NPR

NPR's first-ever Pulitzer occasioned a round of virtual Champagne corks popping and heartfelt cheers of congratulations across ... well, NPR's corner of cyberspace.

"Congrats to the Pulitzer winners. So deserved!!!!!" wrote Nina Totenberg, who does not dole out exclamation points to just anyone.

A new federal program created by the Biden administration to reverse years of economic discrimination against U.S. farmers of color has ground to a halt.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Wisconsin ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop forgiving loans on the basis of race under a novel effort included in the American Rescue Plan relief package.

For the first time since the pandemic halted face-to-face events, leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States have gathered for three days of talks in a British seaside town to try to address some of the world's most pressing issues.

An East Texas bakery is being inundated with orders, supportive messages and donations after revealing it faced backlash over its colorful cookies celebrating Pride Month.

The owners of Lufkin-based Confections unknowingly set off the chain of bittersweet events last Wednesday, when they posted a Facebook photo advertising their heart-shaped, rainbow-iced cookies and calling for "More LOVE" and "Less hate."

The Justice Department inspector general will review the Trump administration's seizure of metadata from Apple products belonging to at least two Democratic lawmakers, their staff and family members.

In 2018, the Trump Justice Department took the highly unusual step of subpoenaing Apple to obtain the metadata of members of the House Intelligence Committee as well as their current and former staff, and even family, including a minor, according to a committee official.

Rural communities outside America's cities are falling further behind in the race to vaccinate against COVID-19 as President Joe Biden's Fourth of July goal to reach 70% of American adults looms over the horizon.

Democrats who hoped that narrow control in Washington, D.C., would lead to a rush of votes to approve new progressive policies are facing a major roadblock — moderates in their own party.

Moderate Senate Democrats from Republican-leaning states and swing states are flexing the power that comes along with a 50-50 Senate, where every vote has the potential to make or break a bill.

A bipartisan group of 10 U.S. senators says they agree on a "framework" for a deal on an infrastructure package, but the members did not release any details and top leaders from both parties have been mostly silent on the development.

According to two sources familiar with the negotiations, the agreement is focused on "core, physical infrastructure." The proposal would cost $1.2 trillion over eight years and include $579 billion in new spending.

An annular solar eclipse occurred Thursday morning. Some viewers across the globe saw the moon pass directly in front of the sun, creating a "ring of fire" effect in the morning sky.

Observers living in other areas would have only seen a partial solar eclipse, which makes the sun look like a glowing orange crescent.

Mehran Mossaddad has spent much of the pandemic scared and lying awake at night. He's a single dad with an 10-year-old daughter living outside Atlanta.

"I get panic attacks not knowing what's in store for us," he says. "I have to take care of her."

Mossaddad drives Uber for a living, but when the pandemic hit, he stopped because he couldn't leave his daughter home alone. As a result, he has fallen more than $15,000 behind on his rent, and his landlord has filed an eviction case against him.

It's hard to make an intellectual argument in favor of the Electoral College. Most people feel that the person who gets the most votes should become president.

After all, that's how we run every other election in this country, says Jesse Wegman, the author of Let the People Pick the President.

Republicans from a growing number of states are traveling to Maricopa County in Arizona to witness a controversial election review ordered by GOP leaders in the state Senate, a sign that similar probes may be sought elsewhere across the country.

The Arizona review has the full-throated support of former President Donald Trump, who continues to make baseless claims about a stolen 2020 election.

The company behind the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline said Wednesday it's officially terminating the project. TC Energy already had suspended construction in January when President Biden revoked a key cross-border presidential permit.

KABUL, Afghanistan – Armed men opened fire late Tuesday on dozens of deminers who worked for a British charity, killing 10 men and injuring 16 others. The incident occurred in the northern Afghan province of Baghlan, according to the HALO Trust charity and the Afghan interior ministry.

The United States suffered 65,000 ransomware attacks last year – or over seven an hour. And it will likely get worse.

What was previously seen as a nuisance is fast becoming a national security problem as cybercriminals target key parts of the country's infrastructure. A recent attack on Colonial Pipeline sparked panic buying that emptied many gas stations across the Southeast, while another attack on JBS raised fears about the domestic beef supply.

Like a lot of us, Amtrak had a rough 2020. Ridership fell nearly half from the prior year.

