In the fall of 2008, Omega Young got a letter prompting her to recertify for Medicaid. But she was unable to make the appointment because she was suffering from ovarian cancer. She called her local Indiana office to say she was in the hospital. Her benefits were cut off anyway. The reason: "failure to cooperate."
Long before he was the leader of rock octet Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Nathaniel Rateliff was a kid in rural Missouri sneaking around listening to rock and roll. Rateliff remembers finding a Led Zeppelin tape out in a country barn and secretly listening to it over and over in his headphones.
When humorist and writer Mara Altman was 19 and attending college at UCLA, she learned something about herself which, she says, felt devastating at the time. It happened while she was flirting with a server at a Mexican restaurant one evening. His name was Gustavo and he said five simple words: "I like your blonde mustache."
Lucy Dacus' playful 2016 debut, No Burden, positioned the Richmond, Va. artist as one of indie rock's most promising faces. For her second go around, Dacus wanted to go deeper. Her new album, Historian, is in large part about family. Dacus has spoken openly about being adopted, and told the story of meeting her biological family when they showed up at the singer's first-ever L.A. show.
In 2008, NPR gathered more than a dozen voters in a York, Pa., hotel. They had dinner and got to know one another, and over the course of several meetings that fall they spent hours sharing their views on an often uncomfortable subject: race. The York Project culminated when the voters gathered after Barack Obama's victory.
Earl Johnson II didn't grow up dreaming about becoming a famous singer: For a long time, he didn't even know he could sing. He discovered his talent almost by accident one night, at the recording studio he was working in as a producer. Now, Johnson performs under the stage name Earl St.
Ellen Stofan saw her first rocket launch when she was 4 years old. Now, more than 50 years later, she's director of the National Air and Space Museum — the first woman to hold the position. Stofan, a former chief scientist at NASA, comes to the position with more than 25 years of field experience.
Florida is one of the most racially diverse battleground states, and the political geography of the Sunshine State — pockets of blue dotted along a long central strip of red — means its 29 electoral votes are a hard-fought prize. Immigration is the leading issue for many Hispanic voters in Florida in 2016, after Donald Trump made building a wall on the Southern border a central issue of his campaign.
When Democrats held a majority of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi was the House speaker, she helped pass the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Now, after more than six years in the minority party, she is watching House Republicans move to repeal and replace parts of the law.
Since his first album in 1992, Common — then known as Common Sense — has championed hip-hop as a vehicle for social commentary. His latest album, Black America Again, continues that legacy and explores the joys and tragedies of black life in the United States. On the album's title track, "Black America Again," Stevie Wonder sings the refrain, "We are rewriting the black American story."
After years of daily bombings, many doctors have fled Syria. David Greene talks to Rami Kalazi, a neurosurgeon who works in the city of Aleppo, about what it's like being a doctor in a war zone.
Mary Louise Kelly talks to Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager for President Obama's 2012 re-election, and Katie Packer who held the same job for the Republicans and Mitt Romney.
Congressional hearings have been looking into the lead-tainted water in Flint, Mich. Mary Louise Kelly talks to former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley.
Renee Montagne talks to Gina McCarthy, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, about the federal government's role in the water crisis in Flint, Mich.
Retired Army Lt. Michael Flynn has been an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, offering some credibility to the foreign policy newcomer. But on a key priority of the GOP presidential nominee — banning travel to the United States from areas affected by terrorism — Flynn acknowledged some of Trump's ideas are "not workable."
Charles Bradley cultivated his booming voice for years as a James Brown impersonator. It wasn't until he was 62 years old that he found mainstream success, singing his own music. Now, he's out with his third album, called Changes.
