The Tough Jobs Immigrants Do; Literary Laughs; Can You Recycle That?
Plus, how to make and keep more friends, even (especially?) as an awkward adult
Stories And Podcasts You May Have Missed
Karina Perez for NPR
Earlier this month, ICE rounded up 680 immigrants illegally working at seven chicken processing plants in Mississippi. They were earning $11 to $12 an hour to dismember poultry — dangerous, brutal, repetitive labor. The raids resurrected an old debate: Without illegal immigrants, who would do the tough jobs in America? One restaurant owner’s answer: no one. If every immigrant in the country illegally were deported, she said, “I'd sell everything for whatever we could get for it and we would close.”
“Cow vigilante” attacks — in which devout Hindus violently enforce beef bans — have escalated in India in recent years, with Human Rights Watch reporting 44 deaths and hundreds of injuries. "My brother and I barely survived — and all of India saw what happened to our father," says one Muslim man. A video of Pehlu Khan begging for his life during his fatal beating spread throughout India in 2017; last week, six men arrested in the killing were acquitted. Khan was charged posthumously with cow smuggling, and his sons — badly beaten in the attack — could face five years in prison.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has such a stranglehold of Congress that he’s among the most powerful nonpresidents Washington ever has seen. The self-styled “Grim Reaper” effectively can veto any legislation he chooses, blocked President Obama’s final Supreme Court appointment for a year and has powered scores of President Trump’s preferred judges to confirmation. How did he consolidate so much power?
Denise Guerra’s parents came to the United States from the Philippines in the 1980s, but they weren’t the first generation in her family to make the trip. The NPR reporter tells the story of her grandfather, Lolo Vicente, and the family history she only began to unravel after an offhand comment from her father as they drove together through downtown Los Angeles: "Did you know that my dad killed somebody in that place?"
The CDC is investigating nearly 100 possible cases of severe lung illness across Midwestern states, all with one thing in common: vaping. The patients include previously healthy teenagers, and the illnesses can be severe: Dylan Nelson, a 26-year-old from Wisconsin, was found to have a critically low blood oxygen level and was placed in a medically induced coma.
Andrew Yang is not your typical presidential candidate. The entrepreneur has no political experience, and he can sound pretty dire when he talks about the country’s future. But he tells NPR’s Politics Podcast that he’s ultimately an optimist — because he doesn’t think looming catastrophes are inevitable: “I'll be damned if I just rest while the future I see coming up just overtakes us all.”
Few hit songs have been as bracing, as viscerally shocking, as Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.” Released in 1939, the mournful jazz shone harsh light on white supremacy and lynchings. It also drew unwanted attention from the authorities. Throughline looks at how the song became Billie Holiday’s legacy, and her undoing.
The Big Sort
Meredith Rizzo/NPR
In the U.S., we generate more plastic waste per capita than most other countries, and much of that comes from packaging. Until recently, we thought recycling was the best way to manage all this stuff, but it isn't that simple. What's recyclable in one community could be trash in the next. Find out how you should handle different plastic products and explore the process of plastic recycling, with this interactive feature.
No comments:
Post a Comment