But with the worst of the pandemic seemingly in the past, Amtrak doesn't just want to get back to where it was before the recession – chugging along, slowly adding new riders for a few decades. It wants Americans to fall back in love with trains.

Amtrak's planning on adding 39 new routes across the country and boosting service on lines that already exist. It's setting a goal of 20 million more customers each year – a 60% jump from its pre-pandemic high.

The emergence of new and more infectious variants of the coronavirus has raised a troubling question: Will the current crop of COVID-19 vaccine prevent these variants from causing disease?

A study out Wednesday in the journal Nature suggests the answer is yes.

Early risers across the Northern Hemisphere may see what looks like a "ring of fire" in the sky Thursday morning as the moon passes between the Earth and the sun.

On a recent patrol shift along U.S. Highway 550 in northern New Mexico, police officer Jerome Lucero spotted a driver going 30 mph in a 70 mph zone.

"That gave me a red flag," Lucero says. "So, I initiated my lights and sirens, but it took me about a mile to get [the driver's] attention."

When he approached the vehicle, there were more red flags.

"His pupils were restricted. They were so tiny, like a pin dot. And he didn't even know where he was going. He thought he was still in Albuquerque," Lucero says.

In fact, the man was about 40 miles north of the city.

President Biden sets off on his first international trip Wednesday, an ambitious, eight-day journey in Europe capped with what is likely to be a tense sit-down meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Biden's mission: rebuild relations with allies and reassert America's role as a leader on the world stage. But he'll have to convince some of his old friends in Europe who have grown wary after four years of a more insular approach from his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.

Support for same-sex marriage in the U.S. has reached an all-time high of 70%, according to a poll released by Gallup on Tuesday.

The percentage — the highest since the organization began recording the trend in 1996 — marks a 10% increase since 2015, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled all states must recognize same-sex marriages.

President Biden on Tuesday turned down the latest offer on an infrastructure deal from Senate Republicans, moving the debate on one of the president's chief domestic priorities into a new phase.

An international team of scientists is preparing to trap a dozen baleen whales off the coast of Norway and conduct hearing tests on them to gauge their sensitivity to human-made sounds such as sonar.

Researchers have tested the auditory faculties of smaller animals in captivity, but this would be the first time scientists have ever captured live whales in the wild to assess their hearing.

Federal agents will now be required to wear body cameras when executing search warrants or making pre-planned arrests, according to a new policy outlined Monday by the Justice Department's second highest-ranking official.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced the change in a memo acknowledging the importance of "transparency and accountability" in building trust between federal officers and the communities they serve.

Attorneys Michael van der Veen and Bruce Castor defended former President Donald Trump at his Senate impeachment trial over allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.

Sen. Joe Manchin praised a Tuesday morning meeting with civil rights leaders, calling it "constructive" and "informative," but maintained his opposition to a sweeping set of election overhaul measures known as the For the People Act.

A London Metropolitan Police officer has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping Sarah Everard in March in a case that drew global attention and sparked a movement on social media of women sharing stories about the danger of being alone at night.

Police constable Wayne Couzens, 48, also took responsibility for Everard's death but did not enter a formal plea on a murder charge in the 33-year-old marketing executive's killing, according to media reports.

The Biden Justice Department is forging ahead with a controversial legal effort started under former President Donald Trump to intervene on Trump's behalf in a defamation lawsuit brought against him by a writer who says Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.

E. Jean Carroll leveled the accusations against Trump in her memoir published in 2019. Trump denied the allegations and accused Carroll of lying to sell books.

A vendor on Amazon was discovered selling a pack of blank COVID-19 vaccination cards this week. The post has since been removed, but photos reshared online showed a 10-pack of blank cards going for $12.99.

In the U.S., actually getting a COVID-19 vaccine and receiving a legitimate vaccination card is free.

When a filmmaker asked medical historian Naomi Rogers to appear in a new documentary, the Yale professor didn't blink. She had done these "talking head" interviews many times before.

She assumed her comments would end up in a straightforward documentary that addressed some of the most pressing concerns of the pandemic, such as the legacy of racism in medicine and how that plays into current mistrust in some communities of color. The subject of vaccines was also mentioned, but the focus wasn't clear to Rogers.