services for the NPR Network. This investment addresses the permanent loss of over $1 billion in federal funding following Congressional defunding, despite a court victory against a Trump Executive Order. The capital aims to enhance sustainability, audience service, and public media's adaptation to digital ecosystems without replacing government support.
News organizations must balance public information needs with risks of glorifying perpetrators of mass violence, as research links detailed focus on attackers to copycat incidents. NPR applied standards by often avoiding the suspect's name, paraphrasing rather than quoting his writings, and contextualizing claims via expert analysis in audio reports on the averted White House Correspondents' dinner attack. Text stories permit more details due to lower emotional impact, positioning NPR as a model amid competitive pressures.
Many essential public goods, such as Freedom of the Seas, GPS, and the Large Hadron Collider, significantly contribute to global prosperity, accuracy, and knowledge. These important contributions are often overlooked or undervalued. This piece encourages a greater appreciation for these foundational elements of our shared infrastructure.
The current job market is characterized by minimal hiring and firing, creating a tough environment for recent college graduates. This "low hire, low fire" dynamic means employers are neither readily expanding their workforce nor significantly reducing it. The report examines how graduating seniors are navigating these difficult conditions, focusing on the experiences of those at Howard University.
Facing volatile input costs, food manufacturers may employ 'skimpflation,' a strategy of degrading product quality to maintain margins without raising prices or reducing volume. A current instance involves The Hershey Company utilizing sub-standard ingredient substitutes in Reese's candies that fail legal definitions for milk chocolate and peanut butter, triggering a public backlash from the brand's ancestral heir.
This content features an interview with two regional Federal Reserve presidents, Austan Goolsbee and Beth Hammack, who provide their perspectives on the current economic climate. The discussion aims to assess the economy's health, using a color-coded analogy (red, orange, yellow, or green) to signify different levels of economic performance. The core insight is a high-level overview of expert opinions on the national economic situation.
Aza Raskin, the inventor of infinite scroll, is now advocating for changes to platforms that utilize his creation. His current stance is a direct response to concerns about the addictive nature of such interfaces, particularly in light of legal challenges faced by companies like Meta regarding their apps and their impact on children.
Bill Phillips, a self-taught economist, created a hydraulic model of the British economy in 1949, demonstrating complex macroeconomic principles through the flow of water. This innovative, analog computer challenged prevailing economic thought at the London School of Economics and led to his professorship. His subsequent empirical work on the inverse relationship between unemployment and wage inflation, initially visualized through data from the UK, became known as the Phillips Curve, fundamentally influencing central bank policy for decades.
The article highlights the historical and ongoing misuse of the term "terrorist" by state actors to justify violence and surveillance against various groups. This tactic, exemplified by the Trump administration's broad application of the label, is a continuation of practices dating back to colonial times. The expanding definition of "terrorist" often leads to increased state aggression and control.
Private equity (PE) firms are typically associated with job cuts and societal costs, despite potential productivity boosts. This content highlights a PE executive who is experimenting with a different model: giving workers equity in their companies. This 15-year experiment aims to determine if employee ownership can mitigate the negative impacts of traditional PE and foster more equitable outcomes within the industry.
Across the country, gasoline prices have surpassed $4 per gallon, with California experiencing prices near $6. This surge is prompting drivers to modify their behavior, raising questions about the annual financial impact on American consumers. The article explores how individuals are adjusting to these increased costs.
The rapid proliferation of AI data centers has coincided with a 267% increase in wholesale electricity prices in proximity to these facilities over the last five years. This surge has led to public opposition against new data center developments. However, experts propose that blaming data centers alone oversimplifies a more complex issue, suggesting that underlying vulnerabilities within the aging U.S. electrical grid are significant contributors to rising energy costs. The core debate revolves around accurately assigning responsibility for these price hikes and assessing the grid's capacity to support future growth driven by intensive energy consumers like AI data centers